Page 11 of Onyx Realm

“Bullshit! There’s plenty of time.” Iosif fidgeted with a piece of rope. “You want the girl, you’d better go steal her.”

The trouble was, I didn’t want the girl. What she represented, however, was another story.

“And I don’t think we’ll make it in time,” I drawled, turning my face to the southwest. “Wind’s against us.”

“Wind’s against us—the fucking wind’s against us,” Iosif muttered. “You’re insane. No! Wait, you’re fucking nuts. You’ve been planning this for weeks and weeks—”

“And more weeks,” I added helpfully.

My cousin didn’t see it that way. He marched over and menaced right in my face, “I know what you want to prove. So do it!”

I shook my head. “It’s not right.”

“You’ve never let right or wrong stop you before!” Iosif boomed, arms flung wide.

I wiped the spittle off my cheek. Authority crept into my voice as I pulled seniority on my cousin. “Watch yourself.”

Iosif stumbled back. “Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.”

Now he sounded like the king.

I arched a brow. “Care to elaborate?”

“It’s her.”

Grinning at him, I cocked my head. “Yes, Danica will leave New Orleans with her bachelorette party and will return to Boston where the wedding to the Serbian will take place in a few weeks. What about it?”

“No.” Iosif pointed a finger at me. “The other one—Serena with no last name.”

Tightness flickered in my chest. “I don’t see how she has anything to do with it.”

What the young pup didn’t know was that our king was planning to attach her to him. I flexed my jaw, letting the ache from Atlas’s fist ground me.

“You took her to your house. Younevertake women home.”

I began to walk away. But the truth followed me, yapping at my heels.

“She was in your bed, Mama said.”

“Your mother is an old windbag.”

“Fine way to talk about your aunt and the woman who took you in,” Iosif bristled.

A strangled sigh left my lips. I stopped short, tugging on a boat’s mooring line. “Alright, let’s say it was her—”

“Serena.”

“Seeing a traumatized, battered woman show up was bad enough. The fact that she’s the wrong woman? Worse. We need to do damage control before we go kidnapping a second woman.” I rounded on Iosif, fingers around his throat and holding him over the water. Getting right in his face, I added in a voice that brooked no argument. “So yes, when I say the wind is against us, I fucking mean the wind is against us.”

I shook my cousin before I let go. Only years of acquiring a special kind of balance allowed him not to drop into the water.

“Don’t give up on your plans, Black Tide,” he whispered.

That nickname, one that fit me well—one that I’d earned. “I won’t.” I never did.

***

There’d been a mess with tonight’s shipment. The boat had nearly been caught by the authorities, which meant we unloaded farther up the coast. It took a combined effort, and once the goods were safely on their way to Tampa, it was decided the midnight meeting of our leadership would be delayed for another night.

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