last place she could be. The kitchen.
He entered the room and smelled apple pie. Teodora and her daughter were the only two there.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
They hadn’t heard his footsteps, and both started and spun to face him. “Oh! Mr. Fane! Welco—”
“Where is she?” he rudely cut into the older woman’s greeting.
The two looked at each other. “Yasmeen?” Iulia asked.
His groin stirred. “Yes. Where is Yasmeen?”
“She retired upstairs earlier and has not come down since.”
“I just came from our room. She was not there. Nor was she anywhere else I looked.” His chest started burn. “When did you last see her?”
They looked at the clock. “Two hours ago,” Teodora stated. “The six-thirty delivery came shortly after she left us.”
She left us…she left us…she left us…
The words echoed, bouncing off the walls faster and faster, beating on Lucian as they whizzed by. He walked out and went straight to his office. As he approached and saw a crack of light coming from the door, which had been left ajar, he had no more reason to check the security footage. She had indeed left. The Times was upside down on his desk. Her passport gone from where he’d tucked it into the pages.
He lifted his head and settled his gaze on a painting of the back gardens blooming with summer flowers, and pictured every horrific thing that could have already happened to her. An accident, attacked by one or a group of men, raped, mutilated, murdered. He was burning alive by the time he texted Sorin, who walked into the room within minutes.
“You’re working now?” he asked, frowning.
“You will shut down every possible method of transportation she could take to leave this country. Have her flagged as a terrorist if you have to. I do not care.” He straightened the newspaper and noted his hand was shaking. “Go get her and return her to me. Right now, Sorin.”
“She left? How the fuck?”
“In the delivery truck. Two hours ago. Go get her.”
“You are not coming.”
“No. It would be dangerous for her if I were to see her right now.”
“Lucian.” Disapproval weighed down his name.
“Go.”
Sorin didn’t go. “Now that the one who deserves your contempt and rage is in your possession, do you not think it is time we spoke openly about what you are doing with the one who does not but is suffering under the weight of it anyway?”
He lifted his eyes. “You do not want to broach this subject with me right now, Sorin.”
“Yes, I do. Allow her to leave.”
His jaws snapped together, and to prevent doing or saying something he knew he would regret, he turned his head to look into the unlit fireplace.
“From the time we left New York, I have been watching you. Waiting to see that darkness lift so I can welcome my friend. Why are you holding so tight to something you should never have embraced to begin with? You have him. He is in your possession. You can make him pay for what he took from us. You do not need to use her as a distraction anymore.”
How could Sorin not know how wrong he was? He did need her. She was his. She was tagged, marked. He’d marked her body inside and out. His collar around her neck, his seed deep in her welcoming pussy.
“This person you are becoming; let him go now.”
But Lucian couldn’t. Because this person was safe. Nothing could hurt him when he was like this. Nothing could reach him and make him feel the kind of pain he’d felt when Dr. Singh had pulled that blanket back and his baby brother’s face had been revealed.
“You are not going to listen to me, are you?”
“No.”
“Fine. I will get her and return her to you, but first, I will tell you what I think.”
“Don’t.”
“You are damaging that beautiful, vibrant girl. You are attempting to turn her into a fucking puppet who will soon bore you to tears. You are doing your damnedest to break her, and you cannot even see how incredible it is that she is not letting you. Her show of strength would be such an impressive thing to you of all people, if only you would allow yourself to see it. The first night you brought her home two years ago, she stood in front of the window by the baby grand, and she lit up the room. Do you remember that? I know you do because the look on your face was one I had never seen