FULL NOVELXO Stolen Heir: Chapter 7
MIKO
Six months ago, anonymously and through a discreet broker, I bought one of the biggest Gilded Age mansions in Chicago. It’s located on the north end of the city in a densely wooded lot. You’d hardly know you were in Chicago at all. The trees are so thick and the stone walls around the property are so high, that barely any sunlight filters in through the windows. Even the walled garden is full of shade-loving plants that can stand the dim light and the silence.
It’s called the Baron’s House, because it was built for beer baron Karl Schulte, in the German Baroque style. It’s all weathered gray stone, black iron railings, and ornate sculptural reliefs in the shape of scrolls, medallions, and two hulking male figures that hold up the portico on their shoulders.
I bought it thinking it would be a refuge. A place to go when I want solitude.
Now I realize it makes the perfect prison.
Once you pass through the iron gates, you might as well have disappeared.
I’m going to make Nessa Griffin disappear. From the moment Jonas brings her to me, not another soul will see her face. No spies, no witnesses. Her family can tear the city down brick by brick, and they won’t find a trace of her.
Picturing their panic makes me smile for the first time in a long time. The Griffins and the Gallos have so many enemies, they won’t know who snatched her. The Braterstwo are their worst and most recent foes, but in their arrogance, they think they destroyed us by killing Tymon. They’re so fucking myopic, I doubt they even know my name.
That’s exactly how I like it. I’m the virus that will invade their system unseen and unnoticed. They won’t even realize what’s happened until they’re coughing up blood.
I hear the sound of a car pulling into the yard, and I feel a spike of anticipation. I’m actually looking forward to this.
My footsteps ring on the bare stone of the lobby as I hurry to the door. I’m down the steps and outside the Land Rover before Jonas has even climbed out of the car.
He hauls his bulk out of the front seat, looking pleased with himself.
“It went perfectly,” he says. “I had Andrei take the Jeep to the chop shop. He shorted out the GPS first, so they won’t be able to track it past where it broke down. Then he had the whole thing dismantled and crushed. They won’t find so much as a headlight.”
“You have her purse?” I ask him.
“Right here.”
He reaches into the front seat and pulls out the purse, a simple leather satchel, the same one she had at the club. It’s the only purse she uses, luckily, since that’s how I’ve been tracking her all week. If she’d been a typical spoiled socialite with a dozen designer bags, that would have been very inconvenient for me. But it wouldn’t have stopped me.
“I threw her phone in a dumpster on Norwood,” Jonas says.
“Good.” I nod. “Let’s get her upstairs.”
Jonas opens the rear door. Nessa Griffin is passed out on the backseat. Her arm dangles limply, and her eyes twitch behind closed lids. She’s dreaming about something.
Jonas takes her feet and I take her head, carrying her inside the house. Her body hangs awkwardly between us. After a moment I say, “I’ll do it,” and I scoop her up in my arms instead.
Even though she’s dead weight, it’s not a heavy load. I can carry her up the stairs easily enough. Actually, it’s alarming how fragile she is. Too skinny, her collarbones showing through her skin, hollow and bird-like. She’s pale from the drugs, her skin almost translucent.
She’ll have the whole east wing to herself. Jonas has his rooms on the ground floor, as do Andrei and Marcel. I live in the west wing.
The only other person who comes into this house is Klara Hetman, our housekeeper. I have no concerns about her discretion. She’s Jonas’s cousin from Boleslawiec. Even if she could speak English, she knows better than to risk my wrath. I could send her back to that shithole with a snap of my fingers. Or put her six feet under the ground.
I carry Nessa into her new room. I bought this house furnished. The bed is an ancient four-poster, dark wood, with a dusty crimson canopy. I lay her down on top of the covers, her head on the pillow.
Jonas has followed me up. He’s standing in the doorway, his eyes roaming over Nessa’s limp, helpless body. He grins lecherously.
“You want me to help undress her?”
“No,” I snap. “You can leave.”
“Alright.” He turns around and ambles away, back down the hallway.
I wait until he’s gone, then I look down at Nessa’s pale face again.
Her eyebrows are contracted, giving her a plaintive look, even with her eyes closed. Her eyebrows are much darker than her hair. They look like they’re drawn on with soot.
I pull off her sneakers, dropping them on the floor next to the bed. Underneath, she’s wearing those little socks that only cover half the foot, so they don’t show over the tops of her shoes. I strip off the socks, revealing slim little feet that are battered and beat to shit. She’s got bruises, blisters, calluses, and Band-Aids on several toes. Still, she’s painted her toenails pink, an attempt at beautification so pointless that it almost makes me laugh.
She’s still wearing jeans and a zip-up hoodie.
The drugs Jonas gave her will keep her knocked out for hours. I could strip her naked if I wanted to. She wouldn’t feel a thing. It might be amusing to do it, just so she’d wake up that way, without any idea of what had happened to her.
My fingers linger over her breastbone, just grazing the zipper of her sweatshirt.
Then I let my hand drop by my side.
She’ll be terrified enough. No need to make her hysterical.
Instead, I pull a blanket up over her body.
It’s already getting dark in her room. The windows are leaded glass, almost impossible to break. Even if she could open them, she’s up on the third floor with no way to climb down. Then there’s the stone walls, the cameras, the perimeter sensors.
Still, as an added precaution, I pick up the ankle monitor I’ve been keeping on the nightstand next to her bed. I close it around her ankle, snapping it shut. It’s smash-proof, waterproof, and has to be opened with a code that only I know. It’s slim and light, but as tenacious as a manacle.
I leave the room, locking her door from the outside.
Then I slip the key into my pocket.
No one is going in there without my permission.