“I’m not. I’m here because your father sent me.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t he have the courage to come himself?”
Ian had wondered the same thing. He’d never allowed himself to think of a future family, but if Costa had taken his child, he’d have killed the man himself. If he hadn’t been raised with his mother’s fear of Il Corno—and known what they could do to Diana—Ian would have ended Costa tonight.
He scanned the room again to ensure the guards weren’t watching closely, and slipped Diana’s blade into Blanca’s hand. “This is on loan. It belongs to a very lovely, very dangerous lady who would not be happy I am surrendering it. But it is yours for the time it will take us to walk out of this room and meet your sister.”
The girl’s eyes glistened as her fingers curled around it.
Behind her, the door to the cellar opened.
“Now, will you come with me, Blanca?” He strained to keep his voice steady. “We’re running short on time.”
When she finally nodded, Ian spun them around the dance floor and used the cover of two dancing Diana doppelgängers to escape from the room into the dim corridor. Blanca struggled to walk on her shaking legs.
Footsteps approached. Ian pressed a finger to his lips and drew them behind an open door. Two guards stood by the front entrance to the casino.
A footman noticed them waiting. “Do you need a carriage,senor?”
Above the music and the noise from the crowd further down the hall, Ian heard the faint rumble of Costa’s voice.
He cleared his throat. “No need for a coach. I think we shallwalk.”
The footman nodded to confirm the signal. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small straw, which he used to expel a dart into the back of the necks of each of the guards.
A moment later, they crumbled to the floor.
Ian swept Blanca up in his arms, leaped over the prone bodies at the door, and ran out into the side alley.
“Here!” Diana called from a wagon tucked in the corner.
Blanca trembled like a leaf in his arms as Ian placed her inside, but when her sister called her name, they both dissolved into jubilant, screaming sobs.
“Hush!” Diana hissed. “Don’t breathe a word or move until the wagon stops. Someone will show you where to go next.” She covered them with a burlap blanket and knocked on the side of the wagon. It jerked forward and clattered off into the night.
Without a word, Diana reached for Ian’s outstretched hand, and they tore down the narrow lanes of the old town to the carriage.
“Did anyone spot you?” Diana huffed once they were inside.
“No immediate followers, but I heard Costa’s voice before we left. Let’s not dally.”
“The wagon will snake around the old town. We’ll follow behind.”
It was the safest way to protect against an ambush. “No problems getting Flora out?”
Diana hummed an affirmation. “My blade?”
He pressed it back into her hand. “Blanca was shaking so much she could barely hold it.”
“You were quite gentle with her. Thank you.”
The events and the emotions of the evening came upon him in a sudden flood. He tried to sift through it all, and ultimately landed on familiar anger. “Why must you risk your life with this…mission? There are hungry children you could feed in St. Giles. Or take the poor wretches from the workhouse and pay off their debts, give them a decent way to earn a wage.”
He heaved a ragged breath. “Why this, Diana?”
“These women are trapped,” she volleyed back. “They are abused, locked away, unable to govern their own bodies. And indentured to a life of trauma. Some of them choose death over spending one more day in that existence.”
“This won’t stop Costa and Il Corno. It only signals what you want from them.”