Royal Line by Carrie Ryan (lightweight ebook reader .txt) 📗

around and slipping. The designers had thrown this little after-party to celebrate the booming success of their line. Frankly, I didn’t understand how bright colors and baggy jeans were somehow now back in style.

Suddenly, Sparrow’s frantic voice came back through the coms with a hint of tension. “Lilith is gone. I can’t find her. Vanished in the crowd.”

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? “Repeat?” This couldn’t be happening. No. No. No. No.

“I repeat, Lilith has gone missing.”

“Fan out. Olly and Marcus, put yourselves at the exits. Max and Aiden, east and west stairs. No one walks in or out of here. Sparrow, you start down the north side, work your way to the center, I will follow up from the south.” Jesus fucking Christ. “Nikolai, you start in the middle.”

This was not happening. I had not lost Drake Montague’s daughter, for the love of Christ.

As my team searched frantically, I kept the coms open. My eyes fervently searched the crowd. Every pencil-necked, needle-headed prick who thought he was God’s gift to women and used the opportunity with the foam to bump and grind on the girls made it difficult, if not impossible, to see in the crowd.

Lilith had been wearing all white. Some midriff-baring thing with fringe on the bottom of it, and barely-there shorts. Unfortunately, she looked like every other model in here.

We hunted through the crowd, person by person, and I was ready to make the call to shut down the entire after-party when I finally caught sight of a blue cap in the periphery of my vision, heading into the bathroom—or at least into the private VIP bathroom area.

The party was so exclusive that those who were personal friends to the designers got their own VIP area, which meant there were no webcams.

I made my way over there, and an attendant tried to stop me, but I held up my badge. The whole team had gotten them for complete VIP access.

Thanks to years of rigorous training, I’d managed to keep the bulk of my adrenaline at bay. But this woman was slowing down my progress, and I was about to forget to be a gentleman. But luckily, she didn’t have to see my grumpy side.

With a grumble, she let me pass. My gaze swept the area over and over, cataloguing and then dismissing everyone in the section.

When I didn’t see Lilith or Blue Cap, that left only one place they could be. I pressed my com unit at my shoulder. “Sparrow, stand by for confirmation. I might have located Lilith Montague.”

Unlike the main area, the VIP bathrooms were far less crowded. There were only two women waiting, and I caught the eye of the curvy brunette. “Excuse me, have you seen a man about medium height and weight, dark hair, blue baseball cap?”

Her gaze swept over me. “Just when I thought my night was looking up, you go and ask me where another guy went? Bummer. You would have really made my night.”

My cheeks heated, but I kept my stern face on. “I promise, I’m not that much fun. Now have you seen him or not?”

With a shrug, she lifted her head toward the bathroom door. “In there with some debutante.”

I tested the door to the bathroom, only to find it locked. The same woman who had hit on me told me there were stalls, so why the fuck had Lilith locked the door?

I knelt in front of the knob, pulled out my lock pick set, and had the doorknob turning in seconds.

When I stood and shifted to the side, I found Blue Cap. It turned out, there had been a reason he’d been watching Lilith.

Lilith was perched on top of the counter, her legs wrapped around Blue Cap’s waist, grinding her body on his as she snorted white powder off his shoulder.

I tapped my com. “Stand down. I located her.”

What I wanted to do was rip her away and warn her that her father was looking for her, but I didn’t bother. Instead, I marched back out, closed the bathroom door behind me, and stood watch, wondering how the hell this had become my life.

Her father’s directive had been clear. Keep an eye on her. Be discrete. And only intervene if her life was in imminent danger. Apparently, those were the terms Lilith had negotiated with her father, so my hands were tied—no matter how much I wanted to toss Blue Cap out on his ass. I had to stand where I was and hope…and wait.

You know how this happened.

Ordinarily, I refused to let the memories come back. But apparently, I didn’t have a choice tonight. With Phoebe gone, I’d had to pick up the pieces. And unfortunately, the price of putting my life back together meant jobs like this.

Sparrow’s voice was clear. “You got her, boss?”

“I have her.”

“I presume she’s alive?”

“Yes. Perfectly fine. She’s got a coke habit, but other than that, she’s peachy.”

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “Who even does coke anymore?”

“I know. Aren’t we the lucky ones?” I muttered.

“All right, where are you? I’ll relieve you and take her home.”

“No. I’ve got this. You watch the exits with Olly.”

I didn’t care who I owed favors to, but I was done with these things from now on. No more babysitting. At least, no more babysitting debutantes. There had to be more to life than this. There just had to.

Chapter 4 Kannon

That was unexpected.

My skin still hummed with adrenaline. When I deposited Little Miss Debutante at the car, Sparrow came over and checked in. “You all right, boss?”

“Fine. Considering that I had been all systems go before realizing the emergency alarms in my brain were nothing more than a debutante meeting her dealer for a requisite line of coke at an event.”

She laughed. “Let this be a lesson to you. Debutantes aren’t our thing. Women hiding from their husbands, that’s our lane.”

“Well, all of it is part of our job. Besides, the longer we’re around, the larger the favors are that get called in.”

She cocked