28. Maeve
MAEVE
Stepping into the cold subterranean basement rooms, I fist my hands and inhale. The air tastes stale—filled with dirt, mold, and the small trace of urine—and I swallow it down.
As a child, the basement was an old friend. It haunted Collins, ignored Sloane, but became my home. Down here, under the harsh, ugly lights, locked behind heavy wooden doors, I could let the demons out and sustain myself on the screams of those who wronged me.
They weren’t innocents. The men I dissected were all bad in some way. When I was younger, I used to imagine them as Michael—see him yell, fall apart at my hands, have his blood stain my shoes. It never happened—not until I took back my power. But it was good practice.
Being here was cathartic. I exorcised my sins, embraced the dark, fed my twisted soul. Being here now, slowly walking around Murray’s terrified body, that same sense of peace fills me. I’m lighter, back where I belong.
“Murray.”
He shakes, his body violently racking the leather straps. The buckles clink together, wind chimes in the air.
Killian comes up next to me and places his chin on my shoulder. He’s the devil on my side.
“Why is he here?” I have a good idea, but this is the part I excel in. The wait, elongating the time, is to really make them suffer.
“He’s the go-between,” the Reaper says, turning to look at me. His black eyes are wide with pleasure, feeding off my bloodlust. It’s rising steadily, this insane need to make my victim hurt.
I should’ve known I could never be normal—hide from my true self. Not when I’m salivating at the prospect of causing harm, and my body hums, igniting from the Reaper’s touch.
I am darkness—I was a weapon forged from the blackest of nights. It’s time I own it.
“The go-between,” I repeat, tasting the words.
“The assassins.” His lips brush my cheek, and I tilt my head, allowing him more access. Lowering to my neck, his tongue darts out, sampling my skin. He groans. “He’s the one sending them out to take you down.”
A spark explodes in my chest, warming my entire body with a vicious heat. He’s the one making the plans to have me killed. Murray James—the man I couldn’t kill due to some ridiculous rule the Board leveled on us—was actively participating in plotting my death.
He reads my face. Swallowing loudly, he shakes his head.
“No, Ace, I didn’t have a choice?—”
“Knife.”
Killian chuckles, sliding his black claw knife into my grasp. It’s cold, heavy, yet right. Everything settles in me, the rage warping into a calming hand. Exhaling, my shoulders drop, and I sink into it.
He places his hands on my hips, staring at Murray over my shoulder, chin perched.
“You’ve been with the clan for decades,” I murmur, waving the blade in the air. The light catches it just right, a wicked scythe to slay my victims. “A messenger that’s been a parrot of the Board to the clan.”
“Not just yours.” His eyes don’t leave the knife. “I travel all over. To the west coast, to the south. Wherever I have to deliver messages that can’t be written down.”
“Lest found out.” Killian winks, sliding to the far wall. He throws his jacket off, leaning against the cold cement walls in a black crop top and dark jeans. “We can’t have anyone knowing our secrets.”
“It’s a good system.”
“Is that why you can’t be touched?” I tilt my head, watching the sweat drop off his forehead. “If you die, the secrets die with you?”
He gulps. “Something like that.”
Digging my fingers into his scalp, I pull what little hair he has left and hold the blade to his neck. “So, what secrets are you hiding now?”
“I’m not—I can’t?—”
I tsk. “Such a shame.”
Pivoting, I slam the tip of the knife into the center of his hand, pinning it to the wooden armrest. His yell is fucking beautiful, as it bounces off the walls, ringing in my head.
With his screams, the voices stop. The ghosts disappear.
I only ever have this silence in Killian’s arms.
Notching the tip into the grain, I gesture to Killian for his next blade. “Now that I have your attention,” I begin casually. “I hope you’ll be more forthcoming with your answers.”
Murray whines, head rolling back. “I can’t give you any secrets?—”
“Oh, but you can.” Leaning over him, I slap his cheek. “You dispatch the assassins. Have you sent any more out?”
He turns away, but I don’t let him go far. The next blade cuts into his shoulder and pushes through to the back of the seat. It’s like puncturing a pillow—a sack full of blood, fat, and flabby muscle.
The shout is immediate, garbled by his spit. Swiping my thumb through the seeping blood, I smear it onto his cheek.
“I have to say, Murray, red is your color.”
Killian cackles behind me.
“Let’s try again.” I place my hand on the hilt of the blade. “If you don’t answer, I’ll slice this knife through your entire arm. I think there are a few arteries in there. You’ll bleed out.” I shrug, almost like it’s an afterthought. “You’ll die. But don’t think that’s where this ends.”
Hovering over his face, I pinch his cheeks between my hands. “I know about your wife. And if you think I won’t go after her because she’s a woman, then you severely underestimate my ability to destroy everything you love. Don’t.”
I twist the blade to remind him of what’s at stake.
“Talk, Murray,” Killian demands from my side. “Who else did you send out?”
Panting, he screws his eyes shut. “You’re a monster, Ace.”
“My father’s favorite one. Now, talk.”
“After you killed the other three,” he begins, glaring at me. I smile widely. “No one would take the job. We had to get creative.”
“Creative?”
The Reaper stalks over to him, ripping the blade from his shoulder. Blood sprays us both, but we don’t look away from his anguished face. “You hired someone from Bruno?”
“Not Bruno,” he coughs. Those dull eyes glare up at me, and it’s the first time I’ve seen fight reflected there. Gone is the mousey fucker who hides behind the Board’s rules; this is the man who survived in a criminal organization.
I’m almost happy to see it. It’ll be more fun to break him.
“Who?”
Murray shrugs, panting. His pale face is ashen, and blood drips to the floor. We don’t have long before he drops.
But I’m going to enjoy this.
Slipping my knife from my thigh, I step back to the far wall. Killian knows what I’m doing, sliding away. Without warning, I throw the knife, and it stabs with sharp precision into Murray’s thigh.
Blood immediately falls, soaking his dirty jeans. The shout is fucking amazing.
“What the fuck!”
Another knife slips from my fingers, impaling his knee. A nasty hit, the pop sounds like a broken walnut. Slamming his opposite leg into the ground repeatedly, he swears until his face turns blue.
Another knife leaves my hand. This one is in his foot.
“Stop,” he pleads. “Stop.”
“Give me a name, Murray.” I’m cheerful, twirling my last knife between my fingers. “I’ll only stop if I get a name.”
“Ronan,” he croaks, head rolling back. “Ronan.”
My blood runs cold. Killian freezes to my side, paralyzed.
“My soldier, Ronan?”
It’s not a common name—but I have a cousin, Ronan, who excels in quick hits. Pops never trained him to be a Reaper—not like he did Killian—but he would’ve been one of the best.
Murray starts laughing, a maniacal sound that irritates my eardrums.
“He’s finally snapped,” Killian quips, eyebrow raised. I shake my head, dread growing in my gut.
“No. It’s something else.”
“You’re not going to survive,” he coos, face damp. “You think this clan respects you? That you have their loyalty. They all know you did something to get the throne—they will never follow a woman.”
My throat tightens, but I don’t move. I don’t react. I wait—I listen.
“It was only a matter of time before finding someone willing to take you out. And it came from the inside! A man who wants to see the clan returned to its former glory.”
“Former glory?” I hiss. “What glory? Stained jeans and bad breath? Bitches for men in suits, who sit behind their ivory towers, taking a bigger cut every month on some fucked-up contract that was signed by an illiterate teen running from home? How is that glory?”
He wheezes, breathing harshly as he fights the effects of losing too much blood. I can’t wait to watch him die.
“Your father knew what he was doing?—”
“My father,” I begin, “was a fucking useless piece of shit who sold me to his best friend to break me and for more power. He never cared about anything other than status—he was letting you bleed this clan into ruin just to appear like he knew what the fuck he was doing.”
I run the blade over his finger, enjoying how his skin shies away. “I built this clan. I gave it a purpose. I became what it needed to survive.”
He glares at me, spit falling from his lips. “It doesn’t matter. You’re a woman. Women can’t lead. Your men know that. And they want you out. It’s only a matter of time before Ronan kills you.”
Smiling, I hold the blade to his neck. “Too bad for you, death can’t have me.” The Reaper at my side will make sure of it. “But it’ll take you.”
Raising my knife, he quickly mutters, “He’s a cop!”
High in the air, I pause. Something tickles my brain, and I wait.
“Who?” I growl.
Killian stalks behind him, dark eyes lifeless as they stare down at the bound man. It doesn’t matter what he says—he’s going to die. But something tells me to listen.
His eyes flash. “You think we only had assassins after you?” My breath halts. “We needed to keep an eye on you. Your brother keeps your phone untraceable.”
I can’t get a deep enough breath—anger suffocates me. “You planted a cop on me?”
“A dirty one,” he amends. “And you let us. So desperate for attention, you never guessed why a nice man would be interested in something as broken as?—”
The knife sails through his throat, swift and brutal. I don’t feel it—just watch my hand turn red, the hot liquid spreading down his throat. It covers me, paints me, and I let it wash away this insufferable frustration.
He gargles, chokes, but I twist and push harder. In moments, he stops moving, eyes wide, and the light fades away. I don’t release the hilt, though, panting against the rage coloring my vision.
He planted a cop on me. They used my weakness against me.
I gave them my location every time I called him, looking for a moment to be normal. Every time we went out, and I wanted to silence the voices. They followed me, used him as a tracking device, when all I wanted was to hide. I let them do it.
Whipping me around, Killian’s hot hands grab my face, forcing it upward. Searching my eyes, I find comfort in the rage that reflects back to me.
I want to hurt them—kill them all. I want to find Ronan and end his traitorous life. He’s the leak—and he wasn’t on my radar. No connection to the Board other than he doesn’t like a woman leading his clan.
Most of all, I want Killian to tell me it’ll be alright. That I can do this.
“Hey, look at me,” he demands, but I can hardly hear over the thumping of blood in my ears.
Biting my lower lip, I nod, but I don’t feel his confidence. “They planted him. And I fucking fell for it.”
Just like a woman to be so weak.
Will you cry this time?
He growls, a dark promise in his chest. “Reese.”
Shoving him away, I exit the basement, ignoring the dead body. Let him stay there and rot for all I care. I have a cop to find and gut—and a soldier to kill.
Kicking open my office door, I stalk to my desk. My phone is there, and as I pick it up, I bring up Reese’s old texts.
Simple, easy texts. Not flirty. Nothing that tipped me off.
How fucking stupid could I have been to miss this?
“Princess.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I swallow as I lock eyes with the Reaper blocking the doorway. They’re endless, soulless twin orbs of darkness that beg to take me to the depths of the underworld.
Closing the door, the lock clicks loudly in the silent room. The sound reverberates throughout my bones and settles within my heart, and I know the Reaper won’t let me escape whatever comes next.