Page 108 of Medium
The man jerkily nodded. If there hadn’t been two other guys with guns in the room, Shane could probably have gotten away from him. Dammit, there was nothing I could do.
Except stall.
“Uncle Hugo, do you really want to be involved in the trafficking of people? What would your high society friends say?”
He snorted. “People. This girl isn’t people. You spent too much time with my do-gooder brother and his trashy wife. At least I made Father see the truth about you before he died.”
I stifled my rage. It wouldn’t help us get out of this. “Yeah, well, it’s too bad after he died, Grandfather saw the truth aboutyou.”
Hugo sneered. “Are you still going on about seeing ghosts? Father and I never believed that bullshit from you or your slut of a mother.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Ghosts are less believable than a girl with thorns coming out of her skin?”
Grandfather chose that moment to pop into the middle of the room. “Really, Rory, you forgot to invite me to a party?” Grandfather wasn’t translucent for once. Even I couldn’t see through him.
The goons all pointed their guns at him. Pia started slowly moving toward the kitchen, getting out of the line of fire. Shane, blocked from Pia by the gunmen, edged in Ellis and my direction, sliding behind the couch to reach us.
“Sorry, Grandfather. They stopped by unannounced.”
Uncle Hugo’s eyes were bugging out of his head. “F-father?”
Randolph pointed at Grandfather. “Where did he come from? Get him!”
While one of the goons kept their gun trained on him, another one clamped a hand on Grandfather’s arm. He instantly stared at his hand. “Why’s he so cold?”
I was impressed at Grandfather’s solidity. This bonding stuff had some interesting side effects.
He allowed himself to be pulled toward Randolph and Hugo. “Hello, son. How unpleasant to see you here.”
“Wh-what?”
Randolph rounded on Hugo. “I thought your father was dead.”
Uncle Hugo pointed at Grandfather. “He is! He’s supposed to be!”
Itsked. “I told you he wasn’t happy with you, Hugo.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dimi appear behind Pia and wrap herself around the girl. They moved slowly toward the kitchen.
A muffled cry came from the back yard. Hugo didn’t react—his attention was all on Grandfather—but Randolph pointed. “Check it out!”
The guy who’d had his gun on Shane earlier jogged over to the back door. “Uh, boss? I can’t see any of the guys.”
I sensed relief from Shane and Ellis. Ms. Jackson was here. Or maybe Arch and his crew. Either way, we had backup.
“Guard the door!”
The goon stayed in place. Shit. Ellis and Shane were now pressed up against me, but we couldn’t get to the front door without Randolph and Uncle Hugo noticing. At least the goons were more worried about Grandfather than us. As long as Randolph didn’t notice?—
“Where’s the girl? Find her!”
Fuck. Probably the only place Pia and Dimi could be was in the pantry.
The goon who wasn’t holding onto Grandfather headed around the corner to the kitchen. We heard the pantry door open. “She’s not here!” Cabinet doors slammed open, then a moment later he came back shaking his head. “There’s only the kitchen and a pantry. She’s not in either, and she’s not in the cabinets, up or down.”
Randolph’s face turned purple. “She didn’t just vanish. Search the bedrooms.” We all looked toward the entrance to the bedroom hallway. No one mentioned that we would’ve seen Pia go that direction if she’d done so.
Had Dimi somehow hidden Pia?
