Page 85 of Empire of Dark

She stopped in front of me, a grin playing on her lips. She reached up to tighten the crisp lines of my dark jacket. “You look devastating—like you’re about to break a hundred hearts in one night.”

I fingered the lock of hair that fell along her left temple, twirling it in my fingers. “It isn’t anything compared to the smoldering wasteland you’re going to leave in your wake.”

Her smile went wide. “You finally got me into one of your dresses.”

“I would have been forcing them onto your body long before this if I had known this would be the result.”

Her mouth quirked to the side. “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment for how I clean up or a criticism of how I usually look.”

I brushed her hair back, leaning down and setting my lips against the shell of her ear. “You’re a fucking supernova, Ada, and I’ll take you anyway you show up. But my preference is naked.” I leaned into her, pressing my hard cock into her belly to prove the point. “And you’re killing me right now.”

She laughed, leaning away. “We have places to be.”

I stood straight, inhaling a deep breath to steel my spine against my cock that had very different ideas about what I should be doing at the moment. “Yes. Fine.”

My hand on her lower back, I turned to the SUV and opened the door for her. “You will fit in too well. You’re going to draw too much damn attention.”

She shook her head as she got into the vehicle. “I’ll fit in. And I’ll get anywhere I need to.”

The confidence with which she said it made my balls tingle, and the ache pulsating up my shaft almost sent it out of control.

I liked this side of Ada. Liked it too damn much.

I closed her door and moved around the car, telling Albert as I got in that we were ready. I’d already checked in with the ten guards I’d left at the villa to guard Venetia. As wary as I was about my daughter being on the island with us, I had to admit, the way Venetia’s eyes had lit up when I told her where we were going simultaneously crushed and expanded my chest. Her sheer excitement was a present for me that I never knew I needed.

I rolled up the privacy window between us and the front seat, then looked to Ada. “I’m afraid you look too good and you’ll grab Victor Genora’s eye. He likes to be surrounded by beauty because he’s grotesquely scarred—he thinks if he surrounds himself with beauty, it makes him beautiful as well.”

“Except Victor Genora is the last one I want to talk to—you get to deal with him.” She grabbed my leg, squeezing it. “I want the henchmen. I want the ones that know shit and refuse to talk about it. Because I can get them to talk.”

I laughed. “Tell me again why Triaten has never unleashed you onto the world.”

She shrugged, smiling sweetly. “Secret weapon, I guess.”

In the back of the SUV, we rode along the twisty gravel road that led for some distance from the villa we’d borrowed herethat I’d given to one of my sons seventy-five years ago. He was in Athens this time of year, taking care of business for me. The roadway snaked along a cliffside, giving sweeping views of the aquamarine sea at the edge of dusk. This land, this sea, would always be ancient to me, untouched by modernity, like the first time I saw it. Hiked its cliffs and lowlands.

We reached the paved road and Ada opened her window, leaning out to inhale the heat and the salty air mixing with the wild vegetation sweetly baking—an earthy, sensual scent that filled the vehicle. A smile on her face, her green eyes were aglow in the reddish hues of the setting sun as she stared out at the sea. So at peace in that fleeting moment, it almost hurt to look at her knowing what we could possibly be walking into.

Watching her, I had to adjust myself in my pants several times as darkness took over the land and we pulled into town.

The SUV fell to a creep along a dark street—unlit, but with lots of cars and people milling about on it, and Albert pulled the car to a stop a distance away from the front entrance of Glint. There were no lights or signs denoting the club by design. If you knew you should be at the place, you knew where it was.

I scanned the street outside the building and my eyes narrowed.

Shit.

“Hell, he’s already here.”

“Who?” Ada’s look swept the walkway. “Your brother?”

I nodded. This wasn’t good. Who knew what damage he’d already done inside. If I was lucky, Genora hadn’t arrived yet.

I needed a little luck at the moment.

I glanced at Ada.

Hell, maybe I already had the luck part all wrapped up.

I pointed to two of Eustice’s brutes that were standing along the outer corner of the building, smoking, the embers from the ends of their cigarettes sending eerie glows about their faces.“There. The two smoking at the corner of the alleyway. Just two of his henchmen.”

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