Page 58 of Bloody Kingdom

I scoot closer to him until our chests are touching. The tension in his body caused by having to relive the worst days of his life is obvious, but as I run my hand soothingly up his arm and kiss the corner of his mouth, his body relaxes. “Thank you for telling me,” I whisper close to his lips. “I know that wasn’t easy for you, but it helps me understand you better.”

“Does my past make you see me differently? Do you still believe I’m a good man?”

“If you were a bad man, you wouldn’t have killed the woman you loved to save the lives of others, Silas,” I assure him. “You haven’t scared me away just yet.”

“I may not scare you, but you scare me, Quincey.” His admission has me shocked in place. “I have no idea what I’m doing with you.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I promise him, swiping my thumb back and forth over his cheekbone. “I know this is a hard thing to believe, but you don’t actually have to have all the answers all the time. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and leap into the unknown.”

He ghosts his lips across mine before whispering words that will play on repeat for the rest of my days. “Leap with me, Quincey.”

“I’ve already leaped and now I’m falling.”Falling so fucking hard. “Are you going to catch me?”

“Always.”

I’ve lived almost four hundred years without her, but two days apart from her feels like an eternity. I loaded her into a car two nights ago, sending her back to the estate without me, and it was shockingly harder than either of us expected.

She’d wrapped her thin arms around my waist, squeezing me tight before reluctantly climbing into the car. Like a lovesick fool, I’d stood on the sidewalk watching the black SUV drive away until I couldn’t see her anymore. Duke, who’d watched the whole exchange, looked at me with such a dumb look on his face, I’d almost broken his nose. I’d somehow found the restraint to not maim the cocky fucker.

I’ve been doing my best to focus on the mess at hand with my mystery enemy, but my mind wanders to Quincey more than I should allow. She’s asked for a period of grace as she learns to adapt to what I am, but I need to remind myself that I too am going through a change. For a very long time, there was nothing important enough to distract me from my work. It was my priority, the only thing I concerned myself with, but now I worry about her.

My body has been on edge for two days because I’m away from her. I’ve hired some of the best security teams in the country to guard the property, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to keep her safe. After the events the other night, the only way I feel like I can keep her safe is by guarding her myself.

And that’s not realistic. I can’t cart her around with me to all my meetings. If too many people see her with me, it will be the equivalent of painting a bright crimson target on her back. I have to be smart about where I’m seen in public with her. The dark corners in the city I frequent are no place for her.

“Are you even paying attention to a word I’m saying?” Rory looks at me blandly over the screen of one of the two laptops sitting in front of her.

Duke pops another one of the chocolates he’d promptly stolen from her when we arrived in his mouth. “Don’t mind him,Morticia, he’s all bent out of shape because he misses his woman,” he tells her from the black leather couch he sprawled himself out on across the room. “You’d think that he’d be in a better mood now, butnope. It’s just opened up a whole new can of worms of new things for him to be stressed about.” Duke kicks his feet up on the table in front of him.

Rory glares at him, her dark brows pinching. “Who the hell raised you? You’d think all those years in the military should have instilled some fucking manners in you. Get your feet off my coffee table before you scratch it.” She growls at him like an angry younger sister. “And I told you to stop calling me Morticia.”

“Why? The name fits so well? You’ve got that sexy goth vibe going on.” Duke waves a hand in her direction. “If you’d just dye your hair like I’ve been telling you, it’d be perfect, but you insist on keeping it purple.”

Rory’s shoulder-length hair is dyed a pale purple color and right now it’s tied up in two buns on top of her head. She takes Blackwood’s dress code as a mere suggestion, just like Quincey wears whatever the hell she wants. Though today Rory is wearing a black blazer, she still wears a distressed, revealing tank top with a faded design on it. The black and gray gothic moth tattoo that covers almost all of her chest is on full display. A majority of her skin is covered in tattoos and her ears are riddled with different piercings. There’s a hoop through her nostril as well and she’s only just recently removed the one in her lip. If she was anyone else, I’d never allow them to work for me, but Rory is the best hacker out there and I’d rather her be on my side than against me. I can tolerate her attire and unpleasant hair color.

“I don’t have time for this pointless conversation,” I interject before Rory can fling her words back at Duke. They’re like siblings, constantly arguing over the pettiest shit. “Repeat what you were saying before, Rory.”

With one last snarl in Duke’s direction, she types away at the laptop in front of her. “I tracked the men who chased what’s her face—”

“Quincey,” I supply stiffly.

She waves me off. “Right whatever,her. I tracked their movements that day, trying to see if they could lead me to any clues as to who they were working for. Clearly, these idiots aren’t the brilliant masterminds that almost hacked you and blew up your shit. They didn’t even bother trying to hide from the security cameras on the streets, it was really easy to follow them.”

“What did you find?”

“I followed them back to the airstrip they flew into twenty-four hours before when they went after Quincey.” She flips the screen around so I can see the men I killed descending the stairs of a private plane. “And that is where my intel ends.”

I scowl at her. “What do you mean ends?”

“Whoever they work for is good at covering their steps. It’s going to take some more digging to find where this plane came from and who owns it. From what I can find, the plane is listed under some bogus company based out of the Caymans. Any idiot with a computer could find that information. Just give me a little more time and I’ll dig up what I can for you.”

My hands flex tensely at my sides. “I don’t have more time to give, Rory. I need these people found and I needed them found yesterday. I’m tired of being in the dark and them being two fucking steps ahead of me!” I boom at her, it’s not fair she’s getting my wrath, but I’m struggling to keep it at bay right now.

Rory leans farther back in her chair to create additional space between us, the feisty look she’s been wearing when talking to Duke slips away and wariness replaces it. “I’m working as fast as I can, Mr. Laurent. I’m good at what I do, but so are they. It’s just going to take some extra steps to beat them.”

“Make it happen, Rory.” With a nod of my head in Duke’s direction, I head to the door. “Let’s go.”

He jumps up, waving flippantly at Rory before following me. “Back to the apartment?”

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