3

LUCIAN

“Hello?”

At first, nothing but fuzzy static comes through the phone and my brow tightens. Pulling the phone away, I double-check that it’s definitely Aurora calling, then I press it back to my ear.

“Aurora? Are you in a tunnel?”

It strikes me then that she didn’t tell me where she was going, but I don’t have to worry when Orion is with her. More fluffy static comes across the line and my irritation rises. Did she butt-dial me?

I don’t have time for this.

Just as I consider hanging up and calling Orion instead, Aurora’s voice finally comes across the line and my heart plummets. Her words tremble and what does come through clearly sounds slurred and panicked.

“Lucian?”

“Aurora.” My grip tightens tenfold on my phone. “What has happened?”

“—crashed.”

“What?”

“I-I crashed,” she repeats. “I hit someone. I-I’m so sorry. I ran someone over; they were in the middle of the road, and I didn’t see them, and now I think they might be dead, and I don’t know what to do. I’m scared, Lucian. What do I do?”

I’m on my feet within her first sentence and by the time she finishes talking, I’m down the hall and running toward the entrance foyer.

“Aurora, I need you to listen to me.”

“Mm-hmm.” She doesn’t sound very sure of herself.

“Aurora, I mean it. I need you to tell me exactly where you are.”

“Um …”

Static silence follows which I now reason to be the wind after glancing outside to see snow whipping past the window. I never should have let her leave. Usually I wouldn’t have, but in all the time Aurora has worked here, she’s been honest and absolutely doted on my daughter. That, in its own way, earned my trust, and if she said she needed to leave, I didn’t have the heart to say no.

Not when she was standing before me, utterly captivating and daring to talk back. Having an outsider here, someone not bound by old laws or loyalty, has been refreshing and exciting.

Until now.

“I don’t know,” Aurora finally sobs. “I can’t see anything. I was just driving b-but I don’t know how far I got. He came out of nowhere, I swear. I didn’t mean to.”

“Are you hurt?” That should have been my first question, and my next is about Orion until I reach the kitchen and spot him standing near a counter, spearing pasta bows onto a fork.

Why the fuck isn’t he with her?

One thing at a time.

“I don’t know,” Aurora sobs and her voice grows faint as the wind grows louder.

“Aurora. Listen to me. Stay where you are. Don’t move. Don’t touch the body. If you see anyone who isn’t me, you get inside and lock the door in that jeep. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she replies shakily.

“Repeat it back to me.”

As she does, I snap my fingers to get Orion’s attention and his calm face tightens the moment we lock eyes. Abandoning his pasta, he approaches and reaches me just as Aurora finishes reciting my instructions.

“Okay, good. I’m coming to get you. Do you hear me? I’m coming.”

“Okay. My phone battery is so low, though, and I?—”

The line goes dead.

“Why the fuck aren’t you with Aurora?” I snap the moment silence falls. Orion’s brow shoots up.

“The fuck? I didn’t know I was supposed to be.”

He falls into step beside me without prompting, and we hurry toward the entrance foyer together.

“You weren’t supposed to let her out of your sight. She came to me asking to leave and now she’s in the middle of fucking nowhere after running some poor fucker over!”

“What?” The raspiness in Orion’s voice deepens slightly. “I saw her, sure, but she told me to watch Selene and that she would be back. She didn’t say anything about leaving the estate.”

“I only gave her permission if you were going with her.”

“Is she hurt? Is she alright?”

“I don’t know.” Grabbing my coat from the rack, I glance at one of the nearest guards and he falls into step beside us. “She just called. Honestly, fucking lucky that she decided to call me and not the cops. Last thing we need are pigs sniffing around. Where’s Selene?”

“She’s eating in the playroom with a tutor, don’t worry I didn’t leave her unattended,” Orion says, pulling the front door open. He winces immediately as a bitter wind slaps through the doorway.

“Like you did Aurora?”

“Boss, I didn’t know. Since when has she ever wanted to vanish at night anyway?”

“That’s not the point!” I catch myself before my budding worry at Aurora and whatever’s happened ends up ejected onto the wrong person. Why she would ignore my order about leaving with a guard is another mystery I’ll have to solve after we find her.

“Did she say what happened?” Orion yells over the snow while we sprint for the nearest jeep. I remain silent until we’re safely inside the vehicle, and as I turn it on at the touch of a button, several other jeeps light up around me, filled with guards.

I never go anywhere alone; even if I tried to, Orion would ensure that didn’t happen.

“Only that she ran someone over,” I explain. “Her battery was low and she sounded slurred.”

“You think she has a concussion?”

“Fuck knows. I’m more concerned about who the fuck she ran over out here.”

Orion snorts, as if the lack of truth in my words is painfully evident. He’s always had an uncanny ability to see right through me, but my concern for the situation is purely about the trespasser in my territory.

Even as I tell myself that lie, deep down, I know it’s not true.

Aurora doesn’t leave my thoughts for a second as I race out of the gate, and Orion sets up a GPS trace on the missing jeep.

“Aurora!” Snow crunches heavily under my boots as I leap from my vehicle. The frozen grasp of the air wraps around me but it barely breaches my focus when I spot Aurora kneeling in the snow. The fact that she hasn’t moved sends worry skittering across my chest.

The snow is thick and while the wind has died down slightly, there’s still enough disturbance in the air to remove tire tracks from the ground. Aurora’s jeep is off to the side of the road with one skewed window wiper fluttering back and forth, and the headlights bask her and her victim in a sharp yellow glow.

“Aurora!” I call her name again, sprinting up to her with Orion at my back. My men secure the road without a word while one positions himself near the fallen man and aims a rifle at his head. Can’t be too careful, not in this line of work.

My hands close around her frozen shoulders and her trembling becomes clear immediately. As I sink down into the snow beside her, cold and damp soaking into my slacks, she turns her beautiful face toward me, and my heart stutters in my chest.

Blood trickles sluggishly from a wound on the side of her head and crimson stains her lower lip. Snow and frozen tears cling to her dark lashes making her green eyes stand out like two glittering gemstones.

“Aurora.” My voice is softer as I cup her face with one leather-clad gloved hand. The touch finally rouses her and she blinks rapidly, then she surges into me with both hands clutching at my coat for dear life.

“You have to help him,” she croaks out. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. He’s alive; he just needs help. I’m sorry.”

She repeats it like a mantra as I slide one arm around her middle, grip her ribcage, and pull her slowly up from her kneeling position. The man doesn’t stir but I barely spare him a glance. My entire focus is on Aurora as her eyes dart back and forth between mine and her ruby-red lips map out the same apology over and over.

“Orion.”

He appears at my elbow, his sunglasses sharply catching the glare of all the surrounding headlights.

“Put her in the car. And call the family doctor. I want her treated immediately.”

Orion nods and pries Aurora’s claws from my coat, but as he starts to escort her away, his entire body stiffens and she slips from his grasp.

“Sir.” He nods toward the body on the ground and his lips press into a tight, angry line. “That’s Cassian Chernykh.”

I turn tightly and take in the unconscious man for the first time. Indeed, his trademark long white-blond hair, although muddied with dirt and grime, is as recognizable as his angular face that’s clearly seen one too many impacts with something solid.

Aurora’s car, perhaps?

“The fuck is he doing way out here?”

I am not friends with the Chernykh family. Ever since the death of their Pakhan, Oleg, Cassian has been growing too bold for his own good and has encroached more than once into my territory. Like a yapping dog, he continues to remind me of how much of a threat he is.

The icy fingers of the late February storm touch the back of my neck, urging me to hurry up and take Aurora back home and let the snow wash away this insanity.

“Could just leave him here,” Orion remarks bitterly, sharing the same distaste for the man I have. “No one would miss him and it would serve his family right for daring to let him come here.”

He makes a good point and I immediately lean in favor of that. Letting the cold kill him would be one less thorn to deal with. Having a rival leader crop up right on my doorstep is too good an opportunity to pass up. Stepping back, something solid crunches under my heel.

Aurora’s phone.

Scooping it up, the screen reacts to the special fabric along the fingertips of my gloves and displays the lack of signal in the area. That explains why our call died earlier. Aurora’s call history appears on screen in two taps, and something catches my eye.

She called 911, then hung up almost immediately before she called me.

Why did she change her mind?

“You’re going to help him, right?” Aurora shoves against Orion, seemingly refusing all attempts from one of my guards to escort her to my jeep. “Why are you just standing around? You have to help him!” Her voice pitches and her eyes are so wide that the white bleeds out around her iris.

“Aurora, go to the jeep?—”

“Please.” She cuts me off and grips my arm tightly. “You have to get him help now, I can’t have killed someone. Please, I can’t be responsible for that. I’d die. I’d sooner die, please!”

Her gemstone eyes brim with sadness and fresh tears that don’t make it past her frozen lashes, and while a pulse of sympathy bleeds through my chest, killing Cassian is the smartest play here.

He’s waded too deep into my drug circuit, and there will never be a cleaner opportunity to wash my hands of a rival with minimal blame.

And yet, the words linger on the back of my tongue, unable to escape my lips. There’s nothing I can say to Aurora that would justify this and maintain the secrecy around who I am and what I do. I know that bubble will burst eventually but I didn’t expect it so soon.

I glance at Orion. His expression is, as always, hidden behind his glasses though I’ve read his mouth often enough to know how he really feels. The slight twitch of the upper lip and shift in his stance show he shares the same debate I have in my heart.

“Please!” Aurora cries, shaking me hard despite her frozen state. “Do something! What the hell are we doing just standing here?!”

In that instant, staring into her distraught eyes, my decision is made.

“Bring him to the house.”

Aurora’s shoulders lift and a weary gasp escapes her.

I snap my fingers to the nearest guard, who nods instantly. “And warn the doctor we might need a hospital.”