Page 9 of Taming Seraphine

“Seraphine,” Leroi says, “Will you keep still while another colleague takes out your chip?”

My breath catches. Another man? I shrink away, not wanting to be trapped in a room with a trio of strangers.

“He won’t hurt you,” Leroi says. “I’ll stay at your side and keep you safe.”

Nodding, I raise my finger to the skin behind my ear and trace over its hard edges. “Alright.”

“I’ll call Dr. Sal and tell him it’s urgent.” Miko walks out of the room, leaving me alone with Leroi.

My head bows under the weight of his gaze. He hasn’t asked about what they made me do, both in and out of the basement. Maybe he doesn’t know. Either way, I’ll stay quiet until it’s time to escape and find Gabriel.

And if they try anything, I’ll slit their throats.

THREE

LEROI

Thank fuck I have a qualified doctor on staff. Admittedly, Dr. Sal had his license revoked by the state medical board for malpractice. Now he works in our clean-up crew—there isn’t much call for healers in this line of work.

Removing the chip is more complicated than cutting out a square of plastic. Sal sedates the girl to extricate tendrils of metal from her flesh. Over time, her body must have healed around the foreign object, making it impossible to extract without expert help.

After Sal cleanses the wound and pieces her back together with medical glue, I lift her off the table and move her out of the armory and into my spare bedroom. I lay her atop the mattress and watch her sleep. Her thin chest rises and falls beneath an oversized sweatshirt, making her appear even smaller and younger. More vulnerable.

She can’t be much more than eighteen. It’s hard to tell when she’s so frail.

Shit. Only the sickest of bastards could keep their own daughter in a basement. If I could, I would bring him back to life again just to give him the slow, tortuous death he deserves. Him and everyone else involved in her imprisonment.

I back away from her and press down on the bridge of my nose. My mission was to wipe out everyone connected to Capello, whether through birth or marriage. Not just so that Roman could get out of jail, but to wrestle back control of an empire the sick bastard stole after the death of my cousins’ father.

That mission should include killing Seraphine and her brother, but something in her innocence tugs at the frayed remnants of my conscience.

She’s suffered enough.

Besides, no one but her knows she’s Capello’s daughter, and it’s going to stay that way.

With one shake of my head, I step out of the room.

Miko waits for me in the hallway with his hands clasped. “Are you going to tell me what the deal is with her?”

“You don’t want to know,” I mutter.

Miko is the side-kick and little brother I didn’t know I needed. I stumbled across Miko on a job to kill his asshole stepfather. He was fourteen, bruised and neglected, and had walked in on me while I was strangling the bastard with a garrote.

He’d looked me straight in the eye and nodded, urging me to continue snuffing out the bastard’s life. Afterward, he’d begged me not to leave him alone with his drug addict mother. Anton had retired and left me to run the firm, so I took him with me. From then on, he became my shadow.

He’s a hacker, researcher, and a getaway driver, wrapped up in a nineteen-year-old package.

“What are you going to do with her?” Miko nods toward the girl.

“Keep her safe,” I reply. “At least until Roman’s hold on the Capello empire is secure. After that, he and his brothers won’t give a shit if she exists.”

Miko gives me a slow nod, his gaze assessing. I’m certain he’s thinking about how I took him under my wing all those years ago, but I haven’t even thought as far as what will happen when Seraphine awakes.

I doubt that Seraphine could become my next protégé. She’s too fragile and has seen more darkness than a girl her age should ever have to endure. After she recovers, she can work with Miko to track down her surviving relatives. If they were the ones who sold her into sexual slavery, then I’ll follow her lead on how she wants retribution.

“You did well tonight,” I mutter. “Take tomorrow off.”

Miko gives me a tired smile. “Good night, boss.”

---