AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There’s a lot of moral gray area between shutting down the most horrifying rackets since he took over his family and trying to respect the woman who tied him up.
“Princess,” he hisses, and I glance his way to find Cupcake circling back up and around his throat.
“Answer my question about what you know,” I say.
Sheer incredulity snaps across his face.
I relax as Cupcake continues toward Rowan’s other shoulder, rallying for another go round. “You can either answer my question, or take a chance with fate. If Cupcake does fancy strangling you—” I lean in close. “—I will make sure your obituary lists every detail of your demise and your tombstone’s cause of death says choked by a Cupcake.”
His jaw locks. A muscle ticks in his cheek. “All I know is the people responsible for my parents’ disappearance call themselves the Maxim Project.”
I lift my hand, setting it near Cupcake’s head to guide her back up my arm. “I already know the name they’re going by. Assuming they both left us with a calling card, that’s all I’ve got. Anything else?”
He gives his head one firm shake. “I didn’t realize other families were involved before now since I’ve found no mention of this Maxim Project anywhere. It’s been three months and a lot of cold tracks. I don’t think my parents could have vanished so completely if they’d done so willingly. All I’ve got is the card, too.”
Sighing, I rest my back against his chest and let Cupcake slip over my shoulder, between my breasts, and into my lap. I mutter a curse and stare at the dimmed lights of my chandelier. “So we’re in the same place, the only information we have comes from the—” I swear. “—card they left when they took our parents. We only know what they want us to. And since they want us to know their name, this entire scenario screams distraction. We just don’t know from what.”
Rowan’s throat clears, so I tip my head back to look at his profile. He grumbles, “Great. Glad we’ve cleared this up. Could you get off me now?”
“Why? I’m not that heavy, am I?”
“Obviously not.”
I gasp, horrified. “Are you calling me small?”
He winces. “No.”
My lip trembles. “You’re thinking I’m tiny, aren’t you? You’re thinking how easy it would be to pick me up and toss me around—if only you weren’t tied up.”
“I am not—”
I let my eyes widen as Cupcake spills onto the floor, slithering toward her open enclosure. Kneeling on Rowan’s thighs, I frame his cheeks with my hands. “You’re thinking that I’m—I’m trunk-sized. If I were a car, I’d be a moped! You have no idea how in the world a little thing like me overpowered you, and it’s infuriating.” I sniffle. “Well, I’ll have you know I’m five feet, eight inches of pure muscle. Just because you’re built like a skyscraper doesn’t mean you have any right to look down on the houses.”
His face screams lost confusion. “What in the—” He curses. “—are you talking about?”
I settle a hand against my chest. “It’s not my fault I’m surrounded by giants. I’m above average. At least a two-story apartment.” I make my voice pitch as I feebly shake him. “Stop calling me a cottage!”
Pain creases his brows, forming a deep valley in the center of his forehead. “Listen, kid—”
“Kid!” I shriek.
“Sorry. I did not mean that,” he hisses.
I sniff, cupping my hands to my mouth. Obviously devastated.
He swallows, hard. “It is way too late for this. If you wanted to talk to me about a common enemy, we could have arranged a meeting.”
My arms cross as I drop all my pitiful airs off a roof. “Where’s your sense of adventure, skyscraper man?”
“Skyscraper man…?” Another thread of Rowan’s will to live unravels at the seams. It looks so pretty as it floats gracelessly to the ground at my feet.
“I said what I said.”
“Are you on drugs?”
“Not illegal ones.”
His mouth forms a word that he chooses not to say, opting instead for, “What does that mean?”
