Page 137 of Cruel Lies

I’d rather be dead.

Taking out the guards in the hallway was easy enough. I lured one around the corner with the sounds of wet handsslapping against the wall. The second came right after the first, almost ruining the moment for me.

I slit both of their throats and didn’t bother to hide the bodies this time. I wanted anyone who came after to know that there was danger ahead. That they’d been bested.

By a woman.

I slipped into the office, the door clicking shut behind me in a mockery of the silence of the room. From behind the desk, the man I’d been forced to callfatherfor quite a few years of my life blinked sleep from his eyes, still sitting comfortably behind that ominous desk, hands steepled in front of him as he scanned the room for the source of the sound I had no doubt he heard.

His eyes found mine in the dark, likely the only part of my body he could see, considering I’d dressed in a black so dark it rivaled the Torino’s paint job. As I watched in real time, his lips spread into a knowing grin that made my skin crawl.

"I was wondering when you’d come find me, girl."

One step forward was all it took to enter the dull light from the lamp on his desk. One step closer to the end of his life and the end of my hiding.

I lowered my shades, my glare full of disgust and hatred I didn’t bother to hide. "Blackwood. I see you’re still the same pompous asshole you’ve always been."

His eyes found a guard in the far corner, and when the man moved forward, he held up his hand to hold him off. "I see you’ve been hanging out with those worthless boys of mine. The skeleton makeup doesn’t become you."

"Deflecting doesn’t becomeyou,"I spat back, crossing my arms pointedly as I stared him down. "I’m here to finish what you started, not to make small talk."

Nowhe waved the guards forward a few feet, staring pointedly at my chest instead of my face.Pig."You won’t be finishing anything unless you plan to die on the floor of my study today." Contempt dripped like blood from his lips, and I had to shake offa vision of jamming the knife personally into his chest and twisting it painfully until he screamed. "Where are my worthless sons hiding? Surely they’re lurking outside waiting for you to do the job they couldn’t."

The guards closing in on me stopped in their tracks as I took out a blade and shined it on the lapels of my leather jacket.Good. I wanted them to be afraid. I didn’t want to reveal my hand too soon, but I wanted them to know I wouldn’t go down easy.

"I didn’t bring the boys with me. This is between me and you." I stared pointedly at the sharp tip of the blade I’d stolen from Nash, my name etched into the side of the blade. I hoped that decal would slice my name into the inside of his muscles and sinew and fat, permanently marking him until his body decayed. "I’ve wanted to be free of you for a long time. I figure that’s why my mother died, too. She dared to want better for herself. And you wanted her money." I stared back down at my blade, twisting it in the dim light. "Too bad you can’t always have what you want."

"You could have leveraged yourself, and we could have ruled an empire," he said suddenly, his lecherous voice filling me with disgust. "Instead, you had to go and run game on thoseboys,who don’t even deserve you."

"Jealous of your sons?" The laughter bubbled from my chest, and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to. "What a joke. A grown man lusting after his own step-daughter. How pathetic."

"I can appreciate a fine woman. And you’re not hard to look at. You got your mother’s looks, you know."

I stepped forward and flung the spare knife in my other hand in his direction. I relished the hollowthunkit made as it slammed into the wooden paneling behind his chair, inches from his face.

I could almost imagine how tightly he was clenching his asshole right now, as he started to realize that this was more than just an empty threat.

That I was more dangerous than I appeared.

His gaze drifted sideways to the knife still protruding from the wall, and I watched with a sick sense of perversion as he swallowed thickly, motioning to his other three guards with a hand signal. They all closed in but stopped feet away from me, like they were almost scared to touch me.

Or maybe they’d been told to bring me in alive.

Either way, they were going to be disappointed.

"This only ends one way," I spat at the man who’d taken my whole life and ripped it to shreds. "With you getting exactly what you deserve."

"Deserve is such an antiquated word. Who deserves what? And who are you to determine what someone else deserves?" His stare intensified as he shook the last dregs of exhaustion and stood in his silk pajamas and smoking jacket, hands slipping into his pockets like every cliche mobster who thought he was above reproach. "You’re not a jury of my peers. Nor are you anything more than a pawn in a game full of players far bigger than you."

I flipped the engraved knife in my hand, absently watching as the sharp edge glinted in the thin sliver of light over his shoulder as he stalked me, circling with an overblown sense of confidence. As far as I could tell, he was unarmed, and I was not. Seemed like an open-and-shut case.

But the biggest predators were always the ones hiding something behind their backs.

And this one had been in the game for a long ass time.

He wasn’t to be underestimated.

I decided to play his game. Just because I was new at it, didn’t mean I couldn’t win.

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