Arranged love

He gets in the driver’s seat and pulls away from the entrance. I hold in a sigh at how close I am to Luca. At least I know Haven is with him. Luca wouldn’t want to see me anyway, even if he was conscious. He’d be so disappointed in me right now for multiple reasons.

“Why did you talk the doctor into letting Haven stay in Luca’s room?” I ask him. I feel like Dillan isn’t the type of guy to lie to you. He’ll tell you the truth no matter how much you hate to hear it.

“Because she wanted to be with her husband,” comes his cold reply.

“Well, I wanted to be with my brother,” I snap at him.

He ignores me, placing his left wrist on the steering wheel. My eyes slide along his tatted and muscular arms and notice the way his black T-shirt is tight against his broad shoulders. My eyes continue to the ink on his neck. It comes all the way to his defined jaw. It makes him look evil and sexy at the same time. Like something forbidden but unable to stay away from. The type of guy any mother wouldn’t want her daughter to date. Not for love anyway. No, a man like Dillan is a fuck you and leave you when he gets bored-which probably wouldn’t take long. I’m sure his phone is full of women he could call at any time, and they’d crawl on their hands and knees for him to give them a second of his time.

When he turns his head, his blue eyes meet mine for a quick second before he looks away, catching me staring, but he remains silent.

Closing my eyes, I lean my head back on the headrest and take in a deep breath. It’s going to be a very long stay in Las Vegas because I’m not leaving until my brother wakes up, and I won’t be running away after that either. This time, he’ll have to be the one who physically ships me away.

BONES

I PULL THROUGH the black iron gate of our property that has a gold K in the middle. The Kings and I have a compound of over two hundred acres with our own private security, where we each built a house. We used to live at Kingdom, but the others have fallen in love over the past year and now spend their nights here rather than at Kingdom. Except for me. I prefer our Royal Floor on the fiftieth floor over living here.

Pulling up to my house, I drive under the breezeway and around the back into the garage. I shut off the car and look over at Mia. Her head rests on the headrest, tilted to face the passenger window.

I sit and wait for her to look over at me. To give me that glare she does so well, but it doesn’t come. “Mia?” I ask, reaching out to her. I place my hand on her shoulder, giving her a soft shake, and her head falls to face me, hair covering most of it. I push it back behind her ear. “Mia?” I ask again.

Her plump lips are slightly parted, and her eyes are closed, her long thick eyelashes resting on her bruised cheeks. My eyes drop to her chest, and I watch it rise and fall evenly with each breath. She passed out.

A part of me is relieved. She needed this, and I didn’t want to choke her out to accomplish it. The fact that she challenged me in her hospital room to do so turned me on. And I hate that. Mia Bianchi is not for me. Even if I want her. There isn’t a man on this planet who would say she’s not attractive. There’s a reason her father kept her hidden from the world all of her life-because she is a weapon. To use at his convenience.

I get out of my car and walk around to the passenger side. Opening up the door, I bend down and place one arm under her legs, the other behind her back, and lift her out of the car, closing the door with my hip.This is the property of Nô-velDrama.Org.

I enter my house through the garage, passing the laundry and mudroom. Walking farther down the long hallway, I push open the last door on the right-my bedroom.

I lay her on the bed, and she doesn’t even move. She’s on her back with her arms out to her sides. I walk to the end of the bed and remove her shoes and socks, placing them on the bench. Then I walk back over to her. I stare down at her face and run my thumb over the split on the corner of her lip.

I kept my word to Luca, got my hands on a ticket, flew to New York, bought her, met up with Tristan, drugged her, and shipped her off. Yet here she is, sleeping in my bed in Las Vegas. She wears a pink T-shirt and denim shorts. Staring down at her body, I look over her legs. She has a bruise on her knee. A small one on her thigh. And I know under her shirt, she has more.

And that brings up another question-how in the fuck did they know where she was? And why? Luca said that they wouldn’t want her. That his father wouldn’t care where she went as long as he got his money. So my question is, who is actually after her? Her brothers or her father? As bad as it sounds, why did they stop? Mia had said that she passed out, and when she woke, they were gone. If it’s all about the money, her father has already been paid the ten million. Why not kill her right then and there?

I guess I could have hidden her better and not sent her to one of my vacation homes. It’s my fault. She said they told her to return to me. But the auction was supposed to be anonymous. How do they know I was the one who bought her?

I thought shipping her away was the right thing. I run my knuckles over her chin and down her neck. I can feel her pulse, slow and steady.

Now what the fuck do I do?