“Sir, perhaps you would like to head out for a couple of hours?” Frank suggested. “We could head into Ice and—”
Killian shook his head. “I have too much to do here.”
But he sat and studied the same contract he’d been staring at for the better part of four hours. He still had no idea what it was about or what he was supposed to do. His pen lay across the first page, waiting to be utilized.
“Sir, if I may, it’s been three days since…” He quickly bit back what he’d been about to say when Killian’s gaze shot up to him warningly. “Since you’ve been out of this house and a few hours in fresh air…” He trailed off. His hand going to his earpiece.
Killian watched him, studying the hard lines pulling dark eyebrows together into a deep frown.
Frank exhaled. “Sir, there is a situation in the courtyard that requires your immediate attention.”
Killian frowned. “This isn’t a ploy to get me out of this office, is it?”
Frank shook his head. “No sir.”
His ass muscles grumbled in protest as Killian rose from his chair. Stiff leg muscles creaked and tingled with every stride he took following the giant out the door. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually left his chair, except to use the washroom and take the occasional shower. A time or two, he’d even napped in the damn thing. A few more days of that and he could probably make a mold of his ass off the leather. But it wasn’t as though he had anywhere really to go and sleep was out of the question anyway. He might not be getting any work done either, but at least he was pretending. It was better than glancing at the phone and wondering if Juliette would pick up if he called. A time or two, he’d even dialed the number before coming to his senses. The whole matter was humiliating. He was pining like a teenage girl after losing her first crush. And she kind of was. He’d found women attractive in the past, but he’d never burned so completely for them. He hadn’t lost his head and his heart. So, maybe that did make her his first crush. Who knew? The whole thing was ridiculous. He was too damn old and too damn tired to be lovesick.
Halfway to the stairs, he heard it, the deafening shriek of a female voice. There were other voices, louder, but the words were unintelligible.
“No!” Frank snapped unexpectedly. “Don’t touch her. That is an order!”
Juliette!
It had to be. Who else would be on his front step making all that ruckus?
It was more than simply a ruckus, he realized when he reached the top of the stairs and heard the crash of glass shattering. It was followed quickly by a thump against the side of the house. The female voice screamed again and he tore down the steps. He hit the bottom just as a brick smashed through the bay windows of the formal sitting room. Glass exploded, glittering like diamonds in the afternoon sunlight before scattering across his mother’s antique rug. The brick itself slammed into the glass coffee table and more glass exploded.
“What in God’s name…”
Killian charged to the open front door. He reached the threshold and narrowly got a chunk of rock straight in the face. Pure reflexes had him ducking just in the nick of time. The rock sailed over his head and cracked across the foyer floor and rolled beneath the stairs.
“Where is he?” the voice shrieked. “I want to see him now or I swear to God I will break every bloody window in the place!”
For a moment, for just a split second, he almost thought it was Juliette. Long, wavy blonde hair rippled around a delicate face and small shoulders. Dominating brown eyes sparked with a fury unlike any other. But it wasn’t her.
“Viola?”
The girl stood on the edge of his mother’s fountain, a stick in one hand a broken brick in the other. His men were fanned out around her, edging closer, but making no effort to grab her. There was a small arsenal of rocks, bricks and bottles piled at her feet. There was more in the backpack lying open at the bottom of the fountain. She looked as fierce and dangerous as any of the warriors his mom used to tell him about. Her golden eyes found his and flashed.
“Where is she, you son of a bitch?” She slashed her stick in his direction. “Where’s Juliette?”
The brick soared out of her grasp with deadly accuracy. It nailed him in the shoulder before any of his men could even think to block it. The pain exploded across his chest and splintered down his arm in ribbons of fire. Something hot and wet blossomed beneath his dress shirt and soaked through the fabric in a red bloom. Killian would have cursed if he could think past her words.
“What?” he demanded.
“Don’t bullshit me, you Irish bastard!” She swooped down and snatched up a green bottle. “I know you’ve got her. She told me she was on her way to see you and then nothing for three fucking days. What have you done with her? Where is she? Where’s my sister?” The last part was said in a scream that echoed through the courtyard.
Something jackknifed in his chest with such brutal force he nearly went down with it. The pain in his shoulder was immediately replaced by a slow burn of heat and cold that crashed through him in rapid succession. He spun on his heels to where Frank stood behind him.
“Find her.” His voice nearly broke. “Find her now!”
He whirled to the girl who had lost all the color in her face. The bottle and stick hung limply at her sides, the fire gone from her. Her brown eyes were enormous and shining with all the fear curdling deep inside him.
“You … you don’t have her?”
Closing the distance between them in three wide strides, Killian grabbed Vi by the wrist and dragged her off the fountain. She went willingly and let herself be hauled into the manor. He took her to the sitting room she hadn’t destroyed and shoved her into a chair.
“Tell me what happened,” he snarled at her. “Where’s Juliette?”
“I … I don’t know!” she choked out. The stick and bottle slipped out of her hands and struck the carpet beneath her feet. “She called me three days ago and said she was on her way to see you. She sounded weird, but I didn’t think anything of it. But she never came home that night or the next. I went to her work, both of them and no one has seen her. So, I came here and your douchebag doorman said he had no idea who I was talking about. That he’d never even heard of Juliette. I thought…” She lowered her eyes, her cheeks a guilty pink.
“That I’d hurt her,” he finished for her.
Vi nodded. “Juliette wouldn’t just disappear. She’d never leave me. Something happened to her.”
Killian began to promise he’d find her. No matter what he had to do or who he had to kill, he would bring Juliette home when Frank stalked into the room, his phone in hand.
“Sir, no one’s seen her. I’ve called her work and she’s missed three days.”
The sour taste of rotten milk filled his throat, making him want to throw up where he stood. But he held firm. Juliette needed him to keep it together. He needed to find her.
“Track the GPS in the car or her phone,” he ordered. “Call whoever you need to get the—”
Frank shifted. “That won’t work, sir. Miss Romero didn’t take the car or the phone when she left here the other night.”
Killian stiffened. “What?”
“She didn’t take—”
“I heard you!” he snapped. “How did she get home?”
A muscle tightened in Frank’s jaw. “I suppose she walked, sir. I offered to have someone drive her, but she insisted.”
“It was below zero degrees that night.” Each word ripped through his tightly clenched teeth as fury and panic wound tight inside him. “She could be dead along the side of the road for all we know.”
Frank said nothing, but Vi gasped. Her hands shot to her mouth to stifle the sound, but it was too late.
Killian ignored her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tension wove across the other man’s shoulders. “I tried, sir. You asked me never to speak of her again.”