Page 73 of Queen of Wrath

There’s no one left for me to protect anymore.

30

LEA

My eyes scanned the recently repaired living area.

Upstairs was still a disaster, but with the city so hard at work rebuilding other places in a much sorrier state than mine, I was happy to make do with what I had left. Not having my bedroom back for a while wasn’t as bad as not having a home left to go back to at all.

But I couldn’t ignore that my apartment seemed to have been placed on some special priority list, for it was one of the first to receive repairs.

Did Jax have something to do with it? I shook my head as if to rid it of the thought, and angled my eyes back at Ravana. She was waiting for me to speak again in that nonchalant and devil-may-care way of hers.

“It's very important that we find this woman. She's the key to making all the bad things in this country go away.” I tried to explain to Ravana as delicately as possible, but I could see her eyes spinning around in her head.

“What are the odds that I would end up working for a spy looking to take down my previous employer?” Ravana laughed nervously to herself. “I hope you can understand that as a person who grew up on the streets, I don't have an allegiance to anyone. That means I won't sell you out to Diesel, but that also means that I won't stick my neck out for you. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is.”

“I understand. It's getting too dangerous anyway. You're free to leave whenever you want, but just know that if you stay you'd be fighting for a better future for yourself.” I tried to reach out to her, but she recoiled away from me.

“Every adult that's ever offered me a better future has proven to be full of shit. It's much easier to not get my hopes up.” Ravana went quiet for a moment, and that was the first time I had seen her truly vulnerable. Almost as quickly as it appeared, she suppressed it with a cheeky smile. “So, I'll stick around for as long as it benefits me, okay?”

“That sounds fair,” I conceded, giving her a knowing look.

Out of nowhere, someone started knocking on my front door frantically, making both Ravana and I jump out of our skin.

For numerous moments, we just stood there watching the door as if it was something we didn’t know what to do with.

If Rowan had been captured, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think she’d given up my name. I wouldn't blame her if she did.

What if it’s Diesel knocking at my door? No, he isn’t exactly the kind of person to knock…

“Are you going to get that?” Ravana asked in her usual monotone voice. She barely gave me a moment to respond before sucking a tooth and jumping to her feet. She was at the door before I could stop her.

“Ravana, wait!” I shouted, holding out my hand toward her.

“What? It's just Kiyan.” She turned to me, opening the door more to show me.

He was a sweating, heaving mess. I rushed over to Kiyan, ushering him in as he struggled to catch his breath.

“What happened?” I searched him all over to make sure he wasn't wounded.

“My father is what happened to me. I received a message from my mother that she was going to leave him, and I was trying to catch her before she left. By the time I got home, she was gone, and he was there. He's completely lost his mind. What he was saying didn't even make any sense.” Kiyan plopped himself onto the couch as even Ravana checked him over carefully.

“What did he say?” I had to know exactly what kind of Diesel I was dealing with.

Despite Diesel's notorious hot temper, he always managed to keep some level of decorum. So for Kiyan to be saying this wasn't a good sign.

“He made it sound like my mother isn’t really my mother…and that he should never have spared me. None of it makes any sense.” He tucked his face into his hands, trying to get a hold of himself.

Somehow I got the feeling that he wasn’t revealing another crucial part of the encounter, and I couldn't help asking, “Did he elaborate on why he said that?”

Can it be that Diesel took Kiyan from his real family when he was a baby?

Finding out he’d murdered an entire household wouldn’t be in the least bit surprising, but for him to not only spare but raise the child as his own…

“There wasn't much elaborating to be done. He looked like he was going to kill me, Emma, I didn’t think an interrogation would go down well for me.” Kiyan looked confused, even a little annoyed at my prodding.

A thought crossed my mind for an instant, but it was so fleeting that I wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't so completely insane.

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