Of course she’d named it that.
“And Hammond?” I asked.
Ezra squinted at the screen. “Living quarters. Middle of the house. So, uh… front door is a no. Too much traffic.”
“Another way in?”
“Well, there’s a back staircase. But the door is locked and reinforced.”
“I can handle reinforced.”
He gestured dramatically. “After you.”
We made our way around to the back. When we reached the door, I studied it for a second, then kicked beneath the lock. The frame splintered beneath the impact, wood cracking like thin bone.
Ezra winced. “I can’t say I had planned on committing crimes tonight.”
“We are liberating information,” I said. “Not committing crimes.”
“That’s what criminals say.”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer. We slipped through the kitchen—empty, except for an abandoned goblet and a lingering scent of arrogance—and climbed the back staircase.
Ambrosia’s scent reached me first. Flowers over rot. Perfume and hunger intertwined.
Her door was half-open.
She stood before a vanity, draped in a sheer nightgown the color of bruised gold. She misted perfume onto her neck with a theatrical flourish.
The moment she saw me, her smile turned feral.
“Cristian,” she purred, clasping her hands in delighted applause. “I justknewyou’d come.”
Her gaze flicked to Ezra. She wrinkled her nose. “And… who is that?”
Ezra lifted a timid hand. “Uh, I’m Ezra. I worked here for, like, five years.”
She stared at him blankly, then turned away without a single flicker of recognition. She glided toward me, reaching for my chest.
I swatted her hand aside.
She pouted. “You used to let me touch you.”
“You misremember,” I said. “I never allowed such things.”
She laughed. The sound was meant to be seductive, but it irked me. “Semantics, love.”
“I am not your love.”
“You could be.” She stepped closer.
I let her get close enough to think she held power, then I caught her by the throat.
Her breath hitched in a sound that was somewhere between pleasure and surprise. “Oh… Cristian. You know I always liked when?—”
“Enough.” My grip tightened. “You whispered something at the ball. You will repeat it. Now.”
She dragged in air, smiling even as her pulse spiked beneath my fingers. “I say many things at parties. I was drunk. You know how I get?—”
