Fierce Monarch (Gilded Empire Book 3)

Chapter 27 – Nate

“Where have you been?”

I hadn’t even made it in the door of the compound before he was on my case. Normally, my first thought would’ve been to check what mood Cash was in, a habit I’d adopted long ago. But this time, the words grated. My shoulder ached from the burns I’d gotten—despite already getting them taken care of—my lungs were on fire, and my brother thought he deserved to know my every move because he thought he owned me. Because he did own me.

Not to mention that I’d just walked away from the people I knew were my real family after getting what was as close to Dominic’s acceptance as possible at the moment, just to come back into this hellhole of a life. I hated it here. I hated Cash.

All of this was for Mari—her safety and protection—but I couldn’t force myself to pretend to be a good little soldier right now. Not when I could still see her splayed out on the floor of that house, the flames licking too fucking close to her skin for comfort. I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep again with that image burned into my brain.

“Out.”

I made my way to one of the couches in the massive, mostly empty party room and groaned as I sank into the cushions. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t dare sit on them since I knew what the others got into out here, but I needed a fucking break. Two seconds and I’d get up and disinfect myself.

Cash smirked, saying nothing about the unusual insolence. He didn’t have to. The quiet cock of a gun was enough of a response.

Since I’d returned to the Aces, one thought had bounced around my head over and over until I thought I’d lose my mind from the sheer repetition.

Why didn’t I go against Cash sooner?

The answer was staring at me from the other side of that gun. A faceless peon who watched my brother like he was the sun, moon, and stars combined. Cash himself was unstable, but it wasn’t just him. He had an army of misinformed and misaligned humans at his back. Men who were too weak to walk away from what he offered.

Blow, money, women, and power—in that order.

Our father had taught Cash that weak minds were easier to control. Mario had taught him everyone had a price. Combining those schools of thought gave Cash his philosophy—find a man’s weakness, and you find what it takes to control them, regardless of the strength of their mind.

“The hit in jail failed,” I said, rubbing a hand over my jaw as if I was annoyed at the situation. I was, but not for the same reason as my brother, whose face shifted in agitation. “It was Dominic who went to jail, not Mari.”

“The guard dog,” Cash corrected. “I’m aware.”

“We had to shift things last minute, and it obviously didn’t work out. Apparently, she’s got more protection on the inside than we expected.”

Cash frowned, his fingers tapping an irregular rhythm on his chair. My eyes narrowed in on those fingers, watching the faintest twitch as they touched down, and I cursed myself for not doing it sooner. Cash was fearless when high and reckless when he was coming down, but his instability always grew to unparalleled levels when he was jonesing.

Once, I’d seen him gut a man with a dull kitchen knife because he’d mispronounced a word. When he was done, he apologized before snorting a line right in front of the guy, immediately going back to laughing and making plans.

“Dad didn’t say anything about her having protection. Her dog should have been dead.” Those fingers tapped quicker, and even Cash’s gun-toting Ace leaned away.

“Maybe she got some after her friend was taken.” I kept every part of me even: tone, facial expressions, body language. This Cash was likely to lash out at anything, and I didn’t want him to find a reason to make me his target.

Shara had been the original target of the jail hit, but she’d gotten out of custody too fast. Mari’s destruction of the Cardinal, the last real tether to our father, beyond seeing him in jail, had sent Cash into another stratosphere.

I had no doubt that if Mari had been arrested, they’d have never found her body. I didn’t like how many fucking attempts on Mari he’d okayed, like she’d become his sole focus in his quest for power. He was getting obsessed, and an obsessed Cash was a dangerous one.

He cursed, and his face twitched too. A tic his habit had created. Right on cue, he impatiently beckoned to a woman in the corner. She was his usual type, just this side of too thin. Her hair was pulled back and clean, her face perfect with that no-makeup look that meant she was wearing a shit-ton of it. Her dress and shoes were clean and designer. She looked like she was ready for a night at a high-end club, not some drug-filled frat house.

The way she looked at Cash told me how out of it she was. It was exactly the way his gunman did. That was Cash’s power. He was a maniac, but he had the charisma to enchant the masses into pretending he was a saint. It was fucking terrifying.

The woman licked her lips and carefully brought over the tray filled with white powder on steady hands. For a moment, I wondered if I could poison the coke. End the war before anyone else had to die. There were ways to lace it with something that would kill him in his sleep. I even knew a few contacts I could reach out to to get it. It would be a suicide mission, but at least Mari would be safe.

The woman dropped gracefully to her knees, not tipping the tray even an inch. Using a razor he’d gotten from somewhere, Cash scraped a small amount out of the middle and leaned forward to lick her bottom lip. Carefully, he smeared some of it across her mouth, letting her tongue taste the drugs before he lifted the rest, not to his nose, but hers.

I remembered why lacing the drugs wouldn’t work.

Cash always had a tester for his food, his drinks—anything that went into his body, someone else tried first. He wouldn’t even sip out of a sealed water bottle without a tester. I wouldn’t be the first to attempt poisoning, and I certainly wouldn’t be the last.

We all waited in tense silence until she sighed in relief as the drugs hit her. With a big grin, Cash leaned down and snorted the rest of the lines as quickly as he could. It was easily twice as much as anyone should’ve taken, but after years of addiction, his tolerance was higher than anyone I’d ever met.

When a slow, serene smile lit his face, I knew the drugs were working. A flick of his wrist sent the woman away, and as soon as she was out of sight, that serenity was gone. It was like the longer he’d used drugs, the faster his high wore off. What used to be hours was now minutes at most.

“Suit up, little brother. We’ve got places to go.”

Unease filtered through my veins as I wondered what exactly he had planned. “Where are we going?”

“A wake.” His grin was something beyond manic, if that was even possible. “Better wear black.”