Page 182 of Adored

Honestly, he didn’t like him. The man seemed…smarmy.

When Gamble put his arm on Poe’s back, warning him, he got the picture.

Poe was anything but honest.

“We’re going to live here and be happy,” he admitted. “We can’t wait to start our lives here as a couple.”

The older man smiled and clinked his glasses off of theirs again. When he kicked his back, he stopped a waiter, and grabbed three more, making Poe and Gamble kick theirs back too.

“Jolly good!” the forty-year-old man said. “This is beautiful land. Let’s toast your mother too,” he said, holding up his new glass as they did the same. “To the lovely Penelope, and her amazing charities that she ran.”

At his words, Poe had tears in his eyes.

“Here here,” he said, sipping his next glass of champagne.

They all did, only that was when they knew something was wrong.

Gamble got woozy.

REALLY.

WOOZY.

All around him, the room began spinning. There was no way he was getting drunk from a chugged glass of champagne unless…

Oh, shit.

The man had been holding the arm that he’d gotten when he shot the intruder that morning. A friend of Liam Seville might have been able to get the code from someone newly working there.

Oh, this was bad.

His body was going numb, and he couldn’t speak. He wasn’t sure what was in the champagne, but it was working on Poe too.

Seeing him waver, the man called over another guy, one of the waiters. When he arrived, he put Gamble’s arm over his shoulders.

“Yes, take him somewhere private where no one will hear him,” he said quietly, as Poe let the glass slip from his fingers.

He caught it.

“I’ll get you to a friend who will take good care of you, Poe. Oh, and in case you were wondering,” he admitted, “you were worth a few million alive.”

Poe was helpless as he watched Gamble being dragged away, as the waiter telling everyone he had too much to drink.

“Don’t worry, Poe, the drugs won’t last long. You’ve been a bad boy, and have something that my friend wants.”

Poe couldn’t move. His body was paralyzed.

He watched as Gamble was led away from him, and the edges of his vision went gray.

Oh, shit.

They’d been wrong.

Von Donore didn’t just send his goons here, but he’d managed to bribe someone who was a family friend. The scouting party wasn’t for tonight, late into the evening, it was for the party.

Now, they were fucked. There was no way Poe would survive this.

He just knew it.