.”
Kenwood’s face darkens. He doesn’t like me mentioning any of that. It’s obviously a hated memory for him.
“I wasn’t arrested though, was I?” he hisses.
“No,” I say, refusing to drop his gaze. “But you might be soon.”
“Is that what he told you?” Kenwood jeers. “Your father?”
I’m confused. I don’t understand what he’s getting at.
“Yes,” I say. “He thinks you’re the most likely person to want him dead.”
“Why would I?” Kenwood spits. “I’ve kept up my end of the deal.”
“What deal?”
Kenwood laughs, pushing up from the deep sofa. I take a step back, now that he’s standing.
But Kenwood isn’t walking toward me. He goes over to the bar, next to a massive painting of Alexander the Great on horseback, and starts mixing himself a drink.
“Do you want anything?” he asks me.
“No.”
He pours bourbon over ice and swirls it around before taking a drink. Millie skips over to him. He dips his index finger in the liquor, then holds it out to her. She sucks the alcohol off his finger, looking up at him the whole time, then she licks her lips.
Kenwood fixes me with his cool stare again.
“Your father and I made a deal. I gave him the names of three of my suppliers, and a couple of ‘friends’ that I didn’t mind throwing under the bus. In return, the video his little foundation made at one of my parties—which would have been thrown the fuck out in court anyway, by the way—went missing. Saved me a scandal, at the low price of a couple disposable degenerates. In fact,” Kenwood laughs, “getting Phil Bernucci arrested was doing me a favor. That fucker tried to poach the movie rights to The Hangman’s Game, which I owned for the next eight years, and he knew it. Watching him lose his beach house in Malibu to lawyer fees was fucking beautiful.”
I shake my head in disbelief.
“I don’t believe you.”
My father would never destroy evidence of a crime like that. He built the Freedom Foundation to stop trafficking. To stop people like Kenwood.
“I don’t care what you believe, you silly bitch,” Kenwood snaps, throwing the rest of his drink down his throat.
At that moment, a man pushes open the painting of Alexander the Great and steps into the room. It’s one of Kenwood’s guards.
Kenwood sets down his glass, next to a red button set in the smooth wooden surface of the bar. A call button. Kenwood pressed it while he was making his drink.
“Grab her,” Kenwood says carelessly.
I try to turn and run, but the burly security guard is much faster than me, especially when I’m hobbled by a tight dress and high heels. He seizes my arms, pinning them behind my back. I scream when he grabs me, and the guard clamps his huge hand down over my mouth. I keep screaming, squirming and biting at his hand, but he’s much stronger than me.
“Hold still or I’ll break your fuckin’ arm,” he growls, twisting my arm up behind my back. Pain shoots up from my elbow to my shoulder. I stop squirming.
“That’s better,” Kenwood says. Jerking his head at Millie, he says, “Tell the guards to search the rest of the house. Find whoever she came with.”
Millie pouts. “I want to stay and watch.”
“Get going,” Kenwood says coldly.
Turning back around, he looks me up and down.
“Strip her,” he says to the guard.
I don’t know if he simply intends to search me, or something worse. The guard grabs the front of my dress and yanks it down, ripping the shoulder strap. As soon as his hand isn’t covering my mouth anymore, I scream as loud as I can, “DANTE!”
I hear a roar like a bear. Dante comes bursting through the Andy Warhol print on the far wall. He tears the canvas like it’s not even there, barreling through into the room beyond.
Kenwood shrieks with rage, his fingernails digging into his cheeks.
“My Mao!” he cries.
Dante takes one look at me, arms still pinned behind my back, dress torn so that one strap is dangling down, and my left breast is bare. His face darkens with pure, murderous rage.
He charges at the guard. The guy lets go of me, trying to get his fists up, but he might as well be trying to box a grizzly. Dante’s massive fist comes crashing down on his jaw, and then his other fist goes swinging up like a hammer. He hits the guard again and again, driving him back. Each of his blows lands with a horrible thud. When he