Taming Seraphine

LEROI

Whoever is at the door knows I’m at home because the doorbell is now on a continuous ring. I walk out of the kitchen, pick up my phone, and check on the security camera app. Surprise, surprise, they’ve placed a finger over the lens.

I grind my teeth and reach beneath the dining table, where I’ve hidden a silencer. After extracting it from the duct tape. I attach it to the gun.

The ringing continues, accompanied by thudding. Whoever’s on the other side of the door can’t be a professional killer. They’re creating enough ruckus to give their target time to arm themselves or be halfway down a fire exit.

This is probably Rosalind, trying for another hookup after getting dumped by Cesare. It’s a pity because they’d be a match made in Hell. She loves it hard and rough and degrading while he… Let’s just say Cesare can give her all that and more.

I position myself away from the door and yell, “Who’s there?”

“Where is she?” screeches an unfamiliar female voice.

“You’re going to have to give me a clue,” I say.

“Rosalind,” she yells. “What have you done to my sister?”

My brow raises. Rosalind didn’t mention having any siblings, though I suppose there was a limit to what she could say with her mouth stuffed with a gag.

“She’s not here,” I say.

“So, you admit to knowing her?”

“I admitted to there being no one here by the name of Rosalind,” I say.

The woman behind the door sobs. “That’s it. I’m calling the police.”

Fuck.

I dart my gaze toward the kitchen door. This time, Seraphine isn’t peeking through the gap. Maybe she’s learned her lesson about following orders.

“Take your finger off the camera lens,” I say.

The woman doesn’t answer, hopefully not because she’s calling the cops, and I glance at the app to find a petite girl with features similar to Rosalind.

She’s not much taller than Seraphine and wears a sweatshirt that says Tourgis Academy. After checking through the camera app that there’s no one else in the hallway, I open the door a crack and resist the urge to pull her inside.

I promised Seraphine that no one would enter this apartment without her permission.

The girl rushes at me. “Where’s my sister?”

“I don’t have her.” I hold her back with my arm. “Try looking for her somewhere else.”

“Don’t lie to me. Rosa texted me a few nights ago from the Phoenix, saying she was going back to your apartment.”

My lips tighten. It’s awfully presumptuous of Rosalind to assume I would take her back after the bullshit she pulled at my doorstep. Even more audacious that she thought I would choose her over Seraphine.

I would slam the door in this girl’s face, but I don’t need the extra attention from the police. She looks young, excitable, and exactly the type who would cry to the cops if I grabbed her by the throat with a warning never to return.

Fucking Rosalind. Her pregnancy stunt had been bad enough. Now, she’s sharing my home address with her next of kin.

“Your sister isn’t here. She never was.”

The girl’s face crumples. “Then where is she?”

“Retrace her steps. Find out where she was when you last heard from her and start from there.”

She shuffles on her feet, gazing up at me like I have more answers. And she’d be right. The last person I saw her with was Cesare, but I’m not about to throw my cousin under the police bus.

“That’s the best I can give you,” I say. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave. My girlfriend and I are about to have breakfast.”

The girl’s gaze drops, and she rubs the back of her neck. “Are you sure that’s all you know?”

I exhale a sharp breath, mostly out of frustration.

I’m not completely heartless, and the girl reminds me a little of my sister. If Rosalind has holed up with Cesare and has forgotten to call to say she’s alive, then I can tell my cousin to remind her to send a text.

“Do you have a number?” I ask.

As she pulls down the strap of her backpack and reaches inside, my fingers twitch toward my gun. Instead of extracting a weapon, she produces a sheet of paper with her name and number already written multiple times. She tears off a strip and I take it with a nod, glancing down to find that she’s called Miranda.

“I’ll call you if I hear anything,” I say before closing the door.

“Thank you,” she says from the other side.

Stepping back from the doorway, I watch her leave via the app. Twinges of guilt prick at the frayed edges of my conscience. Rosalind may be a manipulative liar, but I could have been less of an asshole to her sister.

I return to the kitchen to find that Seraphine has already plated her breakfast and is picking through a delicious-looking concoction of eggs, bacon, and vegetables.

“You lied about not knowing Rosalind,” she says without looking up.

“She was just a random hookup who got overly attached.”

“Is that what I am to you?” she asks. “Just a random hookup?”

“What do you think?” I ask back.

Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak, so I close the distance. “Do you think I bring random hookups into my home for days, clean up their murders, hunt down their enemies and provide safe and soundproof spaces for them to get their revenge?”

She glances to the side.

“Look at me, Seraphine.”

When she doesn’t move, I hold her chin and force her to meet my gaze.

Seraphine stares up at me, her eyes blazing.

“You are not a random hook up,” I say. “What we did together last night was everything. I’ve never met a woman I find so completely captivating, and I never will again. You’re it, Seraphine. It doesn’t get more perfect than you.”

She bows her head, not seeming to believe me.

“Hey, I would raze the world to ashes if it meant keeping you safe.”

Her eyes shine, and her chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. “Then why were you being so cold?”

My gaze falters. Now’s not the time to tell her. There’s no predicting how she’ll react so soon after that reminder of Rosalind.

She’d ask when I worked out that Anton was her trainer, and I’d have to admit that it was the day after I brought her to the apartment. Then she would worry that I’d hand her over to Anton the same way Capello handed her over to the twins.

I can’t tell her until Anton is dead.

Hell, even if I wanted to explain that the reason for my silence was I’d been thinking of murdering the only man that’s ever been a father to me, I can’t form the words.

“Sorry,” I rasp. “I was working through my rage. Hearing about what you suffered made me feel powerless. I wanted to travel back to before it all started and burst into Capello’s mansion with guns blazing.”

The corners of her mouth lift into a sad smile. “You already kind of did.”

“Five years too late,” I say, my laugh bitter.

“You came, and that’s all that matters.”

The morning sun shines through the kitchen window, illuminating her hair, making her look vulnerable and small. I want to raise every man who ever hurt her from the dead so she can destroy them one by one. I want to help her reclaim her power. I want to protect her from the evils of the world. But all I can do for now is hold her close and never let her go.

I pull her into my chest. “No one will ever hurt you again,” I say, meaning every word. “I will burn down the entire state of New Alderney before anyone lays a finger on you again.”

Seraphine wraps her arms around my middle and tucks her head beneath my chin. “I believe you,” she whispers. “You’re the hero I dreamed about in the dark.”

We hold each other in the middle of the kitchen for several minutes, our hearts beating in unison. I close my eyes, savoring Seraphine’s sweet warmth, and everything else fades into insignificance. She’s the only thing that matters.

I want to give Seraphine everything she never had: protection, love, and a future free from fear. I’ll erase all traces of Anton, help her find the last two men on her list, and hand her Samson Capello’s bound and twitching body so she can send him to hell in a hundred bloody pieces.

But first, I need to call Cesare, ask him what the fuck he did to Rosalind, and give him a heads up that a determined girl with the cops on speed dial is hunting down her missing sister.