19. Chapter nineteen #2
If I had a dozen of them alone with Whisper in my hand, I’d carve them into a million pieces without blinking, letting them feel my fucking wrath. But bullets don’t care about how much I want it. I can’t do a damn thing against a gun pointed at the boy who stole my heart.
“Well, hello there. This looks cozy.” Joyeus steps in behind the Watchers, the wicked witch from hell in heels, blonde hair piled on her head, that pitiful excuse for power slung over her shoulders. “Why don’t you give us those knives and then put your hands in the air? Yes, like that. Thank you.”
“How did you find us?” I ask, seething, keeping my voice flat as I take in the Watchers.
Watchers I’ve never seen before, which is fucking impossible.
I train with those men, I bleed with those men. In the week and a half I was gone they couldn’t change that much. These ones move wrong: new faces, cleaner uniforms, eyes that don’t know me.
Something isn’t right here.
She clacks her rotten tongue. “Well, my sources said your little boyfriend didn’t use his room anymore, so I did my own little research. It looked very… interesting. They followed him around town last week. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.”
I frown and shuffle closer to Kee until our thighs press together, grounding me. The open door behind me is like a fucking lifeline.
I need to fucking distract them .
“Good for you. How very clever. So, what exactly can we help you with?” I say, keeping my voice low and smooth because the room’s full of guns and I don’t want to give them any reason to pull the trigger.
“What do you think?” Joyeus answers, rolling her eyes when she looks at Kieran pressing closer against my side.
“Please. If I have to come myself every time one of my little whores decides to run off, I wouldn’t have time to run my business.
” She says it like a joke, but there’s a sneer under the laugh.
I narrow my gaze at the way she calls him that, showing her every depraving part of me, and for a blink she actually flinches, then collects herself and clears her throat.
“No. We’re here because we thought it was time we put an end to that little investigation you have going on us.”
“Us?” I repeat, incredulous, and my glance snaps to the doorway.
“Yes, us,” a new voice says. My glare finds the woman now coming through the door.
“Noura el fucking Amin.” I grunt, lowering my hands and crossing my arms. Of course she’s mixed up in it; that wench has her hand in every dirty corner of this island.
“That’s ‘Magistrate’ to you,” Noura snaps.
“Careful now, Noura. You’re getting repetitive,” I say before I can stop myself. “Why are you here? You’ve got no grounds to arrest us. We’re allowed to investigate. It’s part of our job description.”
Noura cocks her head, that bun of her so tight not a single hair moves. “Well, that’s right. We really don’t have grounds to arrest you. Why don’t we take care of that, shall we?”
All it takes is the snap of her fingers.
The Watcher standing between the two councilwomen moves quickly; he aims his gun and shoots Joyeus straight through her head.
Kieran’s gasp gets swallowed by the gunshot as she drops to the floor with a wet thunk ; blood pools and darkens the carpet.
My hand finds Kieran’s arm, and I take a step back to the balcony.
“Don’t you fucking move or your boyfriend is dead.”
That halts me in an instant.
“Oh, look. He can obey,” Noura says coldly before gesturing at the body. “Killing a council member. That’s a death sentence right there. I knew you were vicious, Max. But I never thought you’d kill a member of the Nine.” She has the tiniest curl at her lip like she’s tasting something sweet.
The witch is setting us up, and it sends my blood pumping, the voices roaring. A hand on my arm is the only thing keeping the shadows in check, to keep me from doing something stupid like flinging myself forward to strangle the life out of that fucking bitch.
“She was getting on my nerves anyway. Always complaining about that blasted brothel. I needed her money; I didn’t need her.”
“Holy shit, that’s cold. I can’t believe you fucked her,” Kieran blurts next to me.
I snap my gaze his way, but he’s staring wide eyed at the body. “How the fuck do you—”
“I work in a bar. People like to gossip,” Kieran says, looking up with a cringe. “Sorry. I mean, I don’t really care if you’ve fucked people before, I mean, I did too… But she’s evil through the core, and—”
“You did ?” I cut him off, the ramble hitting a raw place. Something foul courses through me then. Something possessive and very fucking ugly.
Instead of shrinking away, his eyes heat up and his lips part when he reads the shape of me.
“Godsdammit, Kieran. I swear to the—”
“How touching,” Noura sneers, cutting me off and fixing Kee with a cold look.
“Yes. He fucked me. Quite good, actually. It’s only such a shame he wouldn’t stay with me.
We could have conquered this island—the world—together.
” She turns that hungry smile on me. “Having you at my side, fierce and iconic as you are, would bring the mainland to its knees. It’s still an option, if you’d desire so. ”
My eyes blaze as something fucking clicks.
It all clicks. I step closer as one of the unknown Watchers moves forward; a bronze tag bobs on a chain against his chest. The same stamped metal I’m sure came off Joyeus’s tag machine.
“So that’s what all of this is about, then?
” I say, low. “You’re building your own private army?
Using Joyeus’s tag machine which she uses to smuggle new prostitutes to recruit people from the mainland? ”
Noura’s smile tightens into something colder. “That’s not the entire story, but something like that, yes.” Her voice is smooth, bored. “Not that it’s any concern of yours. You’ll be long gone, fed to the Walkers in the Pit before you see me take my throne.”
“When Roe gets here he’s going to strip you of your power, throw you in the Pit instead. You better watch your back, Noura.”
“Roe has already been taken care of,” she says casually, as if this is just another business meeting. “Just like that little pet of his, even if he took a knife intended for your surrogate father.”
Everything in me freezes, stills, fucking stops.
Not Roe. Not him. Not Sami.
Kieran grabs my hand in consolation, but I refuse to believe it. If Roe was gone, I would fucking know it. Like I feel the constant absence that is Tass.
No. This woman is a master of deception, and I won’t fucking believe it until I see it for myself.
“Last chance I’m going to offer,” Noura says, voice cold as ice. “Go into the Pit together, or stay at my side. Rule the island, conquer the mainland, but watch your little boy toy get eaten live.”
I fucking seethe at her. “If you’d ever think I’d leave him and join you, you’re fucking insane.”
“Takes one to know one, Maximos,” she replies, amused.
“Oh, I know it. I never pretended to be anything else. You, however, are a two-faced bitch.” I spit the words and she ignores me.
“Put cuffs on them. Take them to the prison.” Her order is smooth, final as she turns her back on us and walks out.
The fake Watchers move like a single unit. Metal clicks; a cold cuff closes around my wrist and another around Kieran’s. For a second there’s nothing but the sound of our breathing and the blood pounding in my ears. I know fighting is futile. I can’t. Not with the barrel pointed to his head.
I don’t let go of him, keep that hand tight in my own and hold on like I’m trying to keep him tethered to me.
He looks up at me as we get ushered out of the bedroom—scared, brave—and I squeeze until his knuckles go white.
“I’ve got you,” I say, low and certain. “I’ve got you, Kee.
I’ve fought my way out of the Pit before. We got this.”
His answering nod is all I need.
Roe . Noura said he’s been taken care of.
My head refuses to take that for fact. My heart doesn’t betray me.
She’s lied and schemed before; she’s always had an angle and I can feel it like a pulse: he’s still out there, somewhere, circling, waiting for the right moment.
I know it in the way my gut clenches, in the stupid, stubborn instinct that’s been my compass for years.
They haul us toward the door, me leading, Kee stumbling behind me as he holds on to me. The world narrows to the heat of his palm in mine; his fingers curl and he squeezes once, hard, like he's asking me to promise something I can't say out loud.
I squeeze back. I promise him. I promise myself.
I'll kill Noura. I'll tear the Pit down stone by stone. I'll gut those fake Watchers and burn them until the ash sings. I'll make them pay in blood and ruin for every step they took through my life.
Right now they win the room. Right now they get to cuff us andwalk us down the hall. Right now they win the battle. But the debt's been noted.
They'll remember this promise when my fucking wrath comes for them.