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“Emir!” Leila yelled and rushed to her brother. He jumped from the mattress and met her halfway, his thin arms wrapping around her.

Tears streamed down Leila’s face as she squeezed him tightly, feeling how much weight he had lost in the last two months and how fragile he seemed.

“I thought—” she began but couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I know,” Emir murmured against her hair. “I thought the same. But you found me. You always find me, Abla.”

“And I always will.”

When they finally let go, Emir looked over her shoulder and tilted his head. “Who is that?”

Leila turned around to see Gideon still standing there, giving them space but watching with gentle eyes. She cleared her throat. “A friend.”

How else could she introduce him? My lover? A man I love but can’t be with? A man who saved me? “The Duke of Wolverstone,” she added.

Emir’s eyes widened in awe before narrowing in suspicion. The lords they had met through the Cardinal didn’t exactly inspire trust.

Gideon stepped forward and extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said in his silver-smooth voice. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Have you?” Emir shook his hand but continued to eye him suspiciously.

“Yes,” Leila confirmed. “I told him a lot about you. He helped me save you.”

Emir inclined his head. “In that case, thank you.”

He wrapped his arm around Leila’s and rested his head on her shoulder. He felt cold and much thinner than she remembered. “He told me you died,” Emir whispered, not to avoid being overheard, but because of the deep emotion in his voice. “But I knew he was lying. I knew you would find me.”

Chapter 28

The sound of Gideon’s boot connecting with the heavy oak door reverberated through the mansion like a gunshot. The door flew open, slamming against the wall with enough force to rattle the windows as he strode into Townsend’s study.

He was done playing games. Townsend was dying tonight, whether he revealed any intelligence or not.

“What is this bastard saying?” he demanded.

St. John looked up from where he sat facing their bound captive, a hot poker glinting in his hand. “He is denying everything,” he said. “Claims to know nothing about any brotherhood and insists this is all some elaborate misunderstanding.”

Townsend sat bound to a heavy wooden chair. His face was bloodied from Gideon’s initial blow, with dried blood crusting his upper lip and staining his formerly pristine cravat. His coat, waistcoat, and shirt were open, his stockings rolled down, and there was clear evidence of burns on his skin.

As far as Gideon knew, it was the best interrogation technique—no blood, no cuts, no open wounds, and it hurt like hell.

Despite his battered appearance, Townsend seemed composed, if slightly out of breath.

“You barge into my house,” he said, his voice hoarse but still carrying that maddening note of assumed superiority. “Killing my servants—who do you think you are? By what right do you—”

“People who are here to stop your parade of cruelty,” Gideon interrupted, his voice deadly quiet as he moved closer to the bound man.

Townsend’s chin lifted defiantly, though sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool air. “You’re mistaken about who I am. I’m simply a gentleman trying to make my way in the world, nothing more than—”

“I am not mistaken,” Leila’s voice cut through his protestations.

All heads turned toward the doorway where she stood, supporting Emir, who leaned heavily against her smaller frame. He wasn’t hurt as far as Gideon could see—just emaciated, dirty, and weak from lack of movement.

Which was terrible enough for a growing fifteen-year-old boy.

“And neither am I,” Emir added.

Leila’s gaze locked with Townsend’s across the room, and the change in the man’s expression was immediate. The mask of confused innocence fell away, replaced by blazing contempt, perhaps loathing. His lips pulled back from his teeth in something that might have been a smile but looked more like a snarl, and his bound hands clenched into fists despite the ropes cutting into his wrists.