Taming London (Warwick Dragons #1) - Milly Taiden Page 0,13

to chisel the column. It had been a fun thing to watch. At least now, they still had this lovely monument of Alfonse. It was comforting for London to pass by his father’s likeness when he came to work.

Well, most days.

On that day, it didn’t feel so great. He could have sworn that the stone eyes of the dragon were quietly assessing him and finding him wanting. Lacking in true Warwick grace and valor. With a suppressed shiver, London made his way to his office in the basement of the museum. He counted himself lucky that he didn’t run into his boss. Technically speaking, London was the boss, but it didn’t do well for the Warwicks and their reboots if they were always made to be the boss. Especially not London, who always gravitated toward the same field of study and the same museum.

With quick fingers, he typed in the password onto his monitor, and his computer came to life with a soft dinging song. He pulled up a search engine and typed in Bethany Russo’s name. He knew it was a silly thing to do. He wasn’t even sure why he had done it.

But oh, was he glad he had.

He wanted to smack himself in the head for all of his ignorance. He should have remembered the name. Bethany Russo was the daughter of Lilly Russo. The human woman had been a great friend and companion to his mother. In fact, she had been something of a protégé as she came up through the ranks of high fashion.

Lilly Russo had been brutally murdered in her New York City home a few years previously. It had been quite a shock for Johanna. She was used to her human friends dying, of course. But it was typically of old age. Not being stabbed over twenty times.

London’s guilt at the words he had chosen to use with Bethany sat like sour grapes in his mouth. He regretted them all the more now. He scrolled through the search results with a growing cold spreading through his belly. The headlines, which so often attacked him, had not been kind to Bethany over the years since her mother’s death. They had been flat out malicious and cruel.

It irked him.

More than he cared to admit.

The trashy tabloids had pictures of Bethany planning her mother’s funeral, leaving the church, kneeling on her mother’s fresh grave. It should have been a private moment of grief and sadness. But instead, it had been used to sell papers. Across the heartbreaking picture were splashed harsh words. Despicable lines like heiress killed beautiful mom in revenge. Then slowly, the headlines were replaced by more lurid things. Daughter of slain model stands beside stepfather: why he killed his wife.

And so it went on.

They had first attacked Bethany, claiming she had killed her mother. Then they had ripped her apart once more when the attention had turned toward her stepfather. That fire hadn’t been abated by the fact that the man had been remarried to another—and much younger—model but three short months after he had been made a widower.

It wasn’t right.

His dragon uncoiled its tail, wagging it to and fro in his mind. Plumes of smoke curled out his wide nostrils. His keen eyes were full of doubt and worry. Something was definitely wrong. All of his instincts were activated. There was a gnawing itch inside of him, begging to look further into this.

The crime, a vicious murder, had not been solved. The case had grown cold.

It shouldn’t have. As London poured over all of the details he could suss out from more reputable journalist sources, he was certain that the investigation had been completely bungled. By accident or by design, that was the question.

London was a student of history, he had spent his long life looking over the sources of history, the ones that came before his birth, to garner sense and meaning from huge events. It had honed his shifter instincts to spot a mystery and a cover-up from a mile away.

And Lilly Russo’s death?

It was definitely a foul thing.

The stench of it was crossing the ocean, all the way to his London office.

Just in time, like he always was, James walked into the office, a large cup of coffee in each hand. The white and green cups were a welcome sight, and he took the drink with an emphatic thanks.

“You look like shit.” James wasn’t one to mince words. He might have only been human, but he had the backbone