Page 32 of Fierce Monarch

“Where’s Amara?”

“Extended vacation to her sister’s. She’s pissed, by the way.”

Guilt and gratitude warred in me as I tried to smile for him. I’d been so focused on my own pain that I hadn’t thought about Amara or anyone else Nate’s treachery had affected. I’d been so fucking blind, again. It had to stop.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me. We’re a team.” He said it like he was reminding me. Like I’d forgotten.

Maybe I had.

“You ever wish you could go back, make different choices?” I asked.

“No, because then I wouldn’t have you.”

“I wish I’d left him to the wolves that day.” Even knowing they wouldn’t have done anything because Nate was an Ace like the men who ambushed me, I still wished I’d run instead. That I’d ignored the soft part of me that didn’t want a kind stranger to die and left him to the bullets alone.

“No, you don’t.” I snorted at Greyson’s words, and he stepped closer, his warmth seeping into my back and his breath shifting the hair at my ear. “That isn’t who you are, Mari.”

“Maybe it should be.”

His noise of disagreement was barely loud enough to hear. “It’s only been a few days.”

“Feels like a lifetime,” I muttered.

“Even so, give yourself some grace. It won’t hurt like this forever.”

But it would still hurt. We both knew that.

“Let’s just get the journals and go. I hate it here.” I hadn’t before, but now all I could see were lies in the wallpaper and deceit on the floors. I didn’t want to stay long enough to discover anything else. Not yet anyway.

Hell, maybe I never would. There was too much family history in the house to ever sell it, but I doubted I’d live inside again. I’d probably give the whole place to Moore and Tennessee. They could use a security outpost of their own.

The trip up to the library was silent, Grey and I wary despite his assurances that we were alone. The house just didn’t feel safe anymore.

It felt haunted, and I’d never been one for ghosts.

The library was massive, the shelves packed despite most of the books never having been cracked open. When we were kids, it had been Antoni’s favorite place, if only because it was no one else’s. He could sit in the oversized chair by the fireplace for hours reading history books that made my eyes cross, and no one interrupted. When he met Shara, she’d join him, and they’d snuggle up like they had nothing but time.

My brother fell in love in this room. Proposed here, too. I could feel him in every square inch of it, and suddenly, I missed him fiercely. Antoni would’ve been the first in line to beat the shit out of Nate for what he’d done, and the first to offer me a hug for my troubles. Second in line would’ve been Rey, who would’ve destroyed Nate’s car like I’d taken out Cash’s before forcing me into a shitty movie marathon that ended with a stomachache and moving on.

I changed my mind. Ghosts would be fine, if they were the ones I got.

Greyson cleared his throat, tipping his head toward the shelves. Not trying to rush me, but reminding me we had a job to do.

The journals—both my father’s and Antoni’s—were chock-full of information that no one else could know. Insider knowledge that could bring everything down around me. My first order of business after taking over had been to split them up, hiding them in plain sight inside other books. My brother would’ve called gutting a book sacrilege, but I called it necessary.

I searched the shelves in silence, fingers tracing the familiar spines as I looked for the first journal hidden in a bunch of medical texts.

Only, it wasn’t there.

“What the fuck?”

I skimmed the shelf again, pulling the books out one at a time and flipping through in case I forgot where I’d hidden it, but the hollowed-out cover was waiting for me. Empty.

Unease grew in the pit of my stomach, and I hustled to the next hiding spot to find the same thing.

Empty cover. No fucking journal.

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