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“Hey!” Arya’s mother screeches, the giant diamonds quivering in her ears with indignation. “What…who are you? Please don’t kill us! Please! We have money!”
“Oh, Arya,” her father says, looking green. “Thank goodness, you’re okay.”
“Why weren’t you out there looking for her yourself?” I ask through my teeth. “After all, it was one of your enemies that showed up to the party with a rifle.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” he complains.
“Yes, I do.” He’s about to find out that I make it my business to know everything that could possibly touch his daughter. “Let’s speak in your office.”
“Thomas,” her mother says, backing away from my men nervously. “Why is he holding our Arya like that? Tell him to put her down. Make them leave.”
Before I can speak, Arya responds for me. “This is my guardian angel, mother. I told you he was real. And he just saved my life.” She nuzzles her face against my shoulder and sighs. “Again.”
“I told you to stop spouting that nonsense,” Thomas blusters, but his mouth snaps shut when I spear him with a look. “What do you want to discuss in my office?”
“The fact that I’m taking your daughter home with me. Where she belongs.” I jerk my chin at the door located on the right side of the corridor and he pales. That’s right, I know where your office is. I know every room in the house. I know every hair on her head. “After you.”
Thomas’s throat bobs and he stomps off toward the office.
“Don’t let her make any calls,” I say, referring to the mother. Then I step over the broken pieces of her phone and follow Thomas, Arya’s sweet body still locked in my arms. I’m not letting her out of my sight ever again. Where I go, she goes. End of story.
Arya’s father takes a seat behind his desk and I settle us into a chair facing him.
“Am I to understand that you know who was responsible for the…the…” He uses a handkerchief to mop the back of his neck. “The massacre that just took place on my goddamn roof?”
“You’ll find out eventually. The bodies upstairs won’t have any identification on them, but you’d piece it together.” I shrug. “Or I could make your job easier, tell you now. As long as you don’t try and stand in my way when I take your daughter.”
He scoffed. “I can’t do that. You and your associates are criminals, too, just like the men lying dead above our heads.”
I incline my head. “That is true.”
“And acknowledging that, you think I’d willingly relinquish my own child to you.”
“In a minute you won’t have a choice, so I’m advising you to think carefully.”
While he’s sputtering, I give in to my need to check on Arya, tucking my jacket in around her so she stays warm in the air conditioning. Her cheek is pressed to my shoulder, her beautiful doe eyes serious, maybe even a little nervous over the nature of the discussion I’m having with her father. But she stays in my arms, trusts me, doesn’t try to leave me—and her loyalty twists my stomach into a pretzel. God, I love her, I love her so much it burns.
“You’re mine now,” I whisper, leaning down to kiss her soft mouth. “You’re mine now and everything is going to be okay.”
She nods trustingly. “I knew you’d grow up to be brave,” she whispers.
Christ, now I can’t swallow. Is it going to be like this all the time now?
It was hard enough keeping a semblance of composure when she was across the street or nearby in public. Holding her, having all that sweetness at my disposal twenty-four seven is going to fucking kill me. At least I’ll go with a smile on my face.
Unfortunately, I’ll need Arya to understand that I might worship the ground she walks on, but I’m not a good man.
I’m a very bad man, actually. I kill people when necessary, I extort, I make deals with the many devils in this city. It’s how I built my empire, so I’d have something to offer her. A place to keep her safe. I worry what she’ll think about me, if she’ll change her mind once I’ve laid everything out bare, but that’s a tomorrow problem. Her father is today’s.
“Here’s a better question, how did you know these men would be attempting to assassinate my daughter tonight? Maybe you’re responsible.”
It’s kind of amusing how proud of himself he is. “Any time you lock someone up or sanction one of the crime families in this city, I find a mole. Whether I pay one of them to talk or insert somebody myself, I find a way to get information before it’s even available. For instance, I know you’re two steps behind every single one of your conquests. But not me.” I let my fingertip travel over Arya’s knee, slowly up the outside of her thigh. He watches me, his cheeks puffing out, but he correctly senses he can’t stop me. “I can protect this girl a thousand times better than you can. I have been for years.” I lean down and kiss her mouth, licking the seam of her lips slowly until she starts wiggling around in my lap. “Understand me when I say that I allowed you to keep her until she finished high school and turned eighteen. But it’s over now. She’s going to be my wife as soon as I take my edge off.”
