Chapter 8 Zira
Zira
“Come here,” Hazard said, his voice low. I adjusted the phone against my ear. “I’ve got something to show you.”
A small grin built on my lips. I glanced out my bedroom window, half expecting him to be on the lawn, holding a freshly picked magnolia, but the lawn was empty. The exterior lights beamed down like spotlights, and a breeze traveled through the trees.
“Come where?” I asked dryly.
“Shit,” he muttered, then a dull thud crashed in the background. “Your husband’s.”
I raised a brow. I knew what that meant.
“Be there soon,” I said.
Slipping into a black midi-dress with an a-line silhouette, I tucked my hair into a messy bun, the bulb on the back of my head as big as a second brain, then added some casual, four-inch wedges.
I dismissed my driver, preferring to take my own car; I rarely had a reason to drive myself, but this seemed like the perfect occasion.
I parked in the driveway. Stepping toward Logan’s angular house, I almost expected to be ambushed, but the front yard was silent. Hazard’s truck was missing, but every single light was on inside the house. My husband was usually asleep by now. Hazard was in there.
As I opened the front door, loud bangs cracked through the house, broken shards of ceramic laid scattered over the ground.
A metallic bang echoed, vibrating so loud that I could feel it in my chest. What was going on?
A trail of blood skimmed the walls, almost as if someone had run their fingertips along the wall, carefree, not giving a second thought about whose blood it was or the mess they were leaving behind.
Hazard was reckless. How had he made it this far into Opulent Gates without someone catching onto him was beyond me. But that didn’t matter. He had piqued my interest, and now he was basically working for me.
Metal crashed against tile again, then a delighted noise of surprise followed it.
In the kitchen, Hazard jumped up from the ground, his red hair sticking up, his brown eyes wired.
His chest was exposed, freckles dusting his shoulders, his muscles clenching as he shifted toward me.
Blood smeared his body in careless strokes; he probably didn’t know that he was dirty.
“You’re here,” he said like he was shocked. “Good. That’s good.”
I tilted my head. “You invited me?”
“I have something for you.”
He reached down, then carefully picked up a silver tray with a dome top.
Red fingerprints dotted the silver like leopard spots, and a pleasant anxiousness burned inside of me.
I had never seen Hazard be so careful, but he held the silver platter like whatever was inside of it might break, and that made me curious.
Eager. Excited. His erratic, spontaneous nature drew me in, like the darkness at the bottom of the basement stairs, whispering to me.
Hazard lifted the dome top. A bloody heart, the size of Hazard’s fist, lay on the tray. Firm and wet. Deep purple and red flesh displayed like a piece of gold. It was bigger than I expected, but seeing it there made my own heart flutter in my chest, and it wasn’t from nerves or disgust.
“You carved out his heart for me,” I murmured.
With the tray balanced delicately in one hand and the lid in the other, Hazard bowed before me.
Growing up with the Marked Blooms Syndicate, I had seen a lot of messed up things.
Violence comforted me, even now, and seeing Hazard offer my late husband’s heart like it was a rare diamond made my icy soul palpitate with warmth.
“Anything for you, my queen,” he said.
I grabbed the heart off of the tray. It was heavy and slick; it slipped out of my hands and I quickly caught it, then laughed. It was almost as if my late husband was as clumsy in death as he was in life.
“Have you done this before?” I asked Hazard.
He shook his head. “It was a bitch to do. Believe me.”
I clutched my late husband’s heart in my hands like a football, then with my free hand, I squeezed Hazard’s arm.
“I want to see him,” I said, a giddy elation running through me. My ears drummed, pushing me forward. “Show me his body.”
Like two kids at a birthday party, Hazard dragged me through the house. We ran down the hallway, blood trailing the walls, drips marking the floor, until we came to the master bedroom.
His body lay on the bed, his eyes vacant.
That familiar blond hair was still styled with wax, fixing to the shape of the mattress.
His knees were flattened as if Hazard had shattered them with a baseball bat.
A hole the size of a small plate exposed the center of his chest. Those pink lungs smeared with fluid, the edges of his rib cage beginning to dry from the exposure.
White bone sticking out like twigs in a wreath.
I dropped the heart and grabbed my dead husband’s chin, leering down into his face, thinking of the ways he had suggested that being his wife would be good enough for me. That nothing would ever harm me, when he was just like the rest of them. All he wanted was power over me.
But I wanted that power too, goddamn it.
“Being in the Marked Blooms Syndicate is too dangerous for you too, isn’t that right, babe?
” I said, mocking Logan’s words from the last Masquerade.
“You’re too high profile now. Board members keep getting murdered.
Now you can relax and enjoy life for once.
” I laughed, smacking myself in the chest. “Or not.”
I sat up next to the corpse, stroking a hand down his body. It was still warm, almost like he was alive. Hazard gleamed back at me, his crooked canine like a jagged wolf’s smile.
I was supposed to be sad when my husband died.
Our union had been a part of my life since I was born, but even now, sitting next to his body, I was so giddy, I could barely think straight.
Blood danced in my veins as if I was spinning.
I didn’t think of the years of sticking together, or when he was still my fiancé and stood loyally by my side as the Dentist ripped out my teeth.
I felt nothing for the memories of when he picked me up from the dental implant appointments, like a good fiancé, only to run off afterward, claiming he had business to take care of.
Maybe ‘business’ had always had brown hair and big tits.
Instead, I was overjoyed. A bullet wound to the head was all I needed, but Hazard had been so elaborate; it was hard not to see the beauty in the act.
He had carved out his heart for me, and put it on a platter.
Even if Hazard was only doing it to get something out of me, he went above and beyond. I admired that.
“And what do you think of it all, my queen?” Hazard asked.
“Tell me everything. Seeing their dead bodies. Knowing that your humble servant killed them for you.” He winked as those words came out.
There was nothing humble or subservient about Hazard; he liked pretending to be a peasant in front of a queen, but I knew better. He had ulterior motives, like I did.
And I respected that. I might not have been as impulsive as he was, but I knew what it was like to do anything to get what you wanted. Even if that meant that people would die.
An ax was on the nightstand, blood painting the edge like water washing on a shore. A chunk of peach flesh clung to the handle.
“Did you use that?” I asked.
“I’ve always got an array of tools ready, love. Want to play with them?”
I shook my head. Mutilating a corpse wasn’t as exciting as a living being, and right then, I wanted something else.
Hazard stepped toward me. A tension tingled through me like a spider crawling up the leg of a tree, finding that perfect branch to perch to build a fortress.
Hazard was like a home for me, giving me shelter for once.
Hazard wanted something from me, but for now, he was on my side.
“So then, what do we do, my queen?” he asked. His dick was hard, pressing against the fabric of his pants, taunting me. I licked my lips.
“There are a few things we could do,” I murmured.
Another step closer, and I straightened my shoulders, waiting until he was standing over me.
Those brown eyes blazed as he focused on me, his red hair like a fire surrounding his head, his bottom lip puckered.
Sweat permeated the air, mixed with blood.
I parted my legs, bracing myself for whatever came next.
“Tell me our options,” he said.
Our. It wasn’t just about him, or me. Our, our, our.
“We could hire someone to clean up the body,” I said.
He curled a hand around the base of my neck, yanking me closer to him, bringing me to my feet.
His tongue licked the column of my neck until a shiver ran down my spine.
“We could clean him up ourselves,” I said, my voice hoarse with desire.
His teeth sunk into my neck, a shot of pain surging through me as I moaned.
He shoved me against the wall, then let his breath blow against my wet skin, tickling me.
“Tell me more,” he murmured.
“We could bask in this success.” His hands traveled down my sides, finding my hips. He clutched the fabric in his hands like he could rip it off through sheer force of will.
“Do you feel what you do to me?” he asked.
His hard cock stabbed into my stomach as he towered over me.
“Teasing me. Making me watch you. You make sure I’m always there when you’re swimming.
When you’re parading yourself around in nothing but a thin little sundress.
You know exactly what you’re doing, don’t you? ”
“I do,” I whispered. “But you’ve been so good, Hazard. Is that what you want me to say? That I’m so happy you respected me?” I laughed, but he smirked, putting a hand around my throat. I stilled.