Page 9 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

“What are y—?” she twisted when he lifted her, grabbing onto his neck as though she expected him to launch her into the puddle of gruel in the middle of the room. “No, no, no!”

“Shh. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Her body shook with another sob, but she remained quiet on their way back upstairs. She eyed him closely when they entered the lift, no doubt wondering where they were going, but the surprise was evident on her face when the doors pinged open to reveal the bedroom corridor.

Walking in the opposite direction, Brax stopped in his tracks when the two of them came into view, a thick folder under his arm. “Stone?” he grumbled uncertainly, his head tilting.

“Tell Linda to send breakfast up to my bedroom. A proper one.”

He left with a curt nod, side-eyeing Kate as he went.

Sighing, Warren entered his bedroom with Kate sniffling in his arms, heading straight into the en-suite he rarely used. He set her onto the marble counter in the bathroom, turning on the shower and hanging a fluffy midnight blue towel on the hook next to it.

His old instincts nagged at him when he faced a despondent Kate, tears still falling freely down her cheeks, her legs dangling off the counter. The instinct to take her into his arms and protect her from the world returned then, as strong as it had ever been. Warren ground his teeth. Except her problems could no longer be solved with a trip to the park or a visit to the ice cream van.

“You didn’t know.” Warren wiped her tears away, as he’d once done so often. Nostalgia pumped through his veins when he thought of all the times he’d dried her tears in the week he’d taught her how to ride a bike. She flinched back from him, staring at the floor.

It wasn’t a question, but Kate shook her head anyway. “I didn’t know.”

“Shower,” he told her, picking at the shoulder of the ragged shirt she wore. “I’ll get you a fresh pair of clothes. There’s spare toiletries in here.” He opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a wicker basket brimming with products. “Take what you need. All right? You’ll feel better after a shower and some food.”

The slight movement of her head might have been a nod.

He was closing the bathroom door when her small voice called to him. “Warren?”

“Mm?”

“Are you going to kill my father?”

He answered truthfully. “Eventually.”

Kate stared in front of her, unseeing. “Okay.”

Rhys Stone leant on the doorway to Warren’s office, his dark hair artfully falling over his brow. “I’m assuming your original plan of keeping Charlton locked in the cellar for the rest of his life and throwing Kate in prison for the rest of hers has gone out of the window somewhat.”

“Somewhat.” Warren leant back in his chair. He’d let Kate go back to sleep after her breakfast, curled up under the covers, her chestnut hair streaming across the pillow. It had been more difficult than he’d expected—to drag his body away from hers.

Rhys lifted his chin. “Has she pleaded for mercy for her father?”

“Not at all.”

“Ah, a woman after my own heart,” Rhys wiggled an eyebrow suggestively, approaching the computer monitor to get a closer look. “Now I know she’s not running a human trafficking ring, I wouldn’t mind trying my luck.”

Warren pinned him against the wall in an instant. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he snarled.

A sly smile crept onto Rhys’s face. “A joke, my friend.” He raised his hands, displaying the jagged scar across his palm—one that he’d received back when the two of them were cellmates in prison.

“Fuck you, and fuck your jokes.” Warren collapsed back into the office chair, swivelling around to face the computer monitor in front of him. It felt like an invasion of her privacy, to watch her on the security camera, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Stone?”

Both Warren and Rhys turned to see Brax enter the room, taking up far too much of the doorway. Brax cleared his throat. “I didn’t realise you were busy. Shall I come back later?”

“No need to leave. I’m not here for company business,” Rhys waved a hand, his expression hardening.

Warren nodded, an eye on the monitor. “Have you heard from your contact at the police?”

“I’ve just got off the phone with him. Nothing we haven’t heard before. Graves was a decorated officer whose speciality was in undercover operations,” Brax announced. “According to his records, he received the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery just before you were imprisoned. The following week he resigned from his post.”

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