Chapter 32 Milosh
32 MILOSH
I open the door, bag of groceries in hand, and am greeted by a Rapunzel-looking Daphne.
‘Whoa.’ She swings the pan in her hand and I duck just in time for it to miss as realization dawns on her.
‘Oh my gosh, Milo! I’m so sorry, did I hit you?’
‘No, you just missed. Why do you have a pan in your hand?’ But I don’t need her to reply because as I walk into the kitchen I get my answer.
‘What the hell happened?’ I turn around and she has the most bored, unimpressed look on her face.
‘He got in while I was in the shower so I couldn’t hear him. When I came downstairs I realized he was here and attacked him. He tried to hurt me but didn’t do much damage.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, I was just waiting for you so we could question him together.’
I drop the bag of groceries on the counter and walk over to the intruder, who’s lying on the floor, bound and bloody, one side of his face swelling up.
‘You did this?’ I turn back to look at Daphne, who starts nodding with a satisfied smile on her face. I breathe out a laugh, shaking my head. ‘Well done, baby, good job.’
‘Thank you!’
‘Did you check him for ID?’
‘Yeah, as soon as I tied him up.’ She walks out of the room, returning only seconds later with a wallet in her hand. ‘His name is Ryan Moore. Oh, and…’ She walks past me, over to Ryan, and pulls down his polo neck.
I spot the all-too-familiar Daveeno tattoo and nod. I pull out one of the chairs by the dining table and haul him up onto it, fixing the curtain ties so they bind him to the chair too, leaving him nowhere to go when he wakes up.
I stand up and turn to face Daphne who still has the pan in her hand. ‘Is that what you used on him?’
‘This and the poker, yeah.’ Her eyes dip sensually as she walks over to me. ‘Turns out those training sessions really paid off. You’re a good teacher, Mr Petrov.’
‘No, baby, this was all you.’ Using my pointer finger and thumb I take her chin and lift her face to mine, pressing a lingering kiss to her mouth. ‘And apparently violence suits you, because you look beautiful today, by the way.’
Her lips tip up. ‘Thank you, Milo… I think.’
‘Hmm.’ I run my thumb over her bottom lip, revelling in the moment a second longer before I focus on the task at hand. ‘Since you beat him up, you wanna question him?’
‘Sure. You’re still going to be here, though?’
‘Of course.’
I hesitantly pull away from her and go and fish out a bowl.
After I find one, I fill it with cold water, add some ice cubes, carry it over to Ryan, and tip it over his head.
‘Wake up, asshole,’ I say coldly, my tone dry.
He splutters awake almost instantly and starts fighting the restraints. When he realizes he’s not going anywhere he calms down a little and I take a chair and sit down.
Pulling out my knife, I play with it lazily as I look back to Daphne.
‘Go for it, Miss Green.’
She smiles at Ryan, slowly making her way over. ‘Hi, Ryan. I would introduce myself but I have a feeling you already know who I am so let’s just cut to the chase, yes?’
She gives him a moment to respond, but when he doesn’t, she continues.
‘Why are you here, Mr Moore? What do you want?’
‘I want you, Daphne.’ He smirks.
‘Wrong answer.’ She treads on his foot and he yelps out in pain. ‘Now, let’s try again, shall we? How did you know we were here?’
‘Made an educated guess,’ he spits.
Daphne’s jaw clenches as her nostrils flare slightly before she looks over to me. ‘Pass me your knife, please.’
‘Baby.’
‘Give me the knife, Milosh.’
I think that might just be the sexiest thing that’s ever come out of her mouth.
I hand her the knife without a second thought and sit back, highly turned on by this side of her.
‘Ryan, darling, I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them. Failure to do so will result in me injuring you further. If you then continue to withhold the answers, I’ll have to get my boyfriend involved. And I assure you, Mr Moore… you really don’t want that.’
I know I should be focused right now but when she called me her boyfriend a warm rush flooded through my body.
This is the first time she’s called me that without it being fake and I can’t help but smile. Ryan just happens to look over at me at this exact moment and his face turns an ugly greenish grey.
It dawns on me that he thinks I’m smiling at the possibility of hurting him and not because the sweetest girl just named me her boyfriend, so I probably look like an absolute psychopath to him.
Good.
‘How did you get into the house?’ Daphne probes.
‘With a key.’
‘Where did you get the key?’
‘At your other house.’
She stills. ‘Were you one of the men that ransacked my house?’
He gives her a creepy smile. ‘Yeah, that little cleaner of yours got a nasty tongue on her. But don’t worry, I shut her up in my own way.’
Daphne looks horrified before wiping the smirk off his face with a hefty punch to the jaw.
‘Ow, ow, ow!’ She shakes her hand. ‘I’ve never done that without a boxing glove on before.’
‘You okay?’ I check.
‘Hmm, aside from the pain it felt quite good actually.’
So, so sexy.
‘That hurt, you b—’
‘I suggest you do not finish that sentence, Ryan,’ I bite out.
She turns back to look at him. ‘What did you want from this house?’
He stays quiet for a moment so Daphne takes my knife and starts lightly tracing the tip down his leg. He still keeps quiet so she increases the pressure until she sees beads of blood collecting. ‘What did you want?’ she repeats. Again he stays quiet, so she takes a rougher approach.
Moving to his arm, she runs the knife along it from shoulder to finger, slicing. Not so deep he’d bleed out, but deep enough to leave a scar.
Ryan howls. Literally howls, like a wolf. It’s actually quite disturbing.
‘What did you want?’ she repeats, raising her voice slightly.
‘The necklace,’ he spits. ‘I came to get the necklace.’
‘What are you talking about? I don’t have a necklace.’
‘The necklace with the locket. We know it has the formula inside but we don’t know where it is. We tore your house completely apart and still couldn’t find it so we concluded that you must have it.’
‘You tore my house apart for the necklace?’
‘Yeah, now can you please stop hurting me?’
‘No.’ She looks at me, then back to Ryan. ‘Why did they take all the staff and my father?’
‘As collateral. You were the missing piece of the puzzle but we knew we couldn’t get to you because of your guard dog over here.’ He tips his head in my direction.
‘What do you mean, I was the missing piece?’
‘Your dad cares about your staff, but not as much as he cares about you. Even when we threatened to hurt them he wouldn’t give up the location of the necklace, but if we had you and threatened to hurt you, he would.’
‘So did you come here looking for me or the necklace?’
‘Either or. Ideally, I’d get the necklace off you then leave but if you didn’t have it I’d take you instead and we’d threaten your dad by hurting you.’
‘But I don’t have the necklace, I don’t even know where it is.’
‘Well, that’s too bad, because George isn’t telling us the formula and if management does not have the formula in three days they’re gonna kill him and all your other house friends.’
Daphne rears back, dropping the knife to the table.
‘Where are they all being held?’ I jump in, trying to take some pressure off her.
‘I don’t know the current location. They were just about to move them when I was leaving.’
‘Who’s on the management board?’
‘I’m not one of the people who know their identity.’
‘If you got Daphne or the necklace, where would you bring them once you got back?’
‘Her house. There’s gonna be a team waiting for me in a few days to take her or the necklace.’
I don’t have any more questions and Daphne looks like she’s a second away from throwing up, so I rise to my feet, sweeping the pan from the counter, and walk towards Ryan.
‘Thank you for your honesty.’ I strike the pan against the less swollen side of his face, and within seconds he’s out cold.
Turning around, I face Daphne. ‘Your father is alive, so I need you to take this conversation as a win.’
‘How can I take it as a win when they’ll kill him in two days if they don’t get the necklace?’
‘Do you remember what the necklace looks like?’
‘Of course.’
‘If I could get a guy to draw it, do you think you’d be able to explain it to him well?’
‘Yeah…?’
‘Okay, great, then I have a plan. I’m gonna call Major Davis who’s in charge of this task force and explain the situation to him. He’ll get a team to come take care of him.’ I point to Ryan. ‘They bypass the cops so you won’t need to do any unnecessary questioning. I just need to give them a report of what happened.’
‘But we’re in France?’
‘I was in America when I got called in for this. We work with Interpol.’
‘Oh, okay.’
‘When someone comes to take him I’ll ask for a sketch artist as well and you’ll describe the necklace to them. My major will have a replica made and in a few days will send someone to your house to hand over the ‘necklace’. They’ll trail the men and follow them to wherever all the hostages are, make an assessment on how to proceed, and we’ll go from there.’
Daphne looks at me blankly as she processes my plan, before nodding a second later.
‘Okay, that’s a good idea.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, my father will be fine. Everyone will be fine and this will all be over soon.’ She gives me a small smile. ‘This is a good idea. It’s gonna work.’
She continues to repeat those words under her breath as she walks over to the sink and starts scrubbing her hands. I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist.
‘Everyone will be fine and this will all be over soon,’ I echo, trying to provide reassurance. She melts into me.
‘That was really hot, by the way,’ I drawl against her neck. ‘You with that knife?’
‘Milosh!’ She twists the tap closed and turns to look at me, eyes wide. ‘I feel like you’re trying to make me into a psychopath.’
‘Well, that depends.’ I lean in closer. ‘Is it working?’
‘A little bit, yeah.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
She breathes out a stifled laugh and nods twice.
My eyes drop to her parted mouth and I cup a hand around her jaw and brush my thumb across her bottom lip. ‘Good,’ I reply softly.
‘You know, I think I’m beginning to like boyfriend Milo.’
‘Good, because he’s here to stay.’
I step away and pull the burner phone I just bought out of my pocket, the number I need to call already memorized. But before I reach the doorway I turn back, one last thought needing to be spoken. ‘Let’s watch Tangled tonight.’