“Kel, I’m fine, I promise,” I mutter. “I’m not feeling off or anything, I just wanna get Lem and Simon.”
“If I may…” My dad murmurs, and my jaw tics. “I must go to the mansion. If you come with me—”
“Wait, why would you go to the mansion?” Kemper stops.
“Manuel Blanco knows I am coming,” he chirps. As if that makesanygoddamn sense. “He is expecting me.”
“The Ivory is expectingyou??” I choke.
“Okay, you need to tell us why the fuck you’re really here right now.” Joy gets up in my dad’s face, pistol in hand. “How do you know The Ivory?”
“We have been business associates for many years,” he answers calmly, looking to me. “You remember, da, Dascha?”
Brows zipped, my head shakes a little, lips parted as my aggressively surging heart pumps severe confusion through my bloodstream.
“No…” I mutter. “Idon’tfucking remember. What the hell are you talking about??”
“I don’t have time for this.” Joy nudges my father in the chest with the barrel of her gun. “Walk.You’re gonna give yourself up so we can get past—”
“He knows you are here,” my dad says, andonce again, we come to a screeching halt.
I swear to God, we’re never gonna get out of these woods.
“Who knowswho’shere?” Rook snarls.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Kemper hisses.
I recognize that tone…It means someone’s about to get their ass beat.
He grabs my father by the shirt and slams him up against a tree.
“Listen up, suka,” he seethes the word in Russian he only knows because he’s heard me say it more than once. My dad chuckles, and I have to purse down my own grin and remind myself that I’m still fucking pissed here…Regardless of how sexy and awesome my man is. “You might be partially responsible for making my favorite human who’s ever existed, but you’re alsofullyresponsible for a lot of anguish he still lives with even ten goddamn years later. You wanna make it right?Make itfuckingright. Or I swear to any and all facets of God there are, I will bury you on this graveyard of an island with my bare fucking fists.”
Le sigh.
Why is he an evenhotterhulking hunk of growly man-candy when he’s angry??
Like, I have to actively stop myself from climbing his giant body right now.
“Kellan, I promise you, I did not tell Manuel that you and Dascha were coming here,” Dad says, with a severely impressed look on his face. “He got eyes on you when you left your ex-wife’s house. I was already following you when I spotted one of his men at the dock. I told him to warn The Ivory, and he knows…”
“Knowswhat?” Kemper snarls. Vein in his neck bulging.
I’m dripping.
“That if anything happens to Dascha, he will have big problems.” My father’s eyes slide to mine. “I told him this when you were arrested. If you are hurt, I hurt his business. He will not lay a finger on you.”
The way my head is twirling feels unhealthy. I’m trying really hard not to let them up…The voices.
I hear their echoes, but I’m fighting tooth and nail to keep them at bay.
You know nothing, Dascha…
You’re a toy, a pawn.
Like a chess piece. You have no control, and you never will.
“Shut up,” I whisper under my breath, shaking my head.
