Page 117 of Twisted (Never After)

She looks fine, and Yasmin isn’t here either, so I turn around and walk back out, making my way through each of the rooms, my heart ratcheting higher into my throat with every step.

My hand goes to the pocket of my pants, and I pull out my staff, elongating it as I check the spaces, just in case. I can’t imagine anyone would be able to come in without beingletin, my security system is far too advanced, but I can’t shake off this feeling, and I’m not going to be foolish and walk through without a weapon.

She’s not in any of the rooms upstairs, so I make my way down the steps and head to my office, walking through the door and around to my desk, noticing there are papers on top when I didn’t leave them there.

My heart drops to the floor, panic suffusing every single pore of my body when I see what’s laid out.

Will of Yasmin Karam-Faraci.

I swing around and rush out of the room, now worried that she left of her own volition. I haven’t had time to explain how things have changed, how when I fell for her, I fell out of love with the idea of power, because she gives me everything I’ve been missing instead. I hit the entrance to the kitchen, my foot crunching on top of a small piece of green glazed clay.

What the hell?

My stomach twists as I look down at the ground and lift the sole of my shoe up, noticing pieces of a vase that’s usually in the corner of the hallway stuck beneath my foot.

I take a step farther into the room, the panic of thinking Yasmin left being replaced with something far more sinister when I see the vase is smashed into a hundred pieces on the floor. Drops of blood trail over the ground, and my mouth goes dry when I think about Yasmin lying somewhere, broken and bleeding.

Another step forward, and I see a phone, tossed haphazardly as though it flew from someone’s hand. I bend over and grab it, then twist and head back to my office, pulling up my computer, an unbearable agony mixing with the anger that someone thought they could come intomyhouse and hurtmy wife.

I bring up the security cameras and watch.

And when I see Ian smash her over the head, dragging her out to his car, bloodied and unconscious, fury races through my veins like an avalanche.

Chapter40

Julian

“Boss.”

My fingers grip the phone so tightly that it creaks from the pressure, and I breathe deeply, trying to keep calm even though my blood is pulsing with the need to find Ian and murder him slowly.

“Where is she?” I bite out.

Ian chuckles.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel helpless, lost to the demands of someone I foolishly trusted for years, never thinking that he would betray me. But I should know by now that people are fallible, and even the ones who I think will choose me still won’t put me above themselves.

“She’s fine. And it’s pathetic you care. Who have you turned into, Julian?”

“If youtouchher…” I pause, my throat swelling from the panic of not being able to see her, touch her, feel her.

I would rather light myself on fire than allow her to experience another ounce of pain because of my selfishness and greed.

“Oh,please. You’ve grown soft,” Ian hisses. “And the most disgusting part is that I saw it coming from a mile away. Knew it was happening from the second you chastised me like a child for calling the bitch what she is.”

I clench my jaw so tightly my mouth aches. “What do you want?”

“The lamp, obviously,” he drawls.

My brows draw down in confusion.

“I know she has it, and while I would have loved to stick around and search your house myself, time was of the essence. But if you want the girl, you need to give me the lamp. Simple.” I shake my head, because Yasmin having the lamp? Impossible.

Her phone vibrates on the table next to me, and I glance down as it lights up,Riyaflashing across the screen.

“What are you talking about? She doesn’t have the lamp. Why would she?”

“I know what I heard,” he says. “And I don’t care to hear your theories. They frustrate me. I’d hate to take it out on her. I have years of repressed aggression that you wouldn’t let me get out, just dying to be set free.”