5. duca
Ididn’t understand what was going on.
The girl was so gorgeous I could barely breathe when I looked at her, and my body had reacted without any conscious decision on my part. I’d seen her and wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything, the tug of her too strong for me to fight. The dance toward each other through the crowd... The feeling that we might never find each other... The moment when I finally wrapped my arms around her...
Look, I’m not a romantic. I’ve never been the type of guy who sees a girl and falls in love with her at first sight, and I’m definitely not the good guy in any fairy tale. I’ve seen too much life for that. I’ve shot too many men and saved too many questionable lives.
But the girl with the green eyes drove her fingers right into my body and wrapped them around my heart. I couldn’t think of a better way to explain it. I’d become a body without a working mind. A libido without any rationale behind it.
I wanted her with every cell I owned.
And when someone grabbed her and took her away from me, it made me want her even more.
I started after them, my strides sure and my eyes on the girl. Something was wrong. She looked panicked, like she didn’t know who’d grabbed her or what they wanted. And that panic was all I needed to see. I didn’t know her name or where she’d come from. I hadn’t even heard her voice yet. But I knew that I needed to get to her and protect her from the man who had her.
If only so I could have her back myself.
Then someone grabbed me from behind, nearly pulling me off my feet as they jerked me back.
I spun around, yanking my shoulders out of their grip, and had my hand on the gun under my jacket before I bothered to look up. The man who’d grabbed me was enormous. Bigger even than Barney, though a moment later he seemed to somehow... shrink. Like the size had been a figment of my imagination. He was dark as the devil and twice as beautiful—which I had never thought of any man before—and he looked more dangerous than anyone I’d ever met.
A second later, that faded as well.
I blinked, wondering what the hell was wrong with my eyes, and then remembered my anger. They had the girl I wanted and now they were keeping me from her.
“What’s your problem?” I growled, trying and failing to keep my tone polite.
“You are. Leave the girl alone.”
Right. A man of few words.
“We were just dancing.”
He shoved me back several steps, and it turned out his strength was also bigger than it should have been. I stepped back up to him like he hadn’t pushed me, fury roaring through my veins. No one touched me when I wasn’t expecting it, and you didn’t shove me unless you were specifically looking for a fight. Everyone in New York knew that.
Fuck, people outside of New York knew that.
“Are we going to have a problem here? Because I know the man hosting this party, and I’m not sure he’ll approve of someone assaulting one of his guests.”
Instead of backing off, the guy leaned so far forward I could feel the heat coming off his skin.
“Find someone else to dance with. This is your only warning.”
He disappeared before I could answer and I looked around, trying to get my bearings again. The girl with the green eyes had disappeared, no doubt thanks to the man who’d grabbed her, and the devil who’d attacked me was nowhere to be found. Weird. He was tall enough he should have been towering over everyone else in the room.
But he’d vanished like smoke in the wind.
I put that behind me—partially because I didn’t know what to make of it—and headed toward the other side of the room, where I’d last seen the girl. There was a door here, and I was guessing that was where they’d taken her. Whoever ‘they’ were.
No, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I found them. Those men were markedly bigger than I was, and definitely stronger. But I also had three guns on me, and I knew how to use them. Even if I was just threatening.
I pushed and shoved my way through the rest of the dancers, pulling couples apart when they wouldn’t get out of my way, and finally got into the crowds of people standing around and watching, or drinking. I didn’t know where Barney had gone—I’d lost him when I started talking to Antony—but made a note to find him immediately. He’d already demonstrated his usefulness when getting through crowds.
I wondered if he was also stronger than the men who’d taken the girl.
The thought had me glancing around the crowded room again, but I didn’t see my friend and didn’t want to take the time to find him. God only knew what those guys were doing to the beautiful girl. I wasn’t going to risk leaving her alone with them for too long.
Was I sure they meant her harm? Or that they were actually strangers to her?
No. But I had a protective instinct that ran through me like steel, and something about her had called out to it. I might not know who she was but as far as I was concerned, she was under my protection. Which meant I was going to find her or die trying.
Stupid? Yes.
Still true? Absolutely.
I got to the door I wanted and slipped through it, then paused on the other side to look right and left. The place was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree—excuse the reference—but I didn’t see anyone on either side of me. Which way would they have taken her? Going right would lead me deeper into the house, while left would head toward the front door.
I chose right. Whoever those guys were, I didn’t think they’d taken her outside. And my instincts were telling me their strange appearance—that feeling that they were bigger than they were—was connected to the otherworldly beauty of Antony Angelis. Look, you don’t run into people who get your hackles up in the same party without assuming they’re somehow related to each other.
Antony had come to town with two sons and a daughter.
Two giants had interfered when I was dancing with the girl, and both had appeared to be larger than normal humans.
If they were Angelis, they belonged in this house. So this house was where I’d search.
I tried the first door I came across, but it led to some sort of study. Nothing new to see here. Large desk, too many books. The next room was a bathroom. Also gorgeous, but boring. I saw two more bedrooms, a door to the kitchen, and a door that led to nothing but stairs.
And then I opened a door to a room that looked completely empty.
Given how opulent the rest of the house was, this seemed distinctly wrong.
I stepped into the room and closed the door quietly behind me, my eyes on the shadows in the corners. Could this room really be empty? That didn’t make any sense. On the top floor, sure, there might be rooms they weren’t using. But down here on the main floor, next to other rooms that were fully decorated?
No. I’d been in a lot of big houses and I knew how their owners operated. You didn’t leave a room in an important area of the house undecorated and unused.
When the door slipped shut, I expected the room to fall into darkness. I couldn’t see any lamps in here, and there weren’t any windows. No light slipping in from the garden or street outside. And yet the room was still alight with a soft golden glow, coming from... I looked up. Was it coming from the ceiling? But there was nothing up there. I glanced down at the floor, thinking there might be some sort of subterranean lighting, but there was nothing there either.
What the hell? How were they pulling that off? It looked like there was a spotlight shining right into the center of the room, only it didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere.
Then the light flashed and sort of chimed, and a woman was standing there. Not just any woman, but a gorgeous one. Her bright red hair was curled and coifed so that it hung in waves, not a strand out of place. She was wearing some sort of beret and a skirt suit that fit her entirely too well. Stockings and high heels and a face that would have knocked you dead, it was so gorgeous.
She looked like she’d stepped right out of one of those noir films Brooks was always watching.
Except she hadn’t. She’d appeared out of thin air in an empty room in a mansion owned by men who didn’t seem human.
And then I saw something else. She was throwing a shadow on the wall behind her—a trick of the spotlight, I thought—only that shadow didn’t look anything like the woman herself.
Because the shadow had enormous wings arching up behind it.
My heart froze and I tore my gaze from the shadow, looking for the woman again. What the fuck was going on here? A woman appears out of thin air sporting either an outfit from the Fifties or a pair of wings?
But I couldn’t find her. I looked around the room with that panic you get when things aren’t making sense, somehow terrified that she was going to find me before I found her, but the room was empty.
I was standing against the door, so she hadn’t left that way.
Instead, she seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
Along with her wings.