Page 69

But something makes me stop.

I feel…cold walking into the house.

All the lights are off.

Every room is in complete darkness. There are no guards in the hall, no guards at the top of the stairs, and no servants in the kitchen when I pass. It’s as if I’ve come home at three in the morning, but even then, there would be a patrol moving quietly through the mansion.

My grip remains on my phone as I send a quick SOS to my driver.

Something is wrong.

“Mom?” I call as I hurry through the lounge and the study. “Dad?”

No one answers. There’s no one in any of the rooms, and my repeated calls for my parents and guards are met with complete silence.

I take the stairs two at a time as panic inside me rises. Where the hell is everyone? How can they all just up and vanish, disappearing like no one ever existed?

“Mom! Dad! Where are you?!”

My driver responds as expected with orders for me to get out of the house ASAP, and he’s put an alert in to the on-standby private guards. I should leave, but just as I make it to the end of the corridor and the thought occurs to get out, a sliver of light is visible peeking through the bottom of the door to my parents’ bedroom.

“Mom? Dad?” Forgoing knocking, I press on the handle and push it open, stepping inside. Relief hits like a tidal wave when I spot my mother kneeling on the floor in her nightdress.

“Mom! Oh, thank God. Where is everyone? I thought…”

I trail off as the full carnage of the scene before me comes into view.

Mom kneels on the floor surrounded by a puddle of blood that spreads out from the pale body of my father. He’s on the floor in front of her with his eyes open and his mouth twisted and gaping. Several stab wounds litter his bare chest, but they’re no longer bleeding.

I can’t speak. I can barely think.

I walk closer to my mother, terrified she’s in a similar state. Then she takes a rasping breath, and I jump out of my skin.

She rocks from one side to the other, and as I step closer, the glint of something in her hand draws my attention.

It’s a bloodied knife.

27

ROMAN

“You wanted to see me?” Keeping my voice calm in front of my father is a challenge. Having been wrapped up in a romantic tryst with Jasmine only a few hours ago, being dragged back here is worse than being dunked into a bath of ice water.

Leaving her gets more and more difficult each time, but this is different. Now I know she likes me.Reallylikes me. And I like her.

Our desperate business agreement to save our families is blooming into something better than I ever could have imagined, so my father better have one hell of a good reason for demanding me back here like the world is ending.

He stands behind his desk beside the window, staring out over the vast gardens blanketed in darkness. The only visible lights gleam from the night patrol guards as they walk the perimeter at random intervals. With a glass in hand and his brow pulled low, I don’t need words to tell me how serious this is.

Something’s happened.

Something big.

“Sit,” Santino says, despite not looking at me.

“What’s wrong?” I refrain from sitting. Something about his tone rings an alarm bell in my head, and sitting leaves me vulnerable. I’m not taking any chances. “When you called, it sounded urgent.”

“When you first announced your engagement to Jasmine Falzone, I felt betrayed.” Santino drinks slowly. “But I understood your reasoning. She’s a naive, stupid little girl, and trapping her into a marriage is a clever way of locking down that family.”