Page 82 of Obliterated
“Well, hello there. This looks cozy.” Joyeus steps in behind the Watchers, the wicked witch from hell in heels, blonde hair piled on her head, that pitiful excuse for power slung over her shoulders. “Why don’t you give us those knives and then put your hands in the air? Yes, like that. Thank you.”
“How did you find us?” I ask, seething, keeping my voice flat as I take in the Watchers.
Watchers I’ve never seen before, which is fucking impossible.
I train with those men, I bleed with those men. In the week and a half I was gone they couldn’t change that much. These ones move wrong: new faces, cleaner uniforms, eyes that don’t know me.
Something isn’t right here.
She clacks her rotten tongue. “Well, my sources said your little boyfriend didn’t use his room anymore, so I did my own little research. It looked very… interesting. They followed him around town last week. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.”
I frown and shuffle closer to Kee until our thighs press together, grounding me. The open door behind me is like a fucking lifeline.
I need to fucking distract them.
“Good for you. Howveryclever. So, what exactly can we help you with?” I say, keeping my voice low and smooth because the room’s full of guns and I don’t want to give them any reason to pull the trigger.
“What do you think?” Joyeus answers, rolling her eyes when she looks at Kieran pressing closer against my side. “Please. If I have to come myself every time one of my little whores decides to run off, I wouldn’t have time to run my business.” She says it like a joke, but there’s a sneer under the laugh.
I narrow my gaze at the way she calls him that, showing her every depraving part of me, and for a blink she actually flinches, then collects herself and clears her throat.
“No. We’re here because we thought it was time we put an end to that little investigation you have going on us.”
“Us?” I repeat, incredulous, and my glance snaps to the doorway.
“Yes, us,” a new voice says. My glare finds the woman now coming through the door.
“Noura el fucking Amin.” I grunt, lowering my hands and crossing my arms. Of course she’s mixed up in it; that wench has her hand in every dirty corner of this island.
“That’s ‘Magistrate’ to you,” Noura snaps.
“Careful now, Noura. You’re getting repetitive,” I say before I can stop myself. “Why are you here? You’ve got no grounds to arrest us. We’re allowed to investigate. It’s part of our job description.”
Noura cocks her head, that bun of her so tight not a single hair moves. “Well, that’s right. We really don’t have grounds to arrest you. Why don’t we take care of that, shall we?”
All it takes is the snap of her fingers.
The Watcher standing between the two councilwomen moves quickly; he aims his gun and shoots Joyeus straight through her head.
Kieran’s gasp gets swallowed by the gunshot as she drops to the floor with a wetthunk; blood pools and darkens the carpet.
My hand finds Kieran’s arm, and I take a step back to the balcony.
“Don’t you fucking move or your boyfriend is dead.”
That halts me in an instant.
“Oh, look. Hecanobey,” Noura says coldly before gesturing at the body. “Killing a council member. That’s a death sentence right there. I knew you were vicious, Max. But I never thought you’d kill a member of the Nine.” She has the tiniest curl at her lip like she’s tasting something sweet.
The witch is setting us up, and it sends my blood pumping, the voices roaring. A hand on my arm is the only thing keeping the shadows in check, to keep me from doing something stupid like flinging myself forward to strangle the life out of that fucking bitch.
“She was getting on my nerves anyway. Always complaining about that blasted brothel. I needed her money; I didn’t need her.”
“Holy shit, that’s cold. I can’t believe you fucked her,” Kieran blurts next to me.
I snap my gaze his way, but he’s staring wide eyed at the body. “How the fuck do you—”
“I work in a bar. People like to gossip,” Kieran says, looking up with a cringe. “Sorry. I mean, I don’t really care if you’ve fucked people before, I mean, I did too… But she’s evil through the core, and—”
