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Lucia clucks her tongue, staring down the hall.
“Aleksander?Come on out. I know you’re both there.”
Both?
I get my answer when a girlish giggle answers.
A few seconds later, he comes shambling around the corner of the hallway branching off from the upper walkway.
He’s not alone.
Aleksander Arrendell is the impeccable portrait of a man who’s graced nearly every fashion magazine cover in the world. His tailored linen shirt hangs off him over the latest designer jeans, his longish platinum-blond hair swept artfully to one side. His face is slim and fox-like. The same otherworldly green eyes that run in the family complete the eerie look.
I’ve never interacted much with Aleksander, but I know him on sight the same way I know the rest of this little town.
The woman on his arm, that’s another story.
I know her so well my fucking heart plummets to my knees.
Rosalind Sanderson.
Little sister to my missing friend Ethan—and toher.
The woman whose name I won’t let my mind even whisper.
And it hurts like hell to see Rosalind this way, her skimpy silver dress half-falling off her bony frame, her honey-blonde hair a disarrayed mess, her lipstick a smear.
She’s damn near falling over in her strappy heels, barely held up by Aleksander’s firm arm perched around her shoulders. Her dark-green eyes look dilated and unfocused.
Mostly, it’s the nails, though.
Her nails are painted screaming red, loud and blinding.
The same glossy shade as the dead woman’s, weirdly enough.
That doesn’t sit right with me.
They’re both staggering, too, clearly either drunk or high.
High, I’d guess, considering they both glance at the dangling body like two teenagers sneaking a naughty peek at some X-rated film they aren’t supposed to see.
It’s a struggle not to wince when they both burst into a laughing fit, nuzzling at each other like catnip-drunk felines.
Fuck.
Part of me wants to rip Ros away from him and send her right home.
Only, I haven’t seen her in a while.
Not since the last time my little girl Nell got mad at me and “ran away” to sulk with Ros until she felt like speaking to me again.
I’ve been too busy with my promotion to captain and—if I’m being honest with myself—avoiding painful memories associated with her sister.
Hell, for the longest time growing up, I thought of Ros asmybaby sister.
When a man does that, he doesn’t much like the idea of his baby sister dating Aleksander fucking Arrendell of all people.
She really couldn’t pick one of the nice, boring boys her own age?
