Stolen Heir - Sophie Lark Page 0,52

warehouse full of blow belonging to the Russians, shooting two of their soldiers in the process.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of town, Nero Gallo incinerates my most profitable strip club. Luckily, it was 3:00 a.m., after all my girls had gone home. But it’s still infuriating, watching the footage of Nero setting it all alight.

It’s no more than I expected—less, actually. Those are weak reprisals from two families that usually rule this city with an iron fist. They’re shaken and scattered, just as I hoped. Lacking in purpose and plan.

All this action is almost enough to distract me from the girl living in my house. The one who works on her ballet day and night, the scratchy strains of music from her dusty turntable drifting down the stairs.

I watch her more than I would ever admit. There’s a camera in her studio, the same as every room in the east wing. I can spy on her through my phone any time I like. She’s in my pocket constantly. The compulsion to pull out that phone is omnipresent.

But I want more.

I want to see her in person again.

So, about a week after I successfully frame Dante Gallo, I track her down in the little library in the east wing.

She’s wearing one of the outfits I ordered to Klara to buy for her: a blue floral bodysuit and a chiffon skirt, over cream-colored tights that are cut at the heels and toes so bits of her bare feet show through.

Those feet hang over the arm of an overstuffed leather chair. Nessa has fallen asleep reading. The book is open on her chest—The Doll, by Boleslaw Prus. Well, well . . . Nessa is trying to absorb a little of our culture. Klara probably recommended it.

Nessa has another book pressed between her thigh and the chair. Something old, with a worn leather cover. I’m about to pull it free when she startles awake.

“Oh!” she gasps, stuffing the books out of sight beneath a cushion. “What are you doing in here?”

“It’s my house,” I remind her.

“I know,” she says. “But you never come up here. Or, not much anyway.”

She colors, remembering what happened the last time I came to the east wing.

She doesn’t have to worry. That won’t be happening again.

“You don’t have to hide the books,” I tell her. “You’re allowed to read.”

“Yes,” she says, not quite meeting my eyes. “Right. Well . . . did you need something?”

Many things. None of which Nessa can give me.

“Actually, I came to ask you the same question,” I tell her.

It’s not what I’d planned to say. But I find myself asking it, all the same.

“No!” she says, shaking her head violently. “I don’t need anything else.”

She doesn’t want any more gifts from me.

I hadn’t planned to give her any. But now I almost want to, just to spite her.

“Are you sure?” I press her. “I don’t want you creeping around in my attic trying to scrounge up what you need.”

She bites her lip, embarrassed that I found out about that. That’s right—I know everything that happens in my house. She’d do well to remember it.

She hesitates. There is something she wants. She’s scared to ask me.

“Now that you mention the attic,” she says, “there’s a dress up there . . .”

“What kind of dress?”

“An old one. In a box, with a bunch of other fancy clothes.”

I frown. “What about it?”

She takes a deep breath, twisting her hands together in her lap. “Could I take it? And do whatever I like with it?”

What an odd request. She hasn’t asked me for a single thing since she came, and now she wants some moth-eaten old dress?

“What for?” I ask her.

“I just . . . like it,” she says lamely.

She likes it? She has dozens of dresses in the wardrobe in her room. Designer dresses, new and in exactly her size. Maybe she wants an old gown for her ballet.

“Fine,” I say.

“Really?” her face lights up, mouth open with surprise and happiness.

Kurwa, if that’s all it takes to get her excited, I’d hate to see her reaction to an actual favor. Or maybe I’d love to see it. I don’t even know anymore.

The peace offering seems to relax her. She sits up in the chair and actually leans toward me, instead of cringing away.

“Did you just come in from the garden?” she says.

“Yes,” I admit. “Did you see me out the window, before you fell asleep?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I can smell the katsura on your clothes.”

“The