"The men who tried to kill me…they had the same tattoo. One screamed that a queen would die at the end of this." My voice is so scratchy I barely recognize it as my own.
"Your father and his two idiot best friends acted like school girls getting those matching tattoos.'A physical symbol for the progress they would make in the future.’”Cyrus rolls his eyes, mocking my father’s voice. “When I formed our rebel group, it was my idea to reclaim the vulture tattoo as a symbol of strength, honor, and tradition. Plus, I knew the truth would be revealed to you one day. And you would view the one symbol your father intended to use to guide you, as the one you feared most."
Cyrus hadn't laid a finger on me since he entered the room, but every word he spoke felt like it was slicing through my skin. A never-ending torture.
"The men who tried to kill me. At the restaurant, thebanquet, the rat at our main warehouse. They were all your soldiers.Yoursoldiers who wanted me dead...so you could come into power."
"Precisely."
"You killed my father, your best friend, all because he wanted to protect his family? Because he wanted better for me?" I scoff, shaking my head in disbelief.
"I killed your father because he turned his back on me. Everything we had built together, the loss, the pain, the bloodshed. We had finally gotten to reap the benefits of what we sowed and he was going to throw it all away! Make us nothing more but lowly paupers again. All because after decades of being a lion running his pack, he decided it was time to cut off his own claws. What kind of honorable man does that?" he shouts, voice echoing off the walls.
"Once he was dead, you knew I would seek vengeance. Though you probably never accounted for the fact that I would notice it was a setup. Despite all the bad blood, I knew that the Italians never killed my father or Cillian." It’s hard to be smug when you're chained in front of the man who’s going to kill you but I refuse to let him see any more chinks in my armor. As if I willed it, the rope binding my hands finally breaks. I keep my hands behind my back, leaving Cyrus none the wiser.
"You impressed me with how quickly you discovered the truth, or at least a piece of it. I debated whether I could still manipulate you into thinking it was another rival, but the risk was too high. Plus, I figured once you and your father were dead, it would be way too easy to convince your underlings that we needed to exact revenge and sharpen our forces." Cyrus shrugs.
"You were going to start a war? Are you out of your mind? Do you remember how many soldiers we lost in the last one?"
Cyrus drags his chair closer to me, his hot breath wafting over my face. "Don't lecture me, little girl. I was alive andfoughtin the last war. And while it was bloody, it was also incredibly profitable. Wars build revenue. And loyalty."
I channel every ounce of rage that has been building for the last thirty minutes and thrust my arms out and around, using the remainder of the cut through rope that was wrapped around my wrists to strangle his neck. Tugging as hard as I can. I may die today, but I will do everything in my power to ensure he dies with me.
We crash to the floor and I use my legs as leverage, tying them around his waist in an attempt to further restrict his air flow. I’d clearly caught him off guard, which I need to use to my advantage. Cyrus chokes and claws at me, and in my weakened state, I don’t know how much fight I have left in me. Still, I yell at myself to hold on, feeling every muscle in my body ache with pain.
Behind me, the entry door to the room flies open and soldiers rush in, ripping me off Cyrus. He's rising to all fours, panting for oxygen, and raises a shaking hand to point at me.
"You'll pay for that. I was going to kill you first, but now I think I'll wait for your husband and friends to arrive and kill them one by one as you watch."
No. No. Declan can't find me. I refuse to let him or Azula or Arman die because of me. They deserved to live, deserved to carry out the dream my father had planned for us. "He won't come. He knows it's too risky."
"He will. I saw the look in his eyes when you boarded the plane.Love. The most lethal thing on this planet."
Love.That was the emotion I’d seen in Declan’s eyes. The thing I’d felt in my gut the past few days. He loved me, I loved him. And I would never get to tell him that.
Cyrus finally stands and kicks me as hard as he can in the gut. Pain sends me crumbling to the floor. My head smacks off the concrete, and black swallows my vision, the world slowly fading away until all I see is Declan's face.
44
DECLAN
"We can't just sit here on our assess and do nothing!" I scream in frustration, throwing my whiskey glass across the room and watching it shatter.
It’s been twenty-four hours since I made the biggest mistake of my life and let Zahra board that plane. Twenty-four hours since I last saw her. Last held her. Last told her I loved her. And I’m unraveling at the seams.
Arman places a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to calm me down. "We're doing everything in our power to find her, but all of her electronic devices are turned off so we have no way of tracking her. Your brother already told us everything he knows?—"
"Unless he's lying! He's been doing a lot of that lately," I snap, clenching my fists together.
Demir sends me a pitiful look that makes me want to punch a hole in the wall. "Maybe you should talk to him. Hear out his side of the story. It's possible he may remember more when he sees you."
"I can't be alone in a room with him right now. I don't trust myself." It’s the truth. Any logical or rational part of me disappeared when I realized that my wife, the only woman I had ever loved, had not only been kidnapped but that my own brother played a role in it.
"It may be the only way we find Zahra. Do it for her. We'll deal with the traitor later."
Traitor. That's what my brother is now. Aidan had always been reckless and beat to the rhythm of his own drum, but I never would have guessed he’d turn his back on our whole family. Turned his back onme. For all the issues he had with our father and the expectations of being a mafia prince, our love for each other never wavered. Never faltered. Or at least, that's what I thought.
Bile rises in my stomach, and I don’t move a muscle.
