The Boss (Chateau #3) - Penelope Sky Page 0,85

waited. But her tears came with me, a cacophony inside my mind, a sound that would haunt me forever.

I made the trip in record time.

I pushed the car through the damp streets, rode my horse through the snow, and arrived at the camp close to noon.

My reins were tossed to a guard, and I landed in the snow, my eyes scanning the area for signs of activity. The camp was as quiet as ever, the girls in the clearing, like there hadn’t been an escape overnight.

I marched deeper into the camp until Magnus caught me.

He pushed his hood back and regarded me since the girls couldn’t see him. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d taken that pipe pretty hard to his head, but other than that, he looked fine.

“Where is she?”

Magnus squinted his eyes as the sun shone on his face. “Haven’t found her.”

Heavy heartbeats passed, thudding in my chest like hooves from a horse. “How is that possible?”

“Hounds followed her tracks close to the river then lost the scent. The storm hid her horse tracks—”

“She’s on horseback?” My voice rose, spit flew from my mouth, my vocal cords nearly popped in half. “How the fuck did she get into the stables?”

“I don’t know. The bolt was cut—”

“Cut?” I asked incredulously. “What the fuck did she cut it with?”

“I don’t know.” He continued to give the same meaningless answer, his eyes staying on mine even though the sun made them water.

“You don’t know?” I stepped closer to him, forcing him to step back. “I’m sick of that answer, Magnus. You’re supposed to be in charge while I’m away, but the second I leave, all hell breaks loose.” Bartholomew’s voice came back to me, telling me to cut my brother out and replace him with someone far more suitable…or kill him. I pushed the thought away as quickly as it entered my mind.

His arms hung up by sides, bloodstains on the fabric from the wound at the back of his head. “We’ll find her. The men and hounds are still looking—”

“If they can’t track her, that means she crossed the river.”

Magnus gave a subtle reaction, a quick blink. “She and the horse won’t survive if that’s true.”

“Unless she crossed at the perfect spot.” My eyes drilled into his face, looking for a trace of a lie. I refused to believe that Magnus would betray me for a woman, let alone a woman who looked like a hag compared to Melanie, but now I wasn’t so sure. It was the second time she’d escaped, this time with a horse, and now she couldn’t be tracked. “Magnus.”

He held my gaze, confident in his stare, like he had nothing to hide. “No.”

His loyalty to me was far greater than the obsession he had for this woman, so I accepted it without a second thought. “She would never know where to cross in the dark, so if she crossed in any other way, she was swept downriver. The men will continue the search for three days. If she doesn’t pop up, we’ll assume her body is irretrievable. Whether she’s dead out there or dead in here, makes no fucking difference to me.”

The hunt continued past three days.

Moved into four.

I wanted to hang her body on the noose so the girls could see it.

Could see what happened if they ran, if they disobeyed, if they did anything other than process that coke.

But it never happened.

She couldn’t be found.

I sat in my cabin in front of the fire, drowning my anger in scotch. The executioner made an announcement to the girls, that she’d frozen to death and her body was stuck under a waterfall where we couldn’t reach.

That should be enough to scare them from making the same attempt.

The door opened, and Magnus stepped inside, pushing his hood back, his eyes less bloodshot now that the concussion had passed. He moved to the other chair beside me and stared at the fire.

I drank my scotch like he wasn’t there.

“I’ll leave in the morning.”

My eyes remained on the flames, thinking of Melanie at home in her bedroom, knowing that her sister was dead. Her sister’s death had been cleaner out in the wild rather than from the noose, but she was gone all the same. Good fucking riddance. “I’ll return to Paris in five days.”

Magnus gave a slight nod before he grabbed the bottle and poured himself a glass. One of us was usually at the camp at any given time, but sometimes there was a day or