Page 130 of Kingmakers, Year One

I certainly can’t lose her to another man.

Most of all not to Leo fucking Gallo.

What is it going to take to beat him?

He’s the thorn in my side. The arsenic that’s poisoning everything I want to taste.

The root of all evil in my life comes down to the Gallos.

If Sebastian Gallo didn’t murder my grandfather then I would have grown up in Chicago instead of Moscow.

If he hadn’t burned and mutilated my father, then my mother never would have left.

And if my aunt never betrayed our family and married the enemy, then Leo Gallo wouldn’t even exist.

It would bemyfather who was best friends and allies with Mikolaj Wilk. It would be Anna and me who grew up side by side. We might have had a marriage pact by the time we were teens. We would have come to Kingmakers already betrothed.

Anna and I were meant to be together. It was only a diversion of fate that split us apart.

I can see this clearly. Why can’t she?

Because of Leo, that’s why. He’s blinded her. Confused her. Seduced her away from me.

The only way to right the wrongs of the past is to set things back the way they should have been.

Leo Gallo shouldn’t exist.

Bram is ruminating on his own irritations. “Who the fuck does that Greek peasant think he is, taking a swing at me?”

It looks like Ares took more than a swing—Bram’s nose isn’t nearly as straight as it was before, and he’s got the start of a hell of a black eye. Valon doesn’t look any better.

“I guess I needed three of you to handle him,” I snarl.

“He’s a fuckin’ ogre,” Valon complains.

“And what are you? A debutante?”

Bram and Valon both glare at me.

I don’t give a fuck. They need a reminder of their own shortcomings. It infuriates me that Leo’s friends are better thanmine at fighting. Why in the FUCK does he have everything, while all I have is shit?

“He’s not winning the last challenge,” Bram says, having apparently decided that his hatred of Leo and Ares outweighs his desire to be Freshman champions.

Quietly, I say, “He’s not surviving the last challenge.”

Now the look that Bram and Valon exchange is distinctly uncomfortable.

Valon says, “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m going to kill him.”

A long silence stretches out in which you can only hear our feet treading on the sodden grass and the rain still falling down all around us. The courtyard is dark and empty, the rain insulating us from the possibility of being overheard by anyone else. I wouldn’t even say this out loud, except to my two closest allies.

“You’re doing it here?” Bram says. “At Kingmakers?”

I answer with a nod.

“What about Sanctuary?” Valon asks. “What about the Rule of Recompense?”

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