Stolen Heir - Sophie Lark Page 0,30

they worried about me?”

He smiles without a hint of happiness. It’s a smile of pure malice.

“They’re losing their fucking minds,” he says.

I can only imagine.

They would have noticed the very first night I failed to come home. I’m sure they tried to call my phone hundreds of times. They would have called my friends, too. Sent their men to visit Loyola and Lake City Ballet, trying to trace my steps. They probably hunted the streets for my Jeep. I wonder if they found it by the side of the road?

Did they call the police, too? We never call the police if we can help it. We make nice with the commissioner at parties, but we don’t involve cops in our business, any more than Mikolaj himself would do.

This is the only time I’ve seen him smile—thinking how terrified and anxious my family must be. It makes me want to run over and scratch his ice-chip eyes out of his head.

I can’t believe I let him dance with me. I feel my skin burning with disgust, every place that he touched me.

Still, I can’t keep myself from begging.

“Could you at least tell them I’m safe?” I ask him. “Please.”

I’m begging him with my eyes, my face, even my hands clasped in front of me.

If he has any soul, any at all, he’ll see the pain in my face.

But he has nothing inside of him.

He just laughs, shaking his head.

“Not a chance,” he says. “That would spoil all the fun.”

11

Miko

For five days I watch the Griffins tear the city apart, looking for Nessa. My men report back to me how the Griffins threaten, bribe, and search, without finding a shred of evidence.

Only five people know where Nessa is hidden: Jonas, Andrei, Marcel, Klara, and myself. Out of my dozens of soldiers, only the most trusted have any idea what I’m up to. I’ve warned each of them that if they whisper a word of it, even hint it to a single friend or lover, I’ll put a bullet in the back of their skull.

I’m thrilled to see that the Gallos are equally frantic to find Nessa. Dante, Nero, and Sebastian Gallo are all hunting for her, and Aida Gallo most of all. It’s almost touching, how two families who were mortal enemies just months ago are now united in their desperation to find the youngest of their number.

Or it would be touching, if their alliance wasn’t the exact thing I’m determined to crack.

I drink it all in. I love that they have no idea if she’s alive or dead, or where she might have disappeared. Not knowing is the torture. Death can be accepted. But this . . . it will gnaw at them. Drive them into chaos.

Meanwhile, Nessa Griffin goes mad with boredom. I watch her via the cameras in her room. I see her pacing her cage like an animal in a zoo.

The starvation is a problem. She was already skinny to begin with—she doesn’t have the fat stores to withstand weeks of hunger. I can’t allow her to fuck up my plans with her petulant protests.

So I order Klara to get Nessa dressed for dinner. I intend to tempt her with food, and if that fails, to forcibly stuff it down her throat.

I wanted to see her in person again anyway. As a figure on my phone screen, she amuses me, but that can’t compare to the exquisite bouquet of fear and fury that she can provide in the flesh.

When Jonas drags her into the formal dining room, I see that Klara has done her job a little too well. I’ve only seen Nessa in dance attire or school clothes, hair pulled back and face freshly scrubbed. When dressed to impress, Nessa Griffin is fucking stunning.

A few days without food have made her willowier than ever. The green silk dress clings to her frame, showing her every breath, down to the sudden intake of air when she spots me waiting for her.

Her light-brown hair floats down around her shoulders in waves, longer and thicker than I expected it to be. It reflects the light just like the silk dress, just like her glowing skin and her big green eyes. Every bit of her is luminescent.

But incredibly fragile. The thinness of her neck, her arms and fingers, is frightening. I could snap those bird-like bones without even trying. I can see her collarbones, and her shoulder blades when she turns. The only part of her with curves is those big,