Stolen Heir - Sophie Lark Page 0,59

see the monitor still firmly in place around her ankle. It looks scuffed up like she tried to bash it off with a rock. Her leg is scraped, too. Klara’s arm is around her shoulder, and Nessa’s head is down, cheeks streaked with rain and tears.

Nessa must have cried a bathtub of tears since I brought her here.

At first, I didn’t care in the slightest. In fact, I saw those tears as my due. They were the salt that would season my revenge.

But now I feel that most dangerous emotion of all—guilt. The emotion that drains you, that makes you regret even the most necessary actions.

Those girls are growing too close.

And I’m growing too soft.

Nessa is obviously exhausted, half-frozen in her flimsy dancewear. I’m sure Klara will feed her and bathe her and put her to bed.

Meanwhile, I won’t be going to sleep for hours yet. If I’m going to meet with the Russians tomorrow, I need to speak with my men tonight. I want our strategy decided before we throw Kristoff in the mix.

I call them all into the billiards room. It’s one of the largest and most central rooms on the main floor, with plenty of seating, I like to talk and play at the same time. It makes everyone more relaxed, and more honest. And it reminds my men that I can whip their asses at pool any time I please.

We’ve had a hotly-contested tournament since the day we moved into this house. Sometimes Marcel is second in the rankings, sometimes Jonas. I’m always at the top.

Marcel racks the balls while Jonas and I square off for the first game.

Jonas makes a show out of chalking the tip of his cue, sending blue powder drifting down onto the black hairs on his forearm. He hasn’t shaved yet today, so his dark stubble is halfway to a beard.

“You want to put money on the line, boss?” he says.

“Sure,” I say. “I’m feeling lucky today—how about five?”

The standard bet is two hundred dollars a game. I’m starting at five hundred to fuck with Jonas’ head, and to let him know I haven’t forgotten about his little stunt with Nessa in the kitchen. I’ve told him before to stay the fuck away from her. I know how he is with women. He’s constantly hounding the girls at our clubs. The more they turn him down, the more interested he becomes.

Jonas wins the coin toss and breaks first. He makes a nice, clean break, dropping two striped balls into corner pockets. He grins, thinking he’s got the advantage. He hasn’t bothered to look at the placement of the rest of the balls, so he doesn’t see how jammed up his twelve and fourteen are, over by the eight ball.

“So,” I say in Polish, leaning on my cue. “We meet with the Russians tomorrow. They want to discuss our endgame.”

Jonas sinks the nine and the eleven, still confident and grinning.

“Before I haggle over the details, I want to hear ideas. If you’ve got something to say, say it now.”

“Why don’t we kill the girl?” Andrei says. He’s sitting over by the bar, drinking a Heineken. He has a square, blocky head, very little neck, and ginger-tinged hair. He looks surly and malcontent tonight. He hates the Russians and hates that we’re working with them. Understandable, since both his brothers were killed by Bratva—one in prison in Wroclaw, one right here in Chicago.

Andrei takes a long pull of his beer, then sets it down on the bar.

“We got rid of Miller and framed Dante Gallo. We should do the same with the girl. Make it look like Nero killed her, or Enzo. That will blow up the alliance between the Irish and the Italians quicker than anything else we could do.”

He’s not wrong. When I first kidnapped Nessa Griffin, that was my plan. Her disappearance was intended to cause chaos. Her death would split the two families apart.

A wedding was what bound them together in the first place. Death is stronger than marriage.

But now I want to take my pool cue and break it over Andrei’s thick skull just for suggesting it. The idea of him walking up to her room and wrapping those ugly, calloused hands around her throat . . . I won’t allow it. I won’t even consider it. He’s not fucking touching her, and neither is anybody else.

Nessa isn’t a blank-faced pawn, to be shuffled around the board at will. She won’t be sacrificed, either.

She’s worth more than that.

She