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“It’s a fine-fine, then.”

“Fine!”

“Oh, my God, Alexios, if you say fine again, I swear I’ll melt your Necron army,” I hiss, and Alexios gasps in horror.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me!” I growl over the comms.

“Knox!” Logan’s voice in my ear stops me. “Take a fucking break and deal with whatever is making you this angry.”

“But—”

“See you in an hour.”

“Yes, sir…” I agree and double-tap my earpiece to turn off my microphone.

There’s a second of static, and then the line goes silent.

“Fuck!” I yell, scaring the living daylights out of a couple of guests who were passing near me. “Sorry…” I wave at them, hoping this doesn’t come back to Cillian.

He’s already acting weird enough, so I don’t want him to freak out over the black giant growling and swearing next to a fucking coconut tree.

What the hell is going on, little Prince?

I take a deep breath, sigh, and double-tap my earpiece to turn on the mic. “Björn?”

“Yes…?” he asks skeptically, because, of course, all the Harknetts heard my meltdown.

Great…

“Kidnap Finnian and bring him to my room.”

“Woohoo! See you in five!”

Five minutes later, Björn arrives at my room, carrying Finnian, hung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

My God…

“Björn, what are you doing? Put him down.”

“What?! You said kidnap.”

“Yeah, as in bring him here no matter what he’s doing.”

“It was the same with Damián. When will you people learn that I don’t do ‘gentle’ kidnappings?” Björn complains under his breath and flips Finnian, setting him back on the floor.

“Thanks for the lift, you absolute madman.” Finnian smacks Björn’s arm with a silicone spatula and glares at me. “What’s so important you had to kidnap us while I was bakin’ ma macarons?”

“Finni, why do you have a spatula?”

“’Cause I was bakin’ ma macarons!” He hisses, pointing at me with the spatula. “Now what the bloody hell do you want?”

Okay…

Not a great start, but let’s do this.

“Not a fucking word of what I am about to tell you… Not even to me.” I point a finger at them to emphasize my warning, and they shake their heads. “Good…”