Page 7

7

Milo

“ Y ou better wake Dario,” I observed.

“I threw a glass of water in his face. He’ll be here shortly.”

I smirked. While Kyril had accepted Dario’s version of events - much to my surprise - he sure as hell hadn’t forgiven him. I had a feeling that once we got Thea back, Dario might suffer a fatal accident.

The Italian had betrayed my angel, so he deserved all he got. Thea was sweet and perfect. If she’d been mine, there was no way I’d have believed anyone who told me otherwise.

My sympathy for him was non-existent. Whatever punishment Thea wanted to inflict on his sorry ass, I was down for. The more painful it was, the better. But that wasn’t important right now. All that mattered was rescuing my angel from the men who wanted to hurt her.

When Dario finally appeared, his eyes were red, his face haggard. Like he hadn’t slept at all. Guilt was a tough pill to swallow.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked Kyril. I figured he had a plan. Knowing him, he’d been contacting all his allies ever since we learned who had taken Thea. My fists clenched as I recalled the footage of Thea being carried away, slung over that bastard’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The van Torrance Asaro used to steal away my angel ended up at a small airfield 30 miles outside of Glasgow. The cameras around the airfield were easy enough to hack, and the van arrived there just before 2 AM. A flight to Palermo, Italy, left not long after.

“We rescue Thea.”

Landon nearly choked on his coffee. “What?” I ignored him, my focus on Kyril.

“Yes, I realize that, but we need a plan. I’ve done some digging. Francesco di Luca is dangerous. We can’t just walk onto his estate and ask for Thea. Assuming he’s taken her there.” Italy was a big country. Finding her would be like looking for a grain of rice in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Hang on, why are we talking about rescuing Thea? You do know she fucked me and Cass over, right?”

Kyril turned to Landon and glared, but to his credit, Lan didn’t back down.

“If you weren’t so busy wallowing in self-pity last night, you’d have heard Dario explain why there’s a sex tape now doing the rounds, and also why Thea was told to plant drugs in Cassian’s hotel room.” Landon shifted uncomfortably before throwing Dario a hateful look, which he didn’t see because he’d apparently fallen asleep.

“So Thea wasn’t trying to fuck us over?”

“No, you stupid fucking mudak .”

The tension left Lan’s body, and he slumped back against the cushions.

“She still loves me!” He grinned, apparently happy at the revelation his one true love wasn’t a scheming whore. Then he frowned. “Does Cassian know this? He was pretty fucking annoyed when his father arrived last night.”

Furious would be a better descriptor. It had taken Cass longer to trust Thea, so hearing how she’d been ordered to plant drugs in his hotel room had really messed with his head.

“His father’s taken his phone away, but he still has the burner phone. We should carry on messaging him the usual nonsense in the official group chat, so Lucian doesn’t suspect anything, but for everything else, use his other number and stick to Telegram. I heard from him this morning and asked him to call me, but he didn’t read my last message. He’s probably asleep.” Cassian needed to know what we’d learned, so once we had a plan, I’d contact him.

“OK, we can talk to him later,” Kyril said with a nod. There was a knock at the door just as Dario stirred and opened his mouth to say something.

“Yeah. I’ll upload some more dick picks and cat memes to the group chat. That should show Lucian it’s business as normal.”

“Get that, Lan.”

Landon huffed with annoyance. “Am I your house bitch now? Fuck off.”

“Open the door, dickheads!” Eden’s shrill voice made my head hurt. The girl talked way too much for my liking, but we needed her help.

Since Landon refused to move, I let Eden in. She flew past me like a miniature hurricane in a lilac sweater dress paired with fuchsia tights, her pink hair in braids.

“Christ, your outfit is giving me a migraine,” Lan complained, shielding his eyes with a groan.

Dario snorted from across the sofa, but we all ignored him. Unless he had useful information about Thea, the fucker was effectively dead to us.

“Fuck off, fuckboy.”

“Did you talk to Declan?” Kyril asked. My ears pricked up. So that’s why Eden was here. Of course. It all made sense now.

“Yeah, and he’s willing to help.” Eden looked sad for a moment. “I hope she’s OK. Do you think she’s OK?” Her eyes glittered with tears at the thought of what Thea was going through as we sat in our apartment shooting the shit.

“No, probably not,” I replied. The small amount of research I’d done on Torrance Asaro told me the man was a psychopath. Spending time with a man like that would be deeply unpleasant and probably lead to severe PTSD.

“Oh god!” Eden choked on a sob and dropped onto a chair.

“Milo!” Kyril hissed. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Did she not want an honest answer?” God, women were so confusing. They made my head hurt. Kyril rubbed his jaw and looked like he wanted to punch me in the head.

“No, Milo. She wanted you to make her feel better.” Oh .

Eden sniffed and wiped a tear away. “It’s OK. I can handle your brand of no-filter honesty. I’d rather that than have you treat me like a precious little princess.” From the way she scowled, I suspected she was thinking about her family when she said it.

“So I talked to Declan, yeah? He says he can’t get involved directly, as it would cause too many problems, but he can let us use his private jet and provide weapons and other logistics.”

“There is no ‘us’, Eden. I can’t let you be a part of this rescue mission. Thea would never forgive me if anything happened to you and, more importantly, Declan would kill me.”

“Well tough tits because I’m a part of this. She’s my friend and I don’t trust you assholes not to waste time arguing and waving your dicks at each other while Thea is tortured and hurt and…” She broke off in another sob. Since I felt bad for my earlier comment, I handed her a tissue.

“Thanks, Milo, you’re a good friend.” She smiled through her tears before blowing her nose on the tissue.

“Um, we’re not friends,” I felt compelled to point out.

“Yeah, you freak, we are.” She reached out and squeezed my knee, grinning at my look of horror. “Get over yourself. We all need more friends.”

“No, we fucking don’t,” Lan muttered, throwing me a sympathetic look.

“Can we skip the hair-braiding shit and get to the fucking point?” Dario snapped, deciding, finally, to contribute to the group chat. “Thea’s most likely in Francesco’s dungeon. We’ll need a lot of fucking firepower to get past the guards. The place has a fuck ton of security.”

“Just as well we have you, then, isn’t it?” Kyril said. “And if you give us false intel, I’ll make it my mission in life to kill you as slowly as possible.”

“This is exactly what I meant!” Eden threw her hands in the air in frustration. “Stop with the stupid testosterone bullshit and get your heads in the game!”

Kyril and Dario paused in their mutual stare-off and turned to look at the pink pixie.

“Do you have a plan, Eden?” Even I heard the sarcasm in Kyril’s voice, but Eden just grinned.

“No, but if we all stop arguing and put our heads together, I’m sure we can come up with one.”