“Leave us.” I wave a lazy hand toward the hallway. “Make sure no one gets lost looking for the bathroom.”
Circe follows the bouncers out, her chortles echoing in the dark.
Prowling in a slow circle around Kai, I take my time making him nervous. I never had a problem with him. Aside from inheriting the same pompous attitude as his cousins, Kai does what he’s told without much bitching. He avoids looking at me with those Volkov-gray eyes, his fear prominent without his cousins present.
Fear—and guilt.
I pause behind him and noisily prep a tattoo gun, watching goosebumps pebble his nape. “You turned your back on me then murdered Jett. Why?”
“Y-you killed Vlad.”
“Vlad killed himself the moment he attacked me.” I test the needle, smirking as he twitches. “Whose shadow are you cowering under now?”
The beat of the music pounds through the silence.
“I know you’re not as foolish as Vlad.” I trail the needle over his shoulders. “Answer my questions, or I choose where you get your next tattoo.”
Kai glares back at me with pure hate. “Fuck you,printsessa.”
I grab his jaw, forcing his head back and hovering the needle above his left eye. “Care to repeat that?”
“Fuck. You.”
“If you insist. Take a deep breath now. This is going to hurt a little.”
I jam the needle into his eye and pull the trigger, carving through the lid when he squeezes it shut. His snarl rises to a scream as I break the skin and pierce the sclera. He thrashes in my grip, inadvertently shredding his own eyeball.
“That’s for Jett, you piece of shit,” I spit, tugging the needle free. Blood squirts from the gore. Vessels dangle limply from the tattoo gun’s tip as I hang it over his other eye. “Tell me who you're working with.”
Malakai laughs. I realize why a moment before I hear his metal cuffs clang against the floor. He grabs my arms and wrangles me back against the wall, knocking the tattoo gun from my grip. I knee him in the groin, scrambling for my Glock as he curls in on himself.
I aim at his face at the same time he rams his shoulder into my gut.
“This is for Vlad.” His hands snare my throat, slamming my skull into the wall. "Deep breath. This is going to hurt."
My head crashes against the hard surface again and again. It feels like a jackhammer is splitting my brain in half over and over until my vision blackens—
Kai is suddenly wrenched backward. Gravity pulls me down as my blurry sight tracks another silhouette tackling the assassin to the floor.Crack, crack, crack,his cranium claps as my savior bashes his headon the unforgiving linoleum. The assault stops when Kai’s brains are splattered around him like a gruesome halo.
Karma is truly a savage bitch.
I blink my swimming vision clear, unsure of what I’m seeing. “Brontë?”
Those beautiful hazel orbs find me, an inferno of rage burning within them. He abandons Kai, kneeling by my side with a bloodstained scowl. “This is the second time I’ve saved your ass,Petit Diable.It’s getting inconvenient.”
I snort and immediately regret it when pain ricochets from my neck to the backs of my eyes. He reaches for me but pauses.
“May I?”
“Such a gentleman.” My grin falters into a wince. “Be my guest.”
With more care than I’ve ever been shown, Brontë wraps an arm around my chest and folds a hand over my nape. His skin is warm, his touch gentle as he shifts me forward and prods the back of my head.
“No open wounds, but you probably have a concussion. You’re going to feel like shit for a few days after it wears off.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I squint at the open entrance door he must’ve come through. “Why are you here?”
Brontë eases me back against the wall and pulls Kai’s pulverized corpse over to my side. He reminds me of a cat bringing a dead rat to another cat, and I nearly giggle as he crouches, ripping the assassin’s shirt open. The laughter bubbling in my throat sinks when I see it—the demonic skull branded on Kai’s right pec.
