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My heart was ready to burst out of my chest at the cuteness of it all. Grams with a sugar daddy? That was hilarious, considering she was one of the wealthiest women in the Midwest. She sounded so happy and full of energy, I couldn’t wait to meet the man who had made that happen. Especially after her health had been up in the air over the last few months. She had been getting better though, and happiness was the best medicine in this case.
We talked for over thirty minutes while I caught her up on everything going on and gave her more details about the wedding. She was beyond excited, and it felt like I was chatting with one of my best friends in the entire world.
“Lovely chatting, dear, but I have to run; Archie and I have a date with a hot tub. Toodles.” She hung up before I could even respond.
Juliet, Thora and Sophie came out of the conference room, their arms loaded with different toys from the shop downstairs. “What’s with the grin?” Juliet plopped down into her chair.
“Grams met a man, apparently. A sugar daddy, she said.” I snorted at the idea. “Sounds like she’s got it bad. I would say let’s sneak over there and check him out, but I don’t think I want to know what they are doing.”
“Yeah, probably not a good idea.” Juliet scrunched up her nose and chuckled. “Oh, Sophie set up a new display downstairs. Let’s go have a look.”
We headed downstairs with Sophie and Thora trailing behind us. Valik was downstairs with Cian’s and my costumes thrown over his shoulder while he did his best to work his magic on Milliani again. I wondered if something might happen between them—not that it would be bad, but I wasn’t sure if it would necessarily be good. The last thing I wanted was for Valik to get involved with people like the Voledetti Mafia, and dating a Mafia boss’s sister was one surefire way to get himself into trouble.
We hung around downstairs for a bit while Sophie showed us the new display she had created. She beamed with pride, and I could see her shy exterior cracking little by little.
“Thanks again for the gift card, Nova. I went last night, and it was so good. You have to try the lasagna from there. It’s my favorite.” Her cheeks flushed, and I smiled at her.
“Of course, maybe we’ll grab lunch there sometime.”
“Thora was there too with her date, actually. She invited me to sit with them.” She looked over her shoulder at Thora, who was walking around with her clipboard, taking a quick inventory. “It was really fun. Well, until that scary man showed up. Then it was kinda uncomfortable.”
My blood ran cold, and I cleared my throat. “What scary man, Sophie?”
Ryzen. Had it been Ryzen? My hand brushed my pocket, making sure my knife was where it was supposed to be.
“I don’t know. He had a lot of tattoos all over—so did all the guys he was with. They seemed like trouble and wouldn’t stop looking at us.”
Kaviathin Voledetti.
My gaze shot across the room to Milliani, who was checking out a customer, then back to Thora. Thora looked up and smiled, then narrowed her eyes at the look on my face. I pointed at her and pointed upstairs with a jerky motion. She nodded and headed up the stairs.
Juliet came over and rested her chin on my shoulder. “What’s up?”
“Apparently Thora has something to tell us,” I whispered over my shoulder and then smiled again at Sophie. “I’m glad you had a good time. We’ll definitely go there sometime soon, but skip the creepy-looking guys,” I said with a wink.
I took the stairs two at a time, Juliet on my heels. When we got upstairs, Thora was sitting on her desk, dangling her feet over the edge.
“You saw Kaviathin last night?” I shut the stairway door and walked over to her. It wasn’t like I was mad at her, but I didn’t understand why she hadn’t mentioned it to me, considering we had spent the entire morning together.
“I know, I’m sorry.” She clasped her hands together. “I thought it would upset you, and I didn’t want you to worry. It was nothing, really. Felix and I were eating, and I saw Sophie sitting by herself eating dinner, so I asked her to come sit with us. And then Kaviathin and Althazair showed up, and they were both just… watching us. It was serious creeper status, but they didn’t do anything. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.” She ran her fingers through her brown curly hair, the motion not relaxed as she was pretending to be.
“Did you tell Cian?” I looked at her with raised eyebrows.
She shook her head. “Really, it’s fine. There was no trouble. I would have told you, but things have been really quiet and normal for once, so I didn’t want to cause any waves.” She tilted her head to the side, searching my face. “It’s OK, Nova, nothing happened. Nothing is going to happen.”
I hated that the mention of Kaviathin’s name had unnerved me so much. When I thought of him, I thought of Ryzen, and that brought up all the things I was trying to heal from. Besides, I was supposed to be spending this week imagining that Ryzen was locked up in a teeny tiny prison cell rotting away, and not thinking about Mafia assholes and their games. “Promise you’ll tell me or Cian if something like that happens again. Better to be safe than sorry, you know?”
Sophie pushed the door open, and I relaxed my posture. I didn’t want to freak her out, especially over something as silly as this. She walked to her desk and started opening the delivery boxes.
“I promise.” Thora patted my arm and grinned. “It’s fine, everything’s OK. Nothing to worry about…” Her voice trailed off as she looked over at Sophie and we all turned to see her standing there, looking pale as a ghost. She looked up and pointed at an open box, her fingers trembling.
“Um, guys…” Her voice squeaked and a rock the size of a boulder grew inside of my stomach. “I think that’s blood.”
We rushed over and stopped cold in our tracks at the open box. My heart was beating so fast, I thought it might explode out of my chest. Inside the box was a white dress, and, yes, what most definitely resembled blood seemed to be smeared all over it. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out what kind of dress it was. We had all seen one similar just a few months ago at Goodacre Farms.
A wedding dress.
I turned to Sophie so she was facing me and not the box. “Sophie, can you go get Valik, please?” She stared past me, her expression dazed. “Sophie.” I shook her gently. “It’s OK, it’s a Halloween costume, is all. Just get Valik and take your lunch now, K?”
