Page 104 of Fierce Monarch

“Dad didn’t say anything about her having protection. Her dog should have been dead.” Those fingers tapped quicker, and even Cash’s gun-toting Ace leaned away.

“Maybe she got some after her friend was taken.” I kept every part of me even: tone, facial expressions, body language. This Cash was likely to lash out at anything, and I didn’t want him to find a reason to make me his target.

Shara had been the original target of the jail hit, but she’d gotten out of custody too fast. Mari’s destruction of the Cardinal, the last real tether to our father, beyond seeing him in jail, had sent Cash into another stratosphere.

I had no doubt that if Mari had been arrested, they’d have never found her body. I didn’t like how many fucking attempts on Mari he’d okayed, like she’d become his sole focus in his quest for power. He was getting obsessed, and an obsessed Cash was a dangerous one.

He cursed, and his face twitched too. A tic his habit had created. Right on cue, he impatiently beckoned to a woman in the corner. She was his usual type, just this side of too thin. Her hair was pulled back and clean, her face perfect with that no-makeup look that meant she was wearing a shit-ton of it. Her dress and shoes were clean and designer. She looked like she was ready for a night at a high-end club, not some drug-filled frat house.

The way she looked at Cash told me how out of it she was. It was exactly the way his gunman did. That was Cash’s power. He was a maniac, but he had the charisma to enchant the masses into pretending he was a saint. It was fucking terrifying.

The woman licked her lips and carefully brought over the tray filled with white powder on steady hands. For a moment, I wondered if I could poison the coke. End the war before anyone else had to die. There were ways to lace it with something that would kill him in his sleep. I even knew a few contacts I could reach out to to get it. It would be a suicide mission, but at least Mari would be safe.

The woman dropped gracefully to her knees, not tipping the tray even an inch. Using a razor he’d gotten from somewhere, Cash scraped a small amount out of the middle and leaned forward to lick her bottom lip. Carefully, he smeared some of it across her mouth, letting her tongue taste the drugs before he lifted the rest, not to his nose, but hers.

I remembered why lacing the drugs wouldn’t work.

Cash always had a tester for his food, his drinks—anything that went into his body, someone else tried first. He wouldn’t even sip out of a sealed water bottle without a tester. I wouldn’t be the first to attempt poisoning, and I certainly wouldn’t be the last.

We all waited in tense silence until she sighed in relief as the drugs hit her. With a big grin, Cash leaned down and snorted the rest of the lines as quickly as he could. It was easily twice as much as anyone should’ve taken, but after years of addiction, his tolerance was higher than anyone I’d ever met.

When a slow, serene smile lit his face, I knew the drugs were working. A flick of his wrist sent the woman away, and as soon as she was out of sight, that serenity was gone. It was like the longer he’d used drugs, the faster his high wore off. What used to be hours was now minutes at most.

“Suit up, little brother. We’ve got places to go.”

Unease filtered through my veins as I wondered what exactly he had planned. “Where are we going?”

“A wake.” His grin was something beyond manic, if that was even possible. “Better wear black.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mari

Every underground family had traditions designed by the founders to create harmony and respect within the family. The Marcosas had plenty, but only one was the bane of my current existence.

When it came to the people born into the family, the leader prepared the body for burial. I’d watched my brother do it for our father, and when Antoni died, I’d done it for him too. It was a sign of respect, of honor.

Hence why I found myself huffing in annoyance just after dawn. Normally, I didn’t have an issue with it, but no one had expected one of us to become a traitor. That changed things. I couldn’t give the same reverence to Joaquin as I had my beloved brother.

Deciding on three major deviations from tradition, I didn’t wash the body like I should have. I wanted Joaquin to be left with his sins in the afterlife. I went straight to wrapping him in the black shroud customary for our family. Tradition said it should have covered him from head to toe, leaving no ounce of skin open to view. It was a protective thing, to guard the body from ill wishes or something. That didn’t sound appropriate for Joaquin, so I left his face bare, showing the vibrant red streak down it and the hole the bullet left. Everyone would get to see what betrayal like his got you.

My final act of defiance was the most important. Tonight, when I set the pyre ablaze, Joaquin would burn without last rites or a priest to watch over his body. Just me guiding his descent to hell, where his spirit belonged.

The perfect penance for a dead traitor.

After putting the body back in the freezer and heading upstairs to the shower, I let myself wonder how I was going to tell my cousin Joaquin was dead. First his mother years ago, then Rey, and now his father. Sure, he hadn’t liked Joaquin much, but he was still Cameron’s father and I’d taken him away. The fact that I didn’t regret it made things harder to swallow too.

Only practice kept me from jumping out of my skin as hands slipped over my hips and wrapped around my stomach. “Everything go okay?”

“Fine.”

Greyson’s stability behind me was a balm I needed, so I leaned into him, desperate to soak up some of it before I headed to the hospital. He let me, taking my weight and pressing warm, soothing kisses to every inch of skin he could reach. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” He said nothing, but I could feel the disbelief radiating through him. “It had to be done.”

“It did, but that doesn’t make it easy,” he agreed.

True enough. I thought about keeping my thoughts to myself, but this was Greyson. He was safe. If I couldn’t tell him, I couldn’t tell anyone. “I’m worried Cameron will be angry.”

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