Page 3 of Gilded

When she’s within reach, Zeiger grabs her hand and pulls her in. “Why aren’t you wearing the bathing suit I bought you?”

“It’s in the wash.” Her words are both defiant and sheepish.

“Where is your ring?”

“I didn’t want the pool water to ruin it.”

“Oh, bella,” Zeiger says with a silly-little-girl tone, then brings his hand around in a flash, backhanding the girl across her face so hard, she spins before falling to her knees with a cry. Her hat flies into the pool. Her sunglasses skitter across the deck toward the bar.

No one moves. No one. The woman stays frozen on the ground. The guards could be statues. I’m unfazed. If a woman plays with these kinds of men, they suffer these kinds of consequences.

"You know better,” Zeiger bites. “Why do you do this? I was going to introduce you to someone.”

The woman slowly gets to her feet, and when she turns to face us, she’s bleeding from her knees, her cheek and her lip. With no hat or sunglasses, her face is exposed, and she’s not just a diamond in the rough. She’s the fucking crown jewel.

She’s also pissed. Despite her gaze holding on the ground in submission, her lips are pursed, jaw tight, hands clenched, posture coiled. She’s like a cobra ready to strike. I half expect her to bite Soren in the ass, and damn, I’d pay to see that.

“Go clean yourself up,” Zeiger says, dismissing her with a rude gesture. “Then change and come back out. With your ring. If I ever see it off your hand again, I’ll cut off that finger so you have a legitimate reason for not wearing it.”

She doesn’t look up before she turns and starts toward the house.

“Women,” Zeiger says, watching her limp away.

“You like them young,” I say as she stops to pick up her sunglasses.

“She’s too pure for me, but she comes with fringe benefits.”

“What kind of benefits?”

“A billion a year and a ticket into the same elite New York social club that’s given Hugo so much power.”

If she’s that wealthy and well-connected, I should know her. I scan my memory, trying to fit her into a known slot but can’t.

“Where did you get her?”

“She’s Hugo’s daughter.”

My mind shoots off the rails. Daughter? He has a fucking daughter ?

I have to clench my teeth to keep my jaw from hitting the deck.

How did I miss this? How did I miss this for twenty fucking years after knowing every other trivial bit of information about the motherfucker?

I remind myself this is good. This is exactly why I needed to get close, to see where I have information gaps like this one. And now that I know, I immediately start scheming ways to use her against her father.

“That’s news to me. How old is she?”

“Twenty-one next month. He doesn’t claim her in public. She rarely leaves the island and always has a security crew around her when she does. She’s the face of Hugo’s charity but works under a different name.”

My mind scans the information associated with Tarik’s charity, and while her face doesn’t resonate, a name does. “Eros?”

Zeiger looks at me. “Yes. Malia Eros.”

“Don’t look so surprised,” I tell him, as if I wasn’t just searching for her identity. “I do extensive research on people I consider for partnerships too.”

Zeiger inclines his head, accepting the explanation.

I don’t know who her mother might be. While Tarik was married once, Malia could be the child of any number of women. Still, it’s unfathomable how he’s kept her a secret for so long.

“I assumed the charity was a cover for smurfing,” I say.

“It is,” Soren says, confirming their money-laundering scheme.

“But she uses some of it for real charity work, so we look legit. No one pries open pockets like her. The gala guests practically beg her to take their money, and she’s a media princess, traveling to orphanages and shelters here and overseas.

“The foundation has elevated Hugo’s public profile. Made him powerful and influential friends. And it was all her idea. She spearheaded the charity pitch when she was just sixteen. Takes after her father that way, I guess.”

Of course she does. Good to know. She’s officially on the list of people I will destroy.

“Once she’s mine, so is the money she brings in,” Zeiger says. “As well as the contacts and the power they include.”

“Why would Hugo give away the goose that lays the golden egg?”

“Loyalty,” he says. “He promised her to me when she was ten.”

Well, that’s disgusting. “What did you have to do to win that prize?”

“I’ve eliminated his toughest competition over the years. It was a good deal. He wouldn’t be where he is if I hadn’t cleared the path for him.”

This is even better than I expected—access to Tarik, his business partner, and his daughter, all toiling in the muck together.

“We’re getting married the day after her birthday.”

I scan Zeiger’s fifty-six-year-old face and body, both of which carry at least another decade. Trafficking mafia follow many of the mores of the Italian Mafia. Giving a daughter away to a business partner as payment for loyalty or to merge business interests is not uncommon.

“He approves of you hitting her?”

“She’s mine now. As long as I don’t fuck her until she’s twenty-one, he stays out of it.”

“Why twenty-one?”

“He needs her alive on her birthday, and I’ve been known to take rough sex play a little too far. But I’m second-guessing the whole thing.”

Needs her alive? I want to dig into that, but it feels too invasive, so I let it go.

“Hugo’s spoiled her,” Zeiger says, “and she’s got the will of a bull. If it weren’t for the money, I’d just get rid of her. The last thing I want to do is teach her how to fuck properly. She’s a mouthy, disobedient cunt and needs to be broken.”

Malia steps out of the house again, this time in a bikini so minimal, it leaves little to the imagination. It also exposes old bruises on her ribs.

No hat, sunglasses in her hand, she stops ten feet from us, gaze lowered. And she’s fucking rock-star gorgeous. The ring she’s put on her left hand is a huge, pink, emerald-cut solitaire that must have cost close to a million.

“Now, that is perfect.” Zeiger waves her toward him. When she’s close enough, he grips her waist and hauls her into his lap. She holds herself away with her hands against his chest.

Zeiger grabs her ass before pushing her off his lap, then slaps one perfectly round butt cheek, pushing her a step forward and leaving a handprint on her skin. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Get in.”

She starts around the pool. “I’ll just sit over?—”

“I said, get in .” His voice drops into menacing territory and stops Malia’s steps. “I’m sick of having to tell you everything twice. I want to see that body of yours wet and slippery.”

I’m all for a great view of a gorgeous woman, but her youth and beauty paired with his age and repulsiveness feels like pairing a Domaine d’Auvenayburgundy with greasy fast food.

She turns, wanders down the steps, and disappears beneath the water. When she pops back up, her killer body is glistening with water, her hair a dark fall down her back. I can see the appeal.

Instead of venturing deeper, she sits on the steps and replaces her sunglasses.

“Go on,” Zeiger says. “Your eavesdropping days are over. Go to the deep end.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Use a float.”

She wraps a pool noodle around herself but keeps her hands on the pool edge to creep toward the deep end.

I’m not normally an impulsive man. I watch. I research. I plan. But this is an unbeatable opportunity to steal even more from Tarik than I realized he had to take—his naive daughter, his coveted business, and his wicked life. A trifecta if ever there was one.

And if I play it right, his precious virgin could give me the very information I need to take her father down.

I look at Zeiger and make a bold move. “I’ll train her to your liking if you guarantee me that partnership.”