“Neil lied about Antonella being a threat. I did what I thought was best. Antonella is a wolf. Mom is with Kerrianne back at your house.” Valor’s recap could have been an email rather than a meeting between us. He steps from one cabinet to another before coming back to me. He thrusts a white plastic bottle at me. “Take three of these.”
I don’t question what he’s giving me. I hope it’s for pain. After dry swallowing the pills, I heed each of his instructions, from lying back to holding still.
I turn my head away to avoid watching whatever Valor is about to do to my leg.
The view I have is of Uncle Neil, and rather than look at him, I shut my eyes as tight as I can, tilting my face up to the light.
“Did you ever think Uncle Neil would be able to pull off something like this?” I say quietly as Valor places something on my leg.
“I’m right here.” Uncle Neil scoffs.
“We know,” Valor and I say at the same time.
“No, I didn’t,” Valor growls. It’s a sound I’ve heard him make thousands of times, but now he doesn’t stop. It’s just one long trail of growling. “I didn’t think any of this was possible. I didn’t know any of this could or would happen. I would have fucking?—”
“OW!” I scream.
“Oh stop, you big baby. It just barely hit the bone. Smart not to shift though. This could have been bad.” Valor holds forceps up toward my face, the spent bullet caught between the prongs.
I feel sick to my stomach all over again, but I force it to stay down. I want whatever those pills were to work. Fast.
After a few more minutes of Valor packing the wound and bandaging me up, I sit upright.
The bullet out of my leg doesn’t fix our family’s problems.
My uncle betrayed us.
My new sister-in-law is now a wolf.
Both of them are chained up in my brother’s basement.
“I missed a whole damn coup being planned inside our own organization,” I say quietly.
“We all did.” Valor steps in front of me, and we lock eyes. “You don’t get to beat yourself up over this. That’s my job. This is my responsibility, not yours.”
“No one will blame you, Royal,” Dad says from where he comes in through the secret tunnel entrance. “You can’t possibly monitor everyone all the time.”
“I should have seen this. Neil was acting weird this week. He was going to caches at odd hours, long distances, and I just assumed it was business related. I didn’t verify.” I spiral and close my eyes. “If I hadn’t waited so long to kill them and call, she wouldn’t be?—”
“No.” Valor’s tone is deadly and cold. He points at the snarling wolf. “That. That. Ismyfault. I have to answer to her. I have to answer for that sin. Not you.”
I hear him, and I try to take him at his word. But a little bit of me is dying inside.
We’re Mob. People live and people die all the time. We are thekingpins of running mercenaries and weapons. Death is no stranger as it comes knocking on our door. It’s business as usual.
But this is the closest I’ve been to the front line in a long time.
Dad steps over to where Valor and I are, placing a hand on Valor’s shoulder. “You need to get cleaned up to take Antonella to the cabin.”
Valor nods. “Yeah.”
Dad turns to me. “Let’s go get you some clean clothes. Before those pills kick in and knock you on your ass.” Dad offers me a tense smile, and in a slow slide, I move from sitting to standing on my own two feet. “We don’t have to talk about any of this until we’re fed, clean, and the bodies are hidden.”
24
ROYAL
“NORMAL” OR SOMETHING
