Page 63 of Breaking Rosalind
I respond with:
Maybe Britt feels neglected because Rosalind wants to spend time with her new boyfriend.
Miranda sends me an animated gif of a laughing skull. I take that as a good sign until she writes:
Can I speak to my sister?
Shit. Why am I working so hard to appease a little kid, when I have everything I want? Her older sister, naked, bound, and under my control. Part of me still thinks I owe her something because I haven’t felt so entertained in forever.
Ignoring my common sense, I carry Rosalind to the bed. After covering her perfect tits with a sheet, I take a picture of her and type out:
Sorry, love. Rosalind can’t talk right now. She’s sleeping.
The dots reappear, and I wait for Miranda’s response, but it doesn’t come. I stare at my screen with a peculiar mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief that Miranda has stopped digging for the truth, and disappointment that she’s accepted such a flimsy excuse.
Next time I see Miranda, I’ll chastise her about being so trusting. She jumped into a stranger’s car without checking my credentials. I could have been a predator, a pervert, or a psychopath. If my intentions toward her had been nefarious, she could have gotten hurt.
I wait a few minutes for her to respond, but when there’s only silence, I climb out of bed, carry Rosalind back to the bench, and secure her to its leather surface with a series of straps.
With each finger encased in metal splints, there’s no way for her to escape.
The door opens, and Benito steps in, his features pinched as though he smells something sour. “You’ve retrieved the assassin.”
I snatch a sheet, cover up her nudity, and snarl, “What do you want?”
“There’s been an incident,” Benito says with a delicate sniff. “Dominic attacked Roman’s special guest.”
My breath catches, and my eyes widen with disbelief. Who would want to hurt the crazy balcony woman? Nobody knows how important she is to our family’s future, except Sofia, our housekeeper, and the three of us brothers. Everyone else thinks she’s just a woman Roman picked up from the club.
“Why?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re about to discover,” he says. “Roman needs you to drag his carcass out of the pool house and into an interrogation room.”
I fold my arms, my gaze sweeping down his three-piece-suit. “Why don’t you do it?”
“Roman wants me to go to Tourgis Academy to pick up Dominic’s daughter.” My jaw drops, and I’m about to protest when he raises a finger. “Before you claim to be the pied piper of taking girls hostage, we need someone capable of sweet-talking the headmistress.”
My lips tighten. “Tell me what you really think, brother.”
“Rolling up at the school gates and demanding Dominic’s daughter will only get you arrested.”
“Alright, then. Why doesn’t Roman drag Dominic to the interrogation room himself?”
“Because he’s busy calming down a hysterical woman who is one psychotic break away from realizing she’s a hostage we intend to kill,” Benito says with a sigh.
My jaw tightens. That’s a lot of talking to disguise the fact that he could have dragged Dominic to the interrogation room instead of walking past it to ask me to do the job.
“The longer he’s left unguarded, the more likely his accomplice will put a bullet through his head to stop him from talking,” Benito adds.
“Fine,” I growl and usher him out of the playroom.
Ten minutes later, I’m entering the French doors of my former sanctuary. Dominic lies unconscious on the pool house’s floor, sullying its stone tiles with blood. His face is a mass of cuts, bruises, and exposed bone, but the rest of his body appears to be untouched.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
I crouch down beside him, studying his battered face with a mix of curiosity and disgust. Roman must have lost his mind defending his special guest because there’s no artistry to Dominic’s wounds.
My ears prick at the sound of feminine crying, mingled with Roman’s hushed words of comfort. I turn to the door that used to lead to my inner sanctum and scowl.