“Lucky me,” I drawl.
“Yes,” he replies firmly. “You are lucky. You’re lucky you’re a Quinn. You’re lucky you’ve got my interest. Without those, you’d be decomposing on the bottom of the ocean.”
“Whoop-de-fucking-doo.”
His fingers dig deeper into the side of my neck, squeezingjustenough to make breathing uncomfortable. He clicks his tongue as a sadistic grin curls his mouth. “That mouth of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble.”
I smile just as sadistically back. “I’m counting on it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sphinx
Veon. Pretty, pouty, broody Veon stands on my doorstep wearing a scowl that I can feel all the way to my toes.
“You’re late,” I throw over my shoulder as I turn back into the house. I messaged him an hour ago, and I’m annoyed he’s made me wait. I don’t like waiting. It makes me nervous. My mind starts to spiral, and I end up overthinking all the possibilities and outcomes of what may have happened. I need to keep my mind busy and focused; otherwise, it’ll be my undoing. I’ll getlost in there, tumble down a rabbit hole of possibilities and never find my way back out again.
That’s why I like coding so much. The continuous computer strokes and intricacies of code changing and shifting like water in a stream. Ever flowing and changing, never still.
“Sorry,” he says gruffly.
Something’s wrong. Veonneverapologises, least of all to me. “What’s happened?”
He plonks his ass on the sofa, and I’m about to chide him for sitting without permission when he drops his head in his hands, his fingers twisting into the strands of his deep auburn hair. The guy’s a wreck. Which can only mean one thing.
“Where’s Echo?”
His blue eyes meet mine, so dark and full of sorrow. It’s intense, and it halts the breath in my chest. I almost reach out and give the guy a hug. I’ve never seen Veon look so vulnerable. I’m so used to the gruff, blunt, recessive asshole version that I don’t know what to do with this man who looks like someone stole his world.
“She’s gone,” he says, his voice rough.
What? Gone… “You mean…?”
I can’t even say the words.
Veon shakes his head. “God, no.”
Relief sinks through me, although I’m tempted to hit the guy for scaring me like that. “Then where is she?”
“Kidnapped by Maxim Volkov.”
I flinch. That name grips my throat like a physical thing, squeezing and making it difficult to breathe. There’s not much that terrifies me in the world more than that fucking name.
Maxim Volkov is the reason I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. He murdered my parents. I came home from school one day to find him standing over their bodies—or what wasleft of them, anyway. Due to the severity of the damage done to them, we had to wait for DNA results to confirm their identities.
I still have nightmares about it. I’d had pretty decent black hat hacking skills even back then, and my father had done a deal with Maxim that utilised my skills to clear his debt. To this day, I still don’t know why my father owed a debt to a Volkov, but I know it’s ultimately what got him killed. I was hoping that maybe Bennie had something on his phone about it, but I haven’t found anything yet.
And now the bastard has Echo, and I can’t… I don’t…
Fuck. It’s hard to breathe. My hand clutches my chest as my ribs constrict my lungs. My heart is pounding, blood thudding with the sound of a thousand drums as it rushes through my veins.
What if he’s hurt Echo? What if she’s already dead? What if I never see her again? Where will I live? What will I—
“Sphinx.”
Strong fingers cup my face, and I’m suddenly drowning in two pools of blue.
“Take a breath.”
