Page 46 of King of Malice

I stare down at the phone, trying to understand. The woman I’ve been holding in my arms is the one who has been trying to track Cadence?

I start playing back several things Ava has told me. Foster care. A friend she’s worried about.

A snarl rips from my lips. She’s been lying to me.

Ava sits up, clutching the covers to her chest, gripping them tightly in her hands. Her eyes are wide and her face has gone deathly pale.

My cum is leaking out of her right now. My hand balls into a fist at my side and I see her wince, curling into herself.

Even now, I force myself to relax. I would never hurt her.

“I was going to tell you,” she whispers.

But I ignore her, and answer Trent instead. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” he lets out a long breath. “A woman has come forward who wants to participate in The Hunt. We’ve set it up for tomorrow night.”

“That fast?” Normally, I carefully vet every detail of The Hunt. When done right, it’s an art and a complete rewiring for the women who join. Synapsis pathways form, once done, the brain uses them over and over. But fear, it can reshape these pathways like no other emotion.

The Hunt is an opportunity for them to meaningfully change destructive patterns of behavior.

But there is too much that can go wrong, which is why I handle it myself. In this moment, I don’t give a shit. Not one.

“We have several contestants who’ve yet to win, and are eager for another chance, which made the vetting very quick. They’ve all wired funds already.”

My jaw clenches.

The Hunt brings in a sizable profit, but it isn’t about the money.

It’s also very illegal, which is why we keep it quiet.

And right now, it’s a distraction I don’t need. Between Ava, my father, and the selling of the casinos, I’m a little busy.

“We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” I grit out and thenhang up the phone.

Ava is looking up at me with large, frightened eyes and it’s almost enough that I want to excuse what’s she’s done. Almost.

My father has no love. He is a snake who would bite anything and anyone to get what he wants.

To be with a woman who would betray me…stay in my home under false pretenses… My shoulders stiffen as I glare down at her. “I have a new nickname for you, Ava. Judas.”

She shakes her head wildly, her blonde hair, swinging over her back. “No. Dimitri, please.” Her voice sounds so broken, it eats at me. From the first moment I saw her, something inside me understood she was mine.

That piece of me rebels now. It wants to protect. I push it back down.

“I let you into my home, to care for my daughter, and the entire time you were here, you’ve been deceiving me.”

“I didn’t know you,” she cries. “All I knew was that the only family I have ever had was missing and that I would do anything to get her back.”

Those words hit me. Is that not what I’ve been doing for my sisters?

Which is why Ava makes sense. It was her love and her loyalty that drove her. But also… “You were here to betray me, use me, and I left you with the most precious person to me in the world. My daughter.”

“I wasn’t here to betray you,” she cries, guilt all over her face. “I just wanted to know what happened to Cadence. Find her. She’s the closest thing to a sister I have.”

A sob breaks from her mouth as she pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and curling into a small ball.

But I pick up her clothes, tossing them on the bed next to her. “I think it’s best that you sleep in your room.”