Chapter 23 Royal
ROYAL
COST OF CIVIL WAR
It took almost an hour for me to get the bodies in the car. The pain in my leg fought against the adrenaline and anxiety as it made its way through my system. But, in the process, I found the keys, so I didn’t have to hot-wire the ancient van. Though it would have been good practice.
“Royal.” Dad meets me in the driveway of Valor’s house.
“Dad.” I shove open the driver’s door with a wince. “I’m probably going to fall out and look really stupid. Could you turn around so you don’t have to watch?”
“What happened?” Dad rushes over and opens the door as wide as it goes. He brings his hand up to cover his mouth. “You’re bleeding.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you get shot.” I nod.
I have to use both hands to move my left leg, the one with the bullet lodged in it, over the edge of the seat before spinning entirely out.
Despite his and my best efforts, I end up on my knees, thanks to the awkward angle and the placement of the wound, screaming at the top of my lungs in pain.
Bile rises up, reminding me I haven’t eaten today, and I let the acid out onto the driveway. My body dry heaves when it’s empty.
Empty, like I feel right now. The adrenaline is wearing off. Being safer than I was before lets me be vulnerable.
“Jesus, let me get help.” Dad goes back to the house.
He’s not squeamish and has never had a problem getting bloody, but when it comes to us, his kids, Dad’s always been a worrywart. Mom usually dealt with our cuts and scrapes. That is, until Valor got old enough to learn and took over.
Should shift, let me heal. My wolf advises.
But he can’t guarantee that shifting will push the bullet out without complications. I fall to my side and lie on the cool cement, letting the cold soak into my body.
“Royal,” Valor says.
I hadn’t realized I’d closed my eyes until I have to open them to look at him. “Yeah?”
“Quit bleeding in my driveway.” He offers me his hand.
Valor is blank, devoid of anything. It’s not the stone-cold killer or the calculated interrogator. He’s blank like when his first wife died.
Bad. Bad. My wolf worries.
But I push myself up until I can grab Valor’s hand, and, per usual, my older brother cares for me. He pulls me up almost effortlessly to precariously stand on one leg. Then he pulls my arm across the back of his neck, supporting my weight so we can hobble into his garage.
Was that garage door open when I got here? Or am I missing time? Where did Dad go? Mom? Kerrianne? Antonella?
I don’t ask questions, not aloud. Answers will come if I’m patient. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision, but I fight them away.
He takes me into the main portion of the house and then straight to the stairs that lead to his lair. Unlike mine, warm and full of technology and neat gadget toys, Valor’s is cold. Stainless steel wall panels, sloped floors, and drains.
Oh no. The scent of blood meets us before we even get through the secret passage to his lair.
“What did you do?” I growl as he tries to lead me through.
I stop walking and push him away from me, making him square up to me in the narrow space of the doorframe.
“It was too late when you called. She couldn’t be saved.” Valor doesn’t explain further. He doesn’t have to.
Valor sidesteps me into his lair, and I want to grab him by the shirt, haul him back, and kick his ass.
Chained to the far back wall, snarling and snapping, its jaws is a vicious, freshly turned wolf.
Poor Antonella. My wolf sympathizes but doesn’t really know what that’s like.
Freshly turned wolves are violent little delights. They’re all animal. It can take days or weeks for them to find their consciousness.
Where he finds sympathy, I find rage. The fact that Valor wouldn’t hold it together and verify . . . I try to let it go. What’s done is done, but the pain for Antonella’s change, forced and uninvited, weighs heavily on me.
“Oh great, you found him.” Uncle Neil’s voice draws my attention away from the wolf-shaped elephant in the room. He’s chained to the wall adjacent to Antonella, who’s still snapping and snarling.
“Oh great, he’s still alive.” I snark back as Valor drags me over to his stainless steel table.
“Oh great, two sarcastic assholes,” Valor grumbles as he guides me onto the table.
I should take that as a sign that Valor probably isn’t ready to talk about the battle that unfolded here. But he walks over to his cabinet of tools, and my lower pain threshold has my mouth running on nervous energy, patience be damned. “So, what happened? Where’s Kerrianne and Mom?”
“Neil lied about Antonella being a threat. I did what I thought was best. Antonella is a wolf. Mom is with Kerrianne back at your house.” Valor’s recap could have been an email rather than a meeting between us.
He steps from one cabinet to another before coming back to me.
He thrusts a white plastic bottle at me. “Take three of these.”
I don’t question what he’s giving me. I hope it’s for pain. After dry swallowing the pills, I heed each of his instructions, from lying back to holding still.
I turn my head away to avoid watching whatever Valor is about to do to my leg.
The view I have is of Uncle Neil, and rather than look at him, I shut my eyes as tight as I can, tilting my face up to the light.
“Did you ever think Uncle Neil would be able to pull off something like this?” I say quietly as Valor places something on my leg.
“I’m right here.” Uncle Neil scoffs.
“We know,” Valor and I say at the same time.
“No, I didn’t,” Valor growls. It’s a sound I’ve heard him make thousands of times, but now he doesn’t stop. It’s just one long trail of growling. “I didn’t think any of this was possible. I didn’t know any of this could or would happen. I would have fucking—”
“OW!” I scream.
“Oh stop, you big baby. It just barely hit the bone. Smart not to shift though. This could have been bad.” Valor holds forceps up toward my face, the spent bullet caught between the prongs.
I feel sick to my stomach all over again, but I force it to stay down. I want whatever those pills were to work. Fast.
After a few more minutes of Valor packing the wound and bandaging me up, I sit upright.
The bullet out of my leg doesn’t fix our family’s problems.
My uncle betrayed us.
My new sister-in-law is now a wolf.
Both of them are chained up in my brother’s basement.
“I missed a whole damn coup being planned inside our own organization,” I say quietly.
“We all did.” Valor steps in front of me, and we lock eyes. “You don’t get to beat yourself up over this. That’s my job. This is my responsibility, not yours.”
“No one will blame you, Royal,” Dad says from where he comes in through the secret tunnel entrance. “You can’t possibly monitor everyone all the time.”
“I should have seen this. Neil was acting weird this week. He was going to caches at odd hours, long distances, and I just assumed it was business related. I didn’t verify.” I spiral and close my eyes. “If I hadn’t waited so long to kill them and call, she wouldn’t be—”
“No.” Valor’s tone is deadly and cold. He points at the snarling wolf. “That. That. Is my fault. I have to answer to her. I have to answer for that sin. Not you.”
I hear him, and I try to take him at his word. But a little bit of me is dying inside.
We’re Mob. People live and people die all the time. We are the kingpins of running mercenaries and weapons. Death is no stranger as it comes knocking on our door. It’s business as usual.
But this is the closest I’ve been to the front line in a long time.
Dad steps over to where Valor and I are, placing a hand on Valor’s shoulder. “You need to get cleaned up to take Antonella to the cabin.”
Valor nods. “Yeah.”
Dad turns to me. “Let’s go get you some clean clothes.
Before those pills kick in and knock you on your ass.
” Dad offers me a tense smile, and in a slow slide, I move from sitting to standing on my own two feet.
“We don’t have to talk about any of this until we’re fed, clean, and the bodies are hidden. ”