Claudia jabs her finger at the book and they start talking at each other. I wish I could hear what they’re saying, but I didn’t think to hide microphones in the house.
Actually, I did, but I was outvoted.
Certain people should just listen to me. I’m obviously right.
Claudia and George disappear down the hallway, but they’re back in view a moment later, through the French doors in Howard’s office. Claudia pulls out drawers and raps on the inside of bookshelves while George spreads out the house schematics on the desk.
They’re searching the house.
They can only be searching for one thing.
The treasure.
Mytreasure.
The diary must’ve had some new information. Interesting. I tortured Howard for hours and never got the location out of him. He claimed he lost it. What a joke. I knew he’d never tell Ainsley a thing, so I killed her in front of him to make him pliable, but maybe I should have leaned on her a little? I could have popped out her big, bimbo eyes one by one. Such a shame.
Let them search. It’s about time my sister did something other than lie around wasting precious oxygen and getting cat fur all over my clothes. She can find my treasure, and then I’ll take it from her.
My phone vibrates again. I stare down onto the back patio. No one’s outside, so my voice won’t carry. I pick up the phone and jam it on my ear. “Yes?”
“Where are you now? Please tell me you’re not at the house.”
“How little you think of me. Of course I’m not. I’m at a cafe, having a Danish. It’s terrible. Americans can’t do pastries like Europe.” I hold the binoculars up again. George and Claudia are inspecting a china cabinet in the dining room.
It’s not in there, you fools. I already looked.
“Good,” the deep voice on the other end says. “We can’t risk her seeing you. There’ve been too many close calls. I’m on my way to your place. Can you bring me a Danish when you head home—”
I hang up the phone. I’ll go back to my place when I’m good and ready. I hate the way he calls ithome. My dingy one-room apartment in the worst corner of Tartarus Oaks isn’t my home.
My home is right here – Malloy Manor.
My home is in the arms of three beautiful, utterly clueless princes.
My home is Claudia August’s life.
I let the binoculars drop against my tits. I blow a kiss in the direction of my clueless sister. “See you soon, Claws.”
10
Gabriel
“Hello, Your Grace. It’s lovely to speak again.”
I stand behind Claudia as she sits at Howard’s desk, making sure my father can see me in the shot. He frowns at us from behind his enormous inlaid desk – the monstrous piece of furniture apparently used to belong to Winston Churchill. Even though he’s thousands of miles away, just seeing him on the video sucks the air from the room.
The duke steeples his fingers and peers at Claudia over the end of his nose like she’s a curio in his private museum – something to be put behind glass and admired for its beauty, but too old-fashioned, too obsolete, to be any further use.
He underestimates her.
That will be his downfall. And I can’t say I’ll cry when she finally spills his blood.
“You say you will marry my son and provide me an heir,” the duke says. “But I’ve had word from my people in California that you’re to marry the heads of the Lucian and Dio families. Which is it to be?”
His people.
My father haspeoplein this city of sin and depravity, a city he would never deign to visit because the very idea of it offended him so.
