Chapter 56
CESARE
Hours later, I scale the side of the Victorian building, using everything available as hand and footholds. My fingers grip ivy, decorative cornices, and protruding bricks as I keep my gaze on the third-floor window of Miranda's dorm room.
Ignoring the phone buzzing in my back pocket, I continue upward. Matteo won't just stop at my exes. He'll ask around until someone works out that my underage friend is Miranda. I can't allow her to get hurt.
Gil and my brother continued grilling me about the murders and then moved onto asking if I had relapsed. All that talk unsettled Rosalind, so I had to take her upstairs. She tries to be strong, but I could tell from the way she flinched at my touch that she thinks I'm a killer.
Now is the time to fix two looming problems: Rosalind's stubbornness and my concerns for Miranda's safety. I plan on using her twisted relationship with her little sister to break her spirit.
"Are you still watching?" I ask for the benefit of the camera mounted on my head.
I left Rosalind sitting up, gagged, and chained to the bed, watching me live stream my ascent to where I left her sister. If she surrendered her body to save Miranda from the bear trap, then it's time to force her to surrender vital information about the Moirai.
In moments, I reach the window and peer into a darkened dorm room. It's stark, save for a single desk-lamp illuminating a scattered array of textbooks and papers. My lips tighten at the lack of photos, posters, or other paraphernalia that could make this room a home. It's more like a prison.
I tap on the glass, and Miranda emerges from the shadows, dressed in a black turtleneck and a matching hat. She slides open the window and grins.
"What's that?" She points at the camera.
"Never seen a head mount?" I ask.
She shakes her head.
"You going to invite me in, love?" I ask with a grin.
She laughs. "What are you, a vampire?"
"Maybe." I flash my teeth. "Or maybe I'm the big bad wolf."
She steps aside, allowing me to climb in.
"Did you pack a bag?"
She scampers to her narrow bed and retrieves a backpack. "Where are we going?"
I pull off the head mount and turn off the phone's camera app. Rosalind doesn't need to hear the part where I need to keep Miranda safe.
"Do you remember those men at the airport?"
Her smile fades. "The ones who got you spooked?"
I nod. "One of them is very dangerous, and he's trying to get at me through my friends."
"What does that mean?" she asks, her breath quickening. "Has he taken my sister?"
"No. Rosalind is fine."
"Then why are you here?" she asks, her gaze darting toward the door. "I thought you were going to take me to the club?"
"I want to take you home."
She shifts on her feet. "Where's Rosalind?"
"Home," I say. "With me."
"I don't understand. Why didn't she come with you to get me? Why do you need to sneak in through my window when she could call the academy and you could both walk in through the door?"
My jaw clenches. These are all good questions. Questions I want her to ask a strange man with bad intentions, but now I wish she wasn't so suspicious.
I run a hand through my hair, trying to find the right words. "Rosalind can't climb with her injured shoulder. Before you ask, I snuck out because I didn't know if the man from the airport was watching."
Her breath catches. "He's having you followed?"
"I sure as hell didn't tell him when my plane would be landing, yet he still ambushed us on the runway."
She gazes up at me, her eyes wide. There's so much I want to apologize for, starting with making her a pawn in the game I'm playing with Rosalind. If I had left her alone, then she wouldn't be a potential person of interest to that murderer, Matty Galliano.
"Am I really in danger?" she asks, her voice shrinking.
Dropping to my knees, I gaze up into her glistening eyes. "I can't answer that question, love. All I can do is take you somewhere you'll be safe."
"Your house?"
"It's a fortress up in Alderney Hill, surrounded by twelve-foot-tall walls, topped by electrified fences. All the property around it belongs to my family and is patrolled by armed men. My great-grandfather built the house, and since then, no one has gotten past our small army of guards."
"Not even the police?"
I shake my head. "Not even them. You can stay there with your sister until that man is no longer a threat."
"Are you going to kill him?" she asks.
"Any man who hurts innocent women deserves to die," I say through clenched teeth.
"Alright," she whispers. "I'll come home with you."
Half an hour later, we're sitting in Sofia's kitchen. It's a basement room filled with stainless steel ovens, a wall of refrigeration units, and a huge island of cookers. This is where she oversees the preparation of meals for the family, dozens of staff members, and our stores of preserved food in the pantry.
Miranda perches on a stool, gazing up at a ceiling extractor fan the size of a small car. Her stress melted on the journey in the back of a limousine, and now she's ready for a snack.
"You can cook?" she asks.
"I learned from the very best," I say.
"Your mom?"
Shaking my head, I swallow down the lump in my throat that appears at every reminder of how she stabbed us in the back. "No," I rasp and turn my attention to the slab of dark chocolate I'm chopping into small pieces. "Our housekeeper, Sofia, always put me to work if I stayed too long in the kitchen. That's where I picked up my skills."
She glances at the milk warming on the stove. "Can I help?"
"Hold on a second while I get the biscotti."
"What's that?" she asks.
"You'll see."
I walk over to the pantry door and slide it open, revealing shelves upon shelves of pickle jars, preserved fruits, and food preserved in glass jars. I grab a selection of items, including the biscotti, and move onto the second phase of my plan.
After glancing over my shoulder to check that Miranda occupied, I turn on the camera and slip it in my back pocket. Rosalind will hear our voices, but the lack of visuals means she won't know we're only talking about food.
I return to the stove with the snacks.
"Do you think you can handle this, love?" I ask.
She huffs. "You think I'm too young?"
I chuckle. "Well, I didn't say that. It's just that…"
"What?" she snaps.
"You've led a sheltered life. They don't teach you this sort of thing at school."
"I'm fourteen, not four," she says, her voice rising with indignation.
"Alright, then. Take hold of this." I hand her a cast-iron pot.
"It's heavy."
I chuckle. "Of course it is."
"Now, what?"
I continue instructing her on how to prepare the hot chocolate, making sure to give lots of praise. Guilt claws at my chest for using Miranda as a pawn to hurt her older sister, but Rosalind has given me no choice.
The Galliano brothers won't call off the hit on us until they're both dead. Now that they're in hiding or surrounding themselves with armed guards, killing them will be impossible.
Which is why I need Rosalind to tell me how to take down the Moirai.
Miranda completes the hot chocolate and pours it into two steaming cups.
"Blow on it," I say. "Then have a taste."
She does as told, then takes a tiny sip. The moment the sweet chocolate hits her tongue, she moans. "It's so good."
"Told you," I say with a laugh, and dip a piece of biscotti into her cup. "Now, try this."
We continue like this for several minutes until the conversation changes to sleeping arrangements. I turn off the phone, noting that Miranda hasn't asked about her sister. This time, I understand why. The poor kid must feel like Rosalind's captive. I'm probably the only person who's ever given her a taste of freedom.
After settling Miranda into an upstairs guest bedroom, I walk up to the tower room. Noise echoes across the stairwell, making me wonder if I'd overlooked something while tying Rosalind's restraints.
This is the first time since her escape that she hasn't been drugged, and I was too much in a hurry to rescue Miranda to bother with wrapping her in bandages.
My heart pounds as I mount the steps, not knowing if I'm about to walk into a tempest.
When I unlock the door and ease it open, I find the four-poster collapsed into a chaotic pile of torn fabric and metal. Rosalind faces away from me, swinging an iron rod at the French doors. My black shirt hangs off her smaller frame with the sleeves folded over at the wrists.
Thank fuck Sofia swapped out the windows for unbreakable glass after the incident with the madwoman on the balcony. Otherwise, Rosalind would have escaped.
When I push the door open, it creaks, making her spin around. She glares at me through wide eyes, her lips pulled into a snarl. The sight of her in my clothes goes straight to my cock.
"You bastard!" she screams.
My heart pounds. I haven't seen her this excited since our primal scene behind the pool house. Stepping inside, I ready myself for her attack. "Why did you break through your bonds? Is something wrong, pet?"
With a war cry, she charges across the room, brandishing the iron rod. "I'm going to kill you for touching my daughter!"