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“Okay.” She needed him to keep talking. “What about locations? Did they make you tell about where he lives or works?”
“They tried, but I told them I didn’t know anything beyond the norm which was true. While everyone knows the Maronov family’s public business fronts, the private residences and addresses stay confidential unless you’re considered need-to-know. When I filled in tonight, Eddie didn’t brief me on locations until after we’d already arrived onsite for the party. I stayed right here the whole night and didn’t talk to anyone.”
Eddie interrupted. “Unlock your phone and give it to me.”
“Sure.” Kyle did what he asked without arguing. Score one for him.
“He’s telling the truth.” The guard scrolled through the phone. “He’s been with me since we left for the party and hasn’t talked to anyone else. The phone shows no calls or texts in the last few hours.”
Joelle reached for it, surprised when no one stopped her. Yanking a pin from her hair, she popped the SIM card out of the phone. “I’m powering it off. If you’ve met with an Order operative, they’ve most likely put trackers on here. Do you have any other electronics on you? Another phone, a tablet, anything?”
Kyle shook his head. “I don’t have that kind of cash.”
“The Order had to have given you a way to contact them. What they’d say?” She thought of the way the other SUV had been followed tonight. “Did they give you anything?”
“A thumb drive because they wanted me to try to access any of the Maronov’s computers, but I told them that I couldn’t. I don’t have that kind of clearance.”
“Where is it?” she asked. “They make recording devices that can double as a USB drive.”
“At our house, in my room.”
“Anything else? The least little thing?” Because she knew how the Order operated. Sneaky didn’t begin to cover their infiltration tactics.
“No, ma’am.” Kyle sounded so sad and scared, the same as she’d felt while locked away in whatever hellhole the Order landed in for a day, a week, a month. “I didn’t talk because demon hybrids don’t sell each other out, but my mom? She’s human, and she needs her insulin. With my dad gone, she’s all I have.”
Alexei butted in. “Not true. You have us, and we’ll do everything we can to get her back.”
Joelle cut the demon prince a don’t-break-him look. Notherdemon prince as she’d hoped, but she couldn’t dwell on that now. “Kyle didn’t do anything wrong. So can you please agree not to hurt him and tell him to get us off the side of the road before the Order or any other enemies find us?” She wouldn’t hold Alexei’s rejection of her against him. Shewouldn’t.His overprotectiveness had annoyed her when she’d thought it might come from affection, from a belief that they could be mates. But she refused to play the victim for him. She wouldn’t be a damsel waiting for a hero ever again.
“Any other requests, my lady?” Alexei’s smugness knew no bounds.
“I’mnotyour anything.” Okay, so she couldn’t hide the hurt from him telling everyone that he didn’t want her. After all, he’d been the one to lead Nita and the others to think they might be fated mates. Her anger deflated like a burst balloon the second his gaze went from mischievous to shuttered. She couldn’t take the changing emotions. No, she’d rather deal with being locked up by family than wondering about motives and feelings. Swallowing a sigh, she said, “When we’re somewhere safe, I’ll call my brother to come get me.”
“All right.” He sounded like the hard-ass mob boss her brother accused him of being instead of the charming rescuer he’d been earlier, but at least he put the gun away. “To the warehouse, Kyle, and then you’re coming inside with us. We’ll need to check you for tech or magic that might lead the Order to us. Then, we can help you find your mother, but only if you tell us everything. While our king appreciates your father’s service, I can’t compromise the safety of our people. You’ll do exactly as I say, yes?”
“Yes, sir.” Kyle pulled the SUV from the gravel shoulder onto the smooth asphalt.
In the quiet ride punctuated only by the whir of the road, she wished she could unwind the last few minutes or hours. Somehow, she’d convinced herself that Alexei might be more than people said or perhaps that she’dmeantmore. Locked in a mansion in New Orleans and then in the penthouse here in Los Angeles, she’d been safe, and she’d allowed herself to spin a fantasy about her rescuer. Noxx had called her a dreamer in addition to monster, creature, and the other terrible names, but she’d been right in the first, and the fantasies had to end now.
The ocean front that she’d wanted to see this close for years slipped by the windows in quiet elegance, a shimmer of waves against the distant lights. Bridges curved along the shoreline wrapping to both sides. The twinkling cities that dotted the coast became smaller, and the road turned rougher. A shadowed building loomed in front of the car, at least six stories of concrete and steel surrounded by cranes and fences. The SUV’s tires bumped over potholes and stretches of railroad tracks that looked broken and long abandoned.
Opening the delicate bag that she’d borrowed from the goblin queen, Joelle tugged out the silver mirror that could connect Alexei’s family across dimensions. “Here, I found this at the penthouse.”
“My sister said you crashed the party tonight simply to return it, but from the way you talked about wanting me to call or check on you, I’m thinking you really came to see me.” He brushed his fingers against hers, lingering instead of taking the darn thing.
Heat rushed to her face. After rejecting her so vehemently,nowhe wanted to flirt? “I left the penthouse to be away from locked doors, but with the Order’s attack, I can see I made a mistake.”
“You could’ve gone anywhere, and yet you came to a party with my sister?”
“Because your cousin thought it would be a good idea. Seems the goblin queen was wrong.”
“About?”
Oh no. She wouldn’t be admitting that others beyond Eddie had assumed Alexei had strong feelings for her. Everyone she’d met in his circle so far had believed them to be destined mates, but he’d put an end to that. “Playing Cinderella wasn’t as much fun as we’d thought.”
“You looking for Prince Charming?” He layered sarcasm and meanness over the last, flipping a sweet children’s story into something ugly and cold.
Anger, that sweet rage that she’d kept tempered for so long, threaded through her. She’d been scared her whole life, leashing her emotions in the hope that the torture would stop, but no, he would only give her a different kind of pain if she let him. She wouldn’t. Shecouldn’tgive anyone else a way to hurt her.
