“But we can still talk to her,” I said. “Find out if she has any other ideas?”
Two boys, relatively close in age—what? Seven months give or take between their births. If the birth dates were accurate. Even if they weren’t, it was most likely within a year.
Why did it seem like everything bad that happened tied back to King?
“You can,” Hans said. “I will provide you with all the information. But I’m telling you, she is skittish and a wholly despicable woman only interested in two things…money and punishing King.”
I really didn’t have a problem with the latter.
“Thank you, Hans,” Bodhi said as he rose. The men shook hands and this time, it was Bodhi’s hand that Hans held for a longer moment.
“My friend, it was my pleasure. I only wish I could bring you more concrete information. I am flying to Berlin tomorrow, to do a little more—looking into this Yuri Leistung. Be wary, what little I have already turned up says he was quite connected. I’ll get more if I am there than through calls.”
I didn’t react. It made sense that Bodhi would have reached out to Hans, I just hadn’t given it that much thought.
“Be careful,” Bodhi told him. “We will be in Europe soon enough. If something feels dangerous, wait for us to be there.”
Hans sniffed. “You worry too much and I haven’t had this much excitement in a while.” With that he clapped Bodhi on the shoulder and then gave me a polite tilt of his head. “Liebchen, it is always a pleasure to see you.”
Bodhi held out a hand to me and since I’d already secured the birth certificates in my purse, I rose and took his hand. “Danke schön.”
Touching a hand to his chest over his heart, Hans said, “Gern geschehen.”
We left, Bodhi was no longer interested in taking our time as we weaved through the other visitors to the private museum of the erotic. I stayed with him, my hand clasped firmly in his.
The energy around Bodhi surged hot and then cold to hot again. A brother.
He and Pretty Boy each had brothers. It was an answer to a question Bodhi had held for so long, that I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking right now.
Only, I knew what our next step was going to be.
And who it would have to be.
“Buttercup,” Bodhi said in a low voice as we reached the exit.
“I’m here,” I promised him. “Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
He lifted our clasped hands and kissed my knuckles. “I’m going to need your help.”
“You have it,” I said. “Anything.”
Chapter
Sixteen
BODHI
The feeling of the wheel beneath my fingers as we pulled away from the private museum grounded me. When Lainey settled her hand on my thigh though, that helped even more. She’d been the reason I walked out of that house without inflicting bodily harm on every person between me and the door.
An unfamiliar rage had begun to pool in my gut as Hans revealed the names of the two children he’d identified. His flirting with Lainey had been mildly amusing. I found even his less than sly effort to get under my skin to be entertaining, particularly when she shut him down with a careless kind of grace that just made her all that more attractive to me.
Then Hans mentioned the name Ayla…
Ayla.
My bastard of a father not only took my mother’s child from her, he even robbed that child of her name. Anger like I hadn’t experienced in years flooded me. It wouldn’t take that long to drive to the family compound, to let myself in, dismiss the staff and then paint the walls red with his blood.
The provocative nature of that image shouldn’t be so damn tempting. Because killing him would only satisfy me for a very brief moment, on an extremely primitive level.
It wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough for what he did to my mother. That said, I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to do to him what he’d done to her. I wanted him to suffer and to understand that nothing he did, ever, would save him. I wanted him to wish for death, but be trapped in a miserable existence.
A few decades like that might actually begin to repay some of the debt he’d incurred in locking my mother up.
Instead of driving out to Long Island, I headed uptown. The penthouse where I’d invited everyone to live was not my only place in the city. Like my step great-grandmother, Sophia, I had my own loft, secured under a holding company and unlinked to me directly.
It was a haven for me when I needed to disappear for a while. I wasn’t Phillip Cavendish there. I wasn’t anyone there, for that matter. With that destination in mind, I kept the speed of the vehicle controlled.
Three blocks from the museum, the volcanic chaos boiling over inside of me slowed even if it didn’t come near cooling. I pressed a single button on the steering wheel and Milo’s phone began to ring, the heads up display showing his contact info.
“One second.” Milo didn’t wait for a reply, but the hum of conversation carried over the open line. The Vandals were still there. So much planning that still needed to be done.
Too many people in my space. Even if they were people I liked for the most part.
“Okay, I’m alone. Everything all right?” The question shouldn’t have surprised me. Milo and I didn’t converse via phone often and I’d brought Lainey with me. He would also be correct in assuming if everything wasn’t all right, I would call him for assistance.
This was not a matter he could help on. I liked him. Respected him. Trusted him with Lainey. But our friendship—it didn’t matter. I needed one person right now and I had her with me.
