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“Ah,” the waitress smiles, her gaze flitting to Jasper. “So will you two be staying for lunch?”
“No,” Jasper answers for me. “Laila and I were just leaving.”
The moment the waitress clears out of the booth, Jasper turns to me with a wolfish grin. “Time for me to get you out of here.”
“What do you want with me, Jasper?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Come on.” He presses his gun against my back as I stand, nudging me forward. “If you try to ask for help, I’ll make a widower out of Arsen.”
Maybe he doesn’t know my security detail is out front. If I can get to the sidewalk, Vasily will see me. Someone will rescue me.
But as I make a right towards the front door, Jasper hisses in my ear. “I should shoot you for that alone. Back door, bitch.”
My chances of rescue narrow considerably as he pushes me across the narrow alley and into the muddy-brown building on the other side. The entrance has been propped open with a rock, but Jasper kicks it free once we’re inside.
The door clangs shut.
Darkness collapses over us.
As we stumble down a hallway, my eyes begin to adjust. Narrow slits of light pierce through the few windows high in the ceiling that aren’t boarded over or blackened with decades of dirt. The floor is littered with old newspapers, dust, and debris from the building literally rotting away around us.
“Why am I here?” My voice echoes in the empty space.
“To pay your dues.” The voice that answers isn’t Jasper’s. It comes from deeper in the building, and even through the rasp, I recognize it.
It can’t be.
“Where is the baby?” he snarls. “She was supposed to bring the brat.”
I thank every god I can name that I left Nina at home.
Jasper shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. She’s enough.”
Slowly, my father steps out of the gloom. He smirks as our eyes meet. “True. He’ll come for her.”
49
LAILA
“You can’t do this.”
But even as I say it, I know he can. He will.
Whatever was left of my father has been hollowed out by greed and self-preservation. He’ll throw anyone into the fire to save himself—even his own daughter.
My father’s tongue snakes over his cracked lips. “You did this to us, Laila. If you hadn’t kicked me out of your life?—”
“You left! It was your choice!” My voice is already hoarse with a wasted argument. “You abandoned me and Mom when we needed you most.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not this sob story again.”
I shake my head, anger heating my skin bright pink. “I don’t know what Mom saw in you. I don’t know why she would waste her love on a man so disgusting.”
Charles’s eyes mist over. He looks down for a moment, and I’m hoping I’ve hit a sore spot. One that will activate whatever smidgeon of conscience he might have left.
“Your mother wanted a fairytale romance, so of course she was disappointed.” He raises his eyes to me. “But she saw me more clearly than anyone else ever?—”
“You’re a heartless monster, and you always have been,” I spit, refusing to let him lie to me or himself for another second.
