Chapter 14 #3
“I was just stretching my legs,” I said as I paced to the other side of the room. His gaze fell to my hips for a moment before returning to the cabinet.
“Then why is Bria’s open?”
I looked back and noticed the locker door was slightly cracked. In my effort to shut it quietly, I hadn’t closed it completely. “Dante—”
“What’s in your pocket, Nina?”
My hand froze around the Forge die. So he wasn’t a complete fool when he wasn’t blinded by lust. His metal hand clenched at his side.
“Max… If you can hear me, something is very wrong with these people.”
“Nina!”
“Nothing! I didn’t take anything, I swear it.” I held out my hands in surrender. “Dante, I’m sorry, I—”
“You lied.” He stepped into the room and slammed the door shut with his boot. “You saw my letters to Bria. Didn’t you?”
I released a shaky breath. “Just one.”
His shoulders fell as he groaned. “Damnit. You see, this is why I didn’t want you to look. You wouldn’t understand the kind of relationship I had with Bria.”
“You killed her,” I whispered. “Why would you kill her if you cared for her?”
He snorted, placing my new drink on the desk. “She let me down. One final drop, one massive fucking payment. Thirty thousand crowns I didn’t have to share with anyone. And she brings us the wrong bloody body. A gabbling old woman who can’t remember her own name.”
“Max! Please… I don’t think these men are just smugglers.”
“You’re moving opium for the buyer back into the city. Why?” I took a step back; he took one forward.
“You seem half-intelligent,” he murmured. “Tell me your best theory.”
I swallowed. “Because your financier… Damien? He wants the opium, and in return, he pays you. He’s a Cursed, isn’t he? You hinted at that earlier. You take his funds to pay off the rest of us. It was never Bria running the operation. You’re working directly for the buyer, fixing all his lines.”
“Everyone works for the buyer.” He smiled. “They just don’t know it yet.”
“Max…”
“I’m sorry for this, Nina. I really didn’t want the night to end with this kind of bang.” He lifted the enforcer contraption, triggering a mechanism that lifted a gun barrel from within the forearm.
My heart, which had been kicking at my ribs, completely stalled. My hand dove into my pocket, and I siphoned the first remnant I touched.
Air.
Wind tore around the room, sending paper flying in a cyclone while Dante was twisted off his feet. My eyes slammed shut as the windows behind me shattered from the pressure change, and I used the night breeze outside to fuel the gust.
I slammed Dante against the lockers. His head slammed hard against them, and he slid down the cabinets. The gauntlet released a volley of bullets that slammed into the wall above my head. I crouched low to the ground. Meanwhile, I twisted the die to find what I’d really wanted.
Metal.
I crushed the enforcer attachment around Dante’s arm, snapping his bones, compressing his flesh. He cried out in agony as I turned the arm into a crumpled aluminum can, rendering it useless.
Little whimpers escaped his gaped mouth as he cradled the shattered arm. I snatched a gun off the wall.
“I’ll give you one chance to end your suffering,” I said. My stomach twisted at the blood spilling between the metal plates of the arm.
“Tell me where my mother is, and I’ll shoot you dead.”
Dante peered up at me through bloodshot eyes, nostrils flaring, and spit foaming in the corners of his snarled lips. “That’s not how that works.”
“Out here, with no healer on hand, an injury like that will kill you. But it’ll take time.
I worked in a surgery for the last thirteen years of my life, and I was very good at my job.
I know what I’m talking about.” I shot him once in the thigh, just avoiding the femoral artery, and he screamed so loud, I knew someone would come check on him soon. “Tell me!”
He was too busy gasping for air to speak clearly. “It wouldn’t matter if you found her, Nina,” he spat. “Nothing can stop him now. You’re too late.”
He was trying to piss me off, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Fine. I’ll leave you here, and you can bleed to death. Find a hell and suffer there.” I walked to the doorway, slowly peering out and scanning the length of the boat.
“Nina!” Dante called me back. “Don’t leave—”
I walked away, slamming the door behind me, leaving him to die. Hate was a powerful force, driving me to do things I’d never thought I could do. But with the gun in my hand, and pure hatred for these people who’d taken my mother, I realized I was capable of anything.
I’d deal with the consequences later. Right now, I needed to find Max before the rest of the members here retaliated.
My hands were shaking as I aimed the gun down the hall, ready to shoot anyone who jumped out. My steps were slow at first before I gained more confidence. I could see the main sitting area just beyond the kitchen and the maintenance closet, and my strides lengthened to reach it.
Gunfire exploded from the main room, ripping through the walls and clouding the air with dust. I dropped to my knees and covered my head, trying to identify where it had come from.
Before I could make sense of anything, shouts echoed through the boat.
Men begged for their lives before their voices were silenced.
Then the ship itself screamed—timber splintering and debris crashing down from above in a suffocating cacophony. The body of the boat shuddered, then stilled, leaving behind a choking quiet.
I was frozen, trembling all over. Wary of moving and being crushed beneath the wreckage.
“Max?” I thought his name, unsure if he was listening to me.
“Nina!” My name was a groan from the deepest pit in his chest. “Are you alright?”
His voice came from the room ahead. The ceiling had completely collapsed. A crystal chandelier and the support beams for the second floor littered the space between us.
“Fine, but how will I get to you now?” I called out. Fire caught the curtains on one side of the room, sneaking toward the snapped wood and upturned furniture.
“Crawl to me.”
“What?”
“On your knees, Ace,” he insisted, voice low. “It’s the safest way without moving the wreckage and letting the rest come down on top of us.”
I peered into the haze, questioning his command. Was there even a way to him through the mess? What if—
“Crawl, Nina!”
Already on my knees, I pressed my palms into the rug and pushed across shattered glass, splintered wainscoting, and broken crystal. I ignored the thick liquid soaking my knees and hands.
“Head down, Ace. That’s it. I can see you from here, you’re doing perfect.”
“Don’t distract me.” It was nearly impossible to breathe from the smoke and dust, difficult to see beyond a few feet, and my palms were sliced more than once as I found a path through the rubble.
I shoved aside a piece of debris blocking the way out and caught sight of him in the haze beyond. Max knelt on the other side, reaching for me.
A deep groan from above stole my attention. Something had snapped in the houseboat’s structure, and I braced for everything to crash down around me.
Max scooped me against his chest, his arms locked around my shoulder and waist with a strength that knocked the wind from my chest. He folded over my form as debris rained down again.
He cursed quietly after the last board had fallen and the boat had gone still once more. My temple pressed against his chest as he clutched me close, and I could hear his heart racing.
“Max?”
He let loose a breath, and his arms went slack around me. “Move. Head toward the hall.”
I pushed through the scraps of the ceiling to make it beyond the threshold of the sitting room, crawling into the hall and choking on dust. Behind me, Max pulled himself from the wreckage, dusting himself off like he hadn’t taken on the weight of a houseboat across his back.
“Are you…”
“I’m fine. A few cracked ribs, I think,” he said quickly. “Better me than you. I heal faster.” He rolled his shoulders back with a wince. “They’ll just be a bruise by the morning.”
He blinked several times before finding me with his gaze. His mouth was parted slightly in a question, revealing a Cursed’s sharp fangs. I had never seen him use his teeth, but from the bloody film across his chin and throat, it seemed he’d torn multiple men apart.
“Are you alright?” he said. “What happened with Dante?”
I stood with difficulty, still jarred from being tossed around. “I’m just rattled. Dante is as good as dead. I found a letter from him to Bria. He was working with—”
“With my kind. I know. I listened to your thoughts the whole time. I had a bad feeling when every thug upstairs was high on opium.” His breath was heavy.
His words quick. He took my hands in his own and flipped them, revealing where the broken glass had shredded my palms. I hadn’t even noticed the injuries.
He brought my torn fingers to his lips eagerly and licked the blood from each one. His nostrils flared, his grip tightening around my wrist as he tasted me, gaze lost in a hunger I couldn’t name.
“Do you need blood?”
Max snapped from his trance, quickly—almost reluctantly—shoving my hands from his face. “No. I don’t… I don’t usually drink from people. It’s just sometimes, I can’t help myself.”