Rolf Macintosh hadn’t become the most dangerous and successful gunrunner and profiteer in Northern Europe by being stupid. He’d taken over crime syndicates, banished rivals, and decimated his opposition by being willing to do what others wouldn’t and never trusting another living soul.
Not his wife.
Not his adopted stepchildren.
No one.
She had to find a way out of this pink prison and rescue her brother. Then they’d find a way to disappear for good. If she didn’t, they were both as good as dead.
Crossing to the door, she considered her options. She was up on the third floor, too far for a window ladder made out of sheets to work—even if the windows weren’t rigged. She turned the doorknob and peeked out. The testosterone twins from outside the sitting room had moved upstairs to take up position outside her door.
“Did you need something, ma’am?” one of them asked.
Mads? Gustav? No fucking clue.
“Where’s Lucas?” she asked.
“Major Bendtsen, I mean the earl, is in his study,” the first twin responde
d.
“Thank you.” Every tidbit of information had the potential to be useful.
Twin Two glared in her direction and crossed his massive arms across his expansive chest.
Yeah, I got it. Big, bad, bulky men stop weak, little woman. How her eyes managed to stay in her head after the massive eye roll she executed would remain a mystery.
She closed the door as she ran the manor’s layout through her head like a film reel. They’d passed the room that had to be Lucas’s study when he’d marched her up to her temporary puke-pink prison. She’d peeked through the door as he’d had a hushed discussion with another agent. A huge fireplace was at one end of the room and a pin-neat desk at the other. It was all mahogany, leather, and brass—not even a whisper of softness in the entire room.
The guard’s slip up about Lucas’s title was telling. Either her blackmailer was new to the aristocracy, or he was lying to her. She paced to the window and back again, over and over, considering the question and its implications.
Who exactly was Lucas Bendtsen?
Was he a major in the Elskov military?
Was he the Earl of Moad?
Was he head of the Silver Knights?
She had no proof of either identity or proof that he wasn’t someone else entirely.
The longer she considered the unanswered questions, the more her stomach roiled as her apprehension built. Then it hit her, stopping her in her tracks right in front of her powder-puff-colored door. A slimy, toxic dread slithered through her.
It would be just like him.
Her stepfather loved his games—the more elaborate, the better. If he’d decided to test her loyalty, test the promise she’d made before she’d finally escaped Fare Island, this was how he’d do it. He’d set her up, fuck with her head, and see if she broke so he could finally do what he’d always threatened and force her to marry Joey. For years she’d lived in fear of his evil plots, but those days were over. Powered by righteous indignation and adrenaline, she flung the door open and marched out into the hall.
“Ma’am,” one of the twins said. “You’re not supposed to go anywhere.”
She spun around to face him, the contempt on her face daring him to do something about it. He wouldn’t. Her stepfather always liked to dole out the punishments himself.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Twin One opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Exactly what she expected. “Then stay the fuck out of my way.”
She stormed down the stairs to the main floor and made a beeline for Lucas’s study. The door was closed. She twisted the knob. Locked. Eyeballing the doorknob as she fished around in her pocket for one of the spare bobby pins she kept there out of habit, she grinned and gave the lock a second look. She could have popped it when she was eight.
Ten seconds later, she flung open the door and stalked inside Lucas’s private domain. “I don’t know who you are, you son of a—”