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“Little girl, Daddy won’t be happy until you fucking move your ass, stay quiet, and keep up with him. Daddy will kill the assholes for you.”
“Good.”
Then she wraps her arms around me.
“Thank you for coming for me, Orion.”
“They would have had to kill me to stop me.” My words are meant to be just something with which to soothe her, but I mean them to my fucking core.
Shock rocks me. I mean them. And not just because I wanted to stop Dakota from suffering what Fina did.
I mean them because I’m not sure I could survive a world where Dakota wasn’t in it.
That doesn’t mean there’s an “us.” Or will be. But knowing she’s out there, happy, that’s all I need.
“We have to go.”
“O-okay.”
The people who took her have been partying, and now all I can hear is music. I lead Dakota carefully from the cellar and past the wine room. I hold a finger to my lips and ease open the door with the cameras and recording equipment inside.
Security cameras are up and running. I take my time disabling them. “Dakota, can you use a gun?”
“No.”
I pull my custom Kimber, check it, then hand it to her. “I don’t anticipate anyone coming down here, but if they do, give me the word. If they see you, tell them to freeze, and then get the fuck out of the way.”
“Orion, I don’t?—”
“I don’t want to alert anyone. They should all be passed out now. I slipped enough of Mercer’s drugs into their booze that a few sips should have done the job. Make them loopy as fuck, knock them out. I did it fast, over at the bar when they weren’t paying attention. Nobody saw me.”
I keep casting small looks her way and she’s still shaking. Christ, she’s likely to hit either the ceiling or the floor if she pulls that trigger.
So I keep talking to calm her.
“Mercer’s someone I knew from my old life. Likes to use poisons, drugs. Cold as fuck, except around my sister.”
The gun in her hand jerks.
The thing with this bank of cameras is if there’s an alarm system attached, then I don’t want to trigger it. That kind of shit doesn’t bother me when it’s all about what’s going on in the rooms, but when they’ve got armed security, water security, and the outside cameras on? I’m betting it’s paranoia central
“Didn’t know I had family, did you? I didn’t hatch from hell, Dakota.” I’m pulling out some old Jaxson right now, the fuck who made light of everything. It throws her off-balance, and that pushes her back to something like stable.
“You have a sister?”
“Two. One’s in an experimental trial for traumatic injuries in Switzerland. That’s Elise. She’s the youngest. Was in a bad car accident a few years back.” My throat tightens, but I can’t dwell on what else happened that night. Not now. “Hopefully, she’ll be able to walk again, maybe run. And Ivy, my other sister, married Mercer.”
Got it. The row of cameras quietly goes blank. It should buy us some time. All I need is to get her out of this fucking mansion, off the grounds, and then we just need to make it to a small cove beach where Malone’s watching from the water. I’m hoping like hell she can swim, but he can so he’ll just have to get her if something happens to me.
“You have sisters. I bet they’re nice.”
“They are. They’re not like me.” I take the gun from her and she grips it tight for a moment before she releases it. “I’m not letting a thing happen to you, baby girl. I should have been there watching.”
“I-it’s okay.”
“It isn’t. I had to leave town for a few hours. But I’m here now.”
She looks up at me. Her chin wobbles and she’s so beautiful, my heart contracts as my gut clenches. “Don’t let them touch me again, Orion.”
