Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
So why isn’t she here as planned?
“What’s going on?” Hercules doesn’t lift his voice, but he doesn’t have to since we’re alone in the hallway.
I don’t slow down. “Meg should have been there.”
Just like that, he picks up his pace until he’s shoulder to shoulder with me. “You’re going to check the cameras.”
“Yes.” For all that Hercules is a shining near-innocent when it comes to our brand of fucking, he’s smart enough to connect the dots without my spelling it out for him. I veer around the corner and have to draw myself up before I open the door to the security room. Charging in there isn’t likely to panic them—they work directly under Allecto, after all—but I’ll get answers quicker if they aren’t scrambling to cover their asses. I take a slow breath and push through the door on the exhale.
The thin man behind the row of monitors jumps to his feet. Minh, a Vietnamese man who’s worked for me just shy of five years. “Sir?”
The urge to yell rocks me back on my heels. I have no reason to panic. No reason to fear. I’m overreacting, surely. I manage to keep my tone mild. “Find Meg.”
“Yes, sir.” He drops back into his chair and his fingers fly over the keyboard. The screens in front of him flicker as he cycles through them, almost too fast for me to follow. He frowns. “Uh, give me a second.”
Cold sinks into me. “Is there a problem?”
“I can’t seem to find her.” He doesn’t look from the monitors. “Give me a second to backtrack and figure out where she went.”
“Do that.”
A warm hand presses to the center of my back and Hercules leans against me. Offering silent strength, though his expression is as worried as the feeling curling through my bones. Something is wrong, terribly wrong, and standing here while we wait for bad news sends me hurtling through time and space to a room very different from this one. To my man, Andreas, shaking and pale, spilling forth words that no man wants to hear. My wife. My son. Both lost in a fire.
Meg was sheltered between my and Hercules’s bodies an hour ago. Safe. It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t remain so.
The two minutes it takes Minh to pull Meg’s image up on the screen take on the semblance of a small eternity. Finally, he sits back. “Here she is an hour ago.” The camera shows Meg walking out my office door. She’s a little flushed and has a small smile on her face. Happy. She looks happy. She rolls her shoulders and sets off down the hall.
“Follow her.”
Minh clicks a few buttons and the screen changes, showing the lounge. It’s not as full as it is now, and Meg strides to the bar and says something that makes Tis laugh. They share a smile. Everything is fine.
I find myself holding my breath, and Hercules keeps rubbing small circles against my back as if that will change the feeling of the sword about to slice through my neck. As if I summoned trouble with my thoughts, Tink appears on the screen and hurries up to Meg’s side. Meg dips her head and listens intently to what the other woman is saying. She flinches.
My woman flinches.
Just like that, the joy is gone from her face, from her posture. She turns with a wooden expression I haven’t seen since that first few months when she lived under my roof. The memory steals my breath. The implication of what it means seeing it now? “No.”
The cameras follow her as she walks out of the lounge and takes the elevators all the way down to the ground floor. There’s a black car idling at the curb.
“Do you have sound for this?”
“Yeah.” A push of a button and we can hear soft traffic noises.
The door opens and a man’s voice says, “You came.”
“Let her go.” Meg doesn’t sound terrified, but I know my woman. It’s there in the line of her shoulders and the hardness of her voice. She’s holding onto anger to shield herself from fear.
“Of course. A deal’s a deal. You know all about that, don’t you?”
Movement within the car and Aurora spills onto the street. She rushes to Meg and wraps her arms around her. Meg smooths back her hair, checking her expression. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry, Meg. So sorry. I didn’t know—”
She presses her fingers to Aurora’s lips. “Go.”
The man speaks again. “Remember, princess. You say a single damn thing to him and your mother pays the price.”
“I remember.” She doesn’t have Meg’s poise. She’s obviously been crying, and though she moves as if she’s not injured, she’s plainly terrified. Instead of coming into the building, Aurora bolts. I don’t need to follow her path to know her destination. The hospital where her mother is on life support.