She’s quiet for a while, awake now as Lachlan finishes up the tail end of his alignment checks in a very secure section of the house.
Then she says, ‘Daddies in books are nice.’
‘Are they?’he asks, conversational.
‘They keep everyone safe.’
Lachlan knows where it’s leading.
‘Well,yourDaddy is very good at keeping you safe,’ he explains, stretching his generosity as far as it’ll go, ‘isn’t he?’
‘He’s far, far away.’She then whispers, ‘You be my Daddy?Pay you lots of cookies.’Cookies are the best currency in the East Wing, everyone knows that.
‘That sounds really nice,’ he says, double checking the alignment of various sensors, ‘but I can’t be your Daddy because you already have one and he loves you very much.’
‘Never see him.’
‘I know.’
‘You be Daddy?’she asks again, this time it wobbles.‘Pretend?’
Lachlan tries to think slow, but his heart is pulling all kinds of strange ways and shapes.‘I don’t think that’s…’ She sobs near silently.‘Well.Maybe just for today, Mimi,’ he allows, capitulating spectacularly, can already hear what Carrigan will launch at him later for such a slip.‘Butonlyif it’s just for today.’
‘Just today.’She sighs shakily with relief.‘Thank you, Daddy.’
He stares ahead blindly, stroking her back.
And Lachlan, stone cold killer that he is, knows he’s fucked.
‘It’s OK, babygirl.You sleep now.Daddy’s got you.’
It marks the first catastrophic crack in his ability to ever truly get free of the Penhalyx family, and Jules, who has had far too much time to plan, takes full advantage of it on the night of his eighteenth.
Mimi is still unwell and wants only Lachlan, who she continues to call Daddy in a very secret whisper, so he ends up staying with her more than he should.Fenwick isn’t involved in the children’s wellbeing unless it’s marked serious and acolddoesn’t come close, so Lachlan sits in a rocking chair in Mimi’s bedroom and lets her sleep on him well past midnight.
At around one thirty AM, there’s a vibration alert.
No heartbeat in Jules’threads.
Lachlan carefully but quickly sets Mimi down in her bed and then orders Carrigan to watch her while he runs flat out to Jules’ room and findsallhis clothes on the floor, window open somehow without tripping the alarms.
The kid is gone.
‘Fucking great.’
Lachlan has to track him down manually.
It’s by far the kid’s best attempt because it takes Lachlan almost four hours to find him and when he does, he’s in anightclubwearing borrowed clothes that barely fit, drunk and sweaty.
Gritting his teeth, Lachlan cuts a path through the sea of heaving bodies, cheap cologne and floral perfume, headed for Jules who seems to be having the time of his life.Beneath the harsh glare of neon, the boy dances and smiles to himself with eyes closed.He’s not even with anyone.
It’s just him and the music.
Jules is unhappy when Lachlan grabs him around the middle and physically hauls him away, but thatunhappinesselevates quickly into anger when he realises who it is and he starts hitting Lachlan, yelling at him, even telling people he’s being kidnapped.
Unfortunately for Jules, everyone’s too drunk to care.
Outside it’s cold and drizzling.
