Aphrodite's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

uncle.” Then she shook her head and frowned. “No offense, but if you’re . .. under the weather . . .
how
are we going to stop Hieronymous? For that matter, how the heck are we going to get out of here? Your cell phone?” she finished, hopefully.
    “I already looked,” Zoë said. “Gone.”
    “Then how?”
    Zoë shook her head. “I wish I knew,” she said. “I really wish I knew.”

    Mordichai stepped back from the whale’s pool, certain Shamu was shooting him dirty looks. “I think he’s on to us,” he whispered, knowing the tiny microphone hidden in his molar would transmit his voice back to his father.
    A burst of static, and then a rhythmic
tap, tap, tap
registered in his earpiece. The sound was crystal clear, and Mordi could imagine Hieronymous sitting behind his enormous desk, fingers drumming its surface in that damnably irritating manner he had.
    “
He
?” Hieronymous asked. “If you are referring to that beast of a whale, then I don’t understand the cause for concern. What is
he
going to do? Perform tricks so fascinating that all the Council will gather to watch?”
    Mordi licked his lips, his mouth unbearably dry. He glanced toward little Davy, tied up nice and tight and dangling from a wire strung over the whale’s pool. Before kidnapping the boy, Mordi had shifted, taking the form of a Sea World employee and then sneaking up behind Zoë and Deena to capture and stash them safely out of the way. Then he’d ushered the audience out of the stands, claiming Shamu was going to have to miss this performance.
    Next, Hieronymous had kicked up the tempo of the storm, using the vile weather to keep the patrons in the rest of the park occupied while Mordi did his father’s dirty work and trussed Davy up like a turkey.
    Despite Davy’s predicament, the boy wasn’t crying.
    Good for him. Mordi always had liked the kid, and now he felt even more affinity. After all, Davy was a halfling, just like Mordi himself—only Davy didn’t know it yet. Being a halfling could be tough. Worse, the poor kid was about to be kidnapped, holed up in one of Hieronymous’s sterile “guest” rooms, and scared out of his wits. He wouldn’t enjoy that.
    Lane, the boy’s mother, wasn’t going to be happy about the arrangement either. Too bad. Mordi rather liked her. They’d had their past little run-ins, but Mordi liked to think she’d forgiven him.
    He sighed, then addressed his father once again. “I’m just not certain this is the best—”
    “Not certain? Not
certain
?” Hieronymous’s howl blasted Mordi’s eardrum. “Did you hear that, Clyde? My son isn’t
certain.”
    Mordi cringed as he imagined his father drawing himself up to his full height and stomping about his Manhattan penthouse apartment. Clyde, his father’s Chief of Guards, would be stomping right along behind him.
    “My offspring. Fruit of my loins. And he’s not certain.”
    In the background, Mordi could hear Clyde snicker and add, “He
is
a halfling, sir.”
    “A fact I’m well aware of,” Hieronymous answered. The derision in his voice was inescapable. “He is also, however, my offspring. And one must take what one can get.”
    Mordi straightened, telling himself that his father’s cruel words didn’t matter. Maybe once, a long time ago, Hieronymous’s opinion could have hurt him, but not anymore.
Not anymore
.
    He took a deep breath for courage. “I just meant that the timing might not be right. We haven’t had a chance to plan, to consider all the variables.” And he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to check in with Zephron and update him.
    Sometimes, being a mole was very,
very
complicated.
    “This boy is the key to my plan,” Hieronymous snapped. “I’ve been observing him, biding my time, for weeks now. And I consider it a stroke of supreme good fortune that I learned the boy would be here today. And, then, to learn this morning that the Council has ordered the boy’s father to whisk the little tyke away to