Page 194 of Heir

Another knock, then silence so loud, I couldn’t hear myself breathe… and then…

The front door was pushed open loudly.

I covered my ears with my hands and crouched on the floor. More sounds, one of which sounded like a gunshot.

I looked around for a place to hide and, without thinking, I crawled under the bed as more gunshots rang out.

Fear wracked my entire body, and I closed my eyes, hoping whoever got inside the apartment would go away. They would just—

The bedroom door opened, and I held my breath.

Footsteps moved across the floor, and I knew it wasn’t either Vice or Ace.

Oh, God. What happened to them?

I was going to be sick.

“Come out, little Gemma. I know you’re in here.”

I tensed at the sound of Aleksei’s—Jude’s—voice in the room.

It had been years since I last saw him, but I still remembered the sound of his voice. He had a very distinctive voice. A low, raspy quality; it sounded like he’d spent years smoking, even though I had never seen him with a cigarette.

“Don’t make me look for you. That would only piss me off, and you won’t like it if I have to.”

Like hell would I go to him willingly.

I shut my eyes tighter, wishing Kai would come home soon.

“Your little boyfriend thinks he’s so clever, burning down my ship. He thinks if he did this, he would provoke me enough to show my face. But that’s Kai for you. Always so fucking arrogant. Never thinks about anyone else but himself. Has he figured it out already, Gemma? Does he know who I am?”

I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

“He was always smart, that one. Dominic’s proudest achievement.”

I could hear the bitterness in his voice.

I shook my head.

“Ah, there you are.”

My eyes sprang open in surprise as he grabbed my feet and dragged me out from under the bed.

I struggled to get out of his hold, but he was strong and didn’t care that he was hurting me.

He gripped my ankles tightly, to the point of pain, and I screamed as he pulled me out all the way.

He smiled viciously at me. He looked worse than he had a few years before, his blond hair shaved all the way to his scalp. He had a few scars on his face and more tattoos on his skin than I remembered him having.

He looked like a fucking monster out of my nightmare.

And I noticed he wasn’t missing a hand.

So if it weren’t his hand, they’d found it in the Sacramento River…

Then whose hand was it?

He’d had both hands when I first met him.

---