His eyes narrowed. “Princess.”
“No.” She stepped away from him completely. “I’m done hiding every time somebody pulls into the driveway.”
“You’re impossible,” he muttered.
“And yet you’re obsessed with me,” she teased.
“Unfortunately,” he muttered under his breath. Princess smiled despite herself. Then the front door opened before either of them could say anything else, and Wade walked inside carrying coffee and looking deeply annoyed.
“You know,” Butcher said, “normal people text before showing up at other people’s houses.” Butcher seemed to relax immediately, knowing that there was no real danger.
“You were the one who gave me a key to your place,” Wade reminded, “and that means I’m basically family now.”
“It’s breaking and entering,” Butcher insisted.
Princess snorted, and Butcher shot her a look. “Pretty sure that’s not how breaking and entering works,” she said.
Wade pointed at her dramatically. “She agrees with me.”
“She absolutely does not,” Butcher muttered. Wade ignored him completely before tossing a folded newspaper onto the counter.
Princess frowned slightly. “What’s that?”
Wade’s expression darkened. “That is trouble.” The warmth in the kitchen seemed to vanish instantly as Princess looked down at the newspaper. It felt as though her blood turned to ice, because staring back at her from the front page was her picture.
“MISSING CHICAGO SOCIALITE,” the headline read.
“ROMANO FAMILY OFFERING REWARD FOR INFORMATION.” Princess stopped breathing after she read it. Her father had officially gone public, and now, everyone would be looking for her.
Princess couldn’t look away from the newspaper. Her face stared back at her from the front page like a ghost from another life. The picture was old—some charity gala in Chicago where herfather made her stand beside him smiling while men discussed business over thousand-dollar whiskey and blood money.
She remembered that night perfectly. She remembered the diamond necklace choking her throat, and the man her father intended for her to marry, staring at her like he was already imagining ownership.
Her stomach twisted violently as she reread the headline. “MISSING CHICAGO SOCIALITE” and the wording almost made her laugh. Missing implied someone cared that she was gone. It implied concern, but this wasn’t concern. It was possession.
“She’s not missing,” Butcher said coldly beside her. “She left.” The fury in his voice snapped Princess’s focus back into the room.
Wade leaned against the counter, his expression grim now. “The paper hit every town within a hundred-mile radius this morning.”
Princess folded the newspaper slowly, her hands steadier than she felt. “This is bad.”
“Yeah,” Wade admitted.
Butcher took the paper from her immediately, crumpling it in one massive fist before tossing it across the kitchen. “I’m gonna kill him.” Princess looked up and realized with a jolt that he meant it. Butcher wasn’t talking metaphorically, not emotionally. He was literally going to kill her father, and the terrifying part was that a piece of her understood how he felt, because for the first time in her life, someone was furious on her behalf instead of at her.
Butcher paced once across the kitchen, all restless violence and barely controlled rage. “He’s painting a target on your back for every greedy asshole in the country.”
Princess crossed her arms tightly around herself. “He’s escalating.”
“No,” Butcher said darkly. “He’s panicking.” That stopped her cold because he was right. Her father didn’t go public unless he was losing control, and losing control was the one thing Vittorio Romano couldn’t stand.
Princess slowly sat down at the kitchen table before her legs gave out completely. The room suddenly felt too small. “He’s going to keep coming,” she whispered.
Butcher crouched in front of her, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Yeah,” he said honestly. “Probably.” He wasn’t giving her any false reassurance, and no bullshit—just truth. God, she loved him for that.
“People are going to recognize me,” she said.
“We’ll handle it,” Butcher promised.
