Page 6 of Cruel Crown

“Hire someone who has no allegiance,” I told him. My back was facing him as I inspected the bear head he had mounted on the wall opposite from his desk.

“Hmmm.” He thought it over, but I felt his gaze on my back. I did the best to ignore it. “Someone who belongs to no one. Do you have Gideon’s information?”

Without missing a beat, I turned around. “No, but ask Francesca. She might.”

The words burned as I said them. How I sounded calm and unaffected was beyond me. Not getting what he wanted from me, Damian turned his head, thinking about what I suggested.

Damian had a file on everyone in the Sekt. He always found out the thing that a person held dearest, and then he used it as pawn to get his way one way or another. He had something on everyone except for me. The only person I once had was my babushka, and since she was six feet under, there wasn’t anything he could blackmail me with—and it was crucial it remained that way.

London had been a wake-up call. In London, I discovered that even monsters could learn to love, and I’d never wanted to learn that.

I turned to leave, but his authoritative voice halted me.

“I need you to go to New York.”

Yeah, fuck what I had to do.

“Why is that?” I arched a brow. I knew what he wanted, but I liked to keep him guessing if I played dumb or aloof.

“Time’s up. People need to pay. Or else it sends a message to the world that you can make empty promises to the Sekt and there will be no consequences.”

“What did you want with the Ember anyway? That is nothing compared to the Amber Room, and we can’t even show that off?”

Damian rolled his eyes at me. “And people suspect we have that. It gives us more power. How do you stop someone who has the unattainable?”

“I’m at your orders.” I forced the words to come out. He seemed pleased and then shooed me out of the study.

“I don’t want to go back to my father.” The hoarse girl’s plea broke through my thoughts. “I want t-t-t-to d-d-d-die.”

I crouched so that I was at eye level with her. Her caramel skin had a grayish hue rather than the golden tan she used to sport. Her hair was a knotted mess that was dirty and grimy. She had bruises all over her bony arms. She had lost some weight in the two weeks they’d kept her.

Slowly I reached my hand out and pushed away the stray hairs from her face.

“If it makes you feel better, one of the men who did this to you is now dead.”

“Yeah, well, I want to be dead too,” she spat at me.

I gave her a sad smile. “You are of no use to me dead.”

My hands went to her neck, holding on to her pressure points so I could make her pass out. As for the Italian princess, she just let me, having abandoned her fight.

When I thought about my life, I liked to think about the silver lining, and my father being the monster that he was, he didn’t make me a damsel but a huntress. I might hurt, I might be bleeding all over the floor, but I would never stop fighting.

Daphne

Past

Location:London

“Through here.” I turned around to look at Gideon through hooded eyes. My heart was barely getting back to normal after all the running and the adrenaline that was coursing through my body.

As soon as I opened the door, I removed my headband and threw it on the side table. Some of the decorations that adorned it were diamonds, others were infrared LED lights that made me invisible to the outside cameras. So, when Yates looked at them, he would only see my body, and my face would be shielded by blinding lights.

Gideon walked in right after me. His presence seemed to take all the space of the cabin I owned in the outskirts of London.

“Where do you want her?” he asked me.

“In the basement,” I replied. “Down those stairs. I’ll be there in a second.”

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