บททั้งหมดของ THE COST OF SAVING HIM : บทที่ 81 - บทที่ 90

The office was on the top floor of a building that had belonged to the family for thirty years, and Marcus had been in it enough times to know exactly how the air changed when Kane's father was in a bad mood. It changed the moment he walked through the door.His uncle sat behind the desk the way he always did — straight, unhurried, the papers in front of him arranged with the precision of someone who controlled their environment because controlling environments was simply what they did. He didn't look up immediately. He finished what he was reading, placed it to the side, and then looked at Marcus with the expression of a man who had agreed to this meeting out of courtesy rather than interest."Marcus," he said."Uncle." Marcus sat without being invited, which his uncle noted and said nothing about. "Thank you for seeing me.""You said it was important.""It is."His uncle folded his hands on the desk and waited, and Marcus looked at him — at the set of his jaw, the specific stillness

Kane's POV"Hey." Marcus stood and they shook hands and he gestured at the seat across from him. "I never thought you'd come, you know." He sat back down and picked up his glass with the easy comfort of a man in his favorite chair. "Remember when we used to come to places like this to talk about death missions?"The VIP suite of the bar was quieter than the floor below, which was the point. Down there it was noise and movement and people performing their Friday night at each other. Up here it was leather seats and low lighting and a view of the room below through tinted glass that let you see without being seen, which was the kind of arrangement Kane had always preferred.Marcus was already there when he arrived, two glasses on the table and the expression of someone in a good mood, which immediately made Kane suspicious.Kane sat. Picked up the glass. "Why did you call me here."Marcus laughed. "See, that. Right there. No 'good to see you Marcus', no 'thanks for the drink', just stra

Nadia's POV"Let's go have a drink."I looked at him. "Now?""Only us," he said, already standing, already reaching for his jacket.I looked at the bed I'd been about to get into and then at him and then back at the bed. "Kane it's—""Come," he said.I came.---The private bar room was on the same floor, small and warm and tucked at the end of the corridor like someone had built it specifically for conversations that weren't meant to happen in public. Dark walls, low lighting, a bar along one side and two chairs and a table in the middle and a speaker in the corner playing something low and unhurried. Nobody else was there.Kane poured two glasses without asking what I wanted and sat across from me and I took mine and looked at it and then at him."Why was Lev following me everywhere tonight?" I asked.He drank. Said nothing."Kane.""Mm.""That's not an answer." I set my glass down. "He followed me to the bathroom. He followed me to the gallery. He was behind me every single moment

Nadia's POV I was already fading when they put me in the car. Not completely gone — I could feel the seat beneath me, could feel movement, could hear voices that my brain couldn't pull into anything that made sense. A door closed somewhere. The engine started. Someone said something to someone else and the other person answered and none of it reached me in any form I could hold onto. The last thing I registered before everything went completely dark was city lights through the window, blurred and moving and getting further away, and then even that was gone. --- Kane's POV He came back to the room and the chair received him because his legs had apparently made the decision before the rest of him had, and he sat in it and closed his eyes and exhaled. "Nadia," he called. Silence. "Let's go to sleep." Nothing. He frowned without opening his eyes. The room felt different — the specific quality of empty that was different from quiet. He opened his eyes. The bed was untouched. The

Kane's POV"We've checked the north corridor cameras twice," one of his men said. "Nothing unusual before midnight.""Check them again," Kane said.Nobody argued.He was standing with his back to the room, facing the window, the city outside doing its indifferent early morning thing while five men stood behind him in the study and waited for whatever came next. He hadn't turned to face them since they'd come in. He didn't particularly want to look at any of them right now."The loading bay footage," he said. "Walk me through it again."Riku spoke. "Vehicle arrived at eleven forty-two. Parked at the service entrance. Two men went in through the back door at eleven fifty-one. They came out at twelve seventeen with—" a brief pause — "with her. She wasn't conscious. They put her in the back seat, driver's side rear, and the vehicle left at twelve nineteen.""Plates.""None visible. We've run the model against registered vehicles in the city. Forty-three possible matches.""Then check all