AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mia was too shocked to move or otherwise physically react, even to blink.
Unfortunately, her brain hadn’t stopped working, which was why she was able to rationalize that the metallic smell was coming from the amount of bright red blood soaked into the rug beneath the body.
She didn’t want to think too deeply about what those other pungent smells might be.
Maybe she should go and check if Giles Fletcher was still breathing?
Although she doubted anyone could still be alive after having their throat cut and losing so much blood.
She’d seen murder victims in movies or in television dramas, some of them having had their throat cut for added drama. But she’d known they weren’t real, and she could turn away or switch off the television completely if she wanted to. Nor were any of those scenes accompanied by the pungent and acrid smell.
Thiswas real.
Horrifyingly, terrifyingly real.
As she continued to stare at the grisly scene, Mia felt both those emotions so much that it took her several numbed seconds to realize Honey had started to growl again and was pulling against the hold Mia still had on her collar.
Before Mia could react, something hit her hard on the back of the head, and the world turned black.
CHAPTERFOUR
Darius’s gaze moved broodingly over the view of London through the wall of windows in the sitting room of his apartment. His frustration was palpable as he considered ways in which he might see and speak to Mia Smith again without it looking as if he had contrived for it to happen.
He’d come back here after leaving Rufus Wynter’s office an hour ago. He didn’t recognize the two men on the reception desk, so he’d introduced himself to ensure they knew who he was and checked that they didn’t need anything from him before he went up to his apartment. Once there, he’d made a pot of coffee, drinking some of the strong brew as he read and answered a few emails.
Anything to delay the moment when he could no longer resist opening the file Rufus had compiled on Mia Smith.
He’d lost the battle ten minutes ago.
He now knew that Mia had been brought up in an orphanage from when she was a small baby, having been found abandoned in a church in Cornwall. No one knew what her name was or exactly how old she was. She had been named by the staff at the orphanage and allocated an estimated birth date six months before she was abandoned.
She’d remained in care until she aged out of the system, and now shared a house with four other girls and was taking a business degree at university. She’d taken out a student loan to pay for her course. To pay the rest of her expenses, she had an online site where people could contact her to walk their dogs in the mornings, evenings, and weekends.
Her circumstances were far from ideal, but they could have been worse.
They were also none of Darius’s fucking business!
Yes, Mia had been dealt a raw deal almost from birth. But remembering how happy and confident she’d seemed yesterday, cheeky even, Darius doubted she would welcome his, or anyone else’s, sympathy on the subject. Or their opinion on the way in which she was now choosing to put herself through university.
The dog-walking business was enterprising, Darius would give her that. But, to him, it also seemed as dangerous as hell. What if one of the clients who decided to employ her didn’t actually have a dog and had their own idea of what “services” she could provide? Mia was tiny, with a perky nature and mischievous smile, and she wouldn’t stand a chance if someone, once they had her alone in their home, decided to attack or rape her.
Darius winced, realizing his imaginings had gone far darker than he’d meant them to.
It was just that, having met Mia, he couldn’t get her out of his head. Even more so now that he knew what a financial struggle everything was for her. He had so much money, he didn’t know what to do with it, while Mia—
Darius cursed under his breath as the sound of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. Not because of the call itself, but because Casper had been messing with it again, and Darius’s eardrums were now being assaulted with a song about surviving.
He’d spent the weekend at the family estate, and sometime during that visit, his brother Casper, who could hack into anything and had a warped sense of humor, had obviously bypassed the cell phone password and decided to change Darius’s ringtone. Instead of being the soothing classical theme it usually played, it was now some singer encouraging him to “be strong.”
Fucking hell.
Darius pressed the button to take the call—and, thankfully, shut off that intrusive music. “Yes?” he bit out.
“Oh. Um. Is that Mr. Kingston?” The man on the other end sounded uncertain.
“As you’re the one who called me on this number, and I’m the person who answered, I would have thought it was logical to assume that I’m Darius Kingston, yes,” he snapped his impatience with the man’s hesitation.
“This is Ron, on the front desk downstairs.” The man ignored his sarcasm. “You introduced yourself to Dave and me an hour or so ago. Since then, we’ve received several phone calls from tenants. It seems they can all hear a dog barking—”
