Page 23 of Broken Queen
His eyes rolled into the back of his head before Spiky finally collapsed from the loss of blood. A red trickle ran down the hardwood floor, finding his white hair, dying it like a mermaid. There was a satisfaction to that. I had created my own little fairytale.
The evil queen finally gets a decent offering.
I didn’t know if I’d ever tell my queen what I had done. After all, it was the right thing to do something nice without a recipient knowing about your good deed. Selfless, really. But I knew that this had nothing to do with Zira, and everything to do with me. I wanted to kill him.
My sister’s rapist had died like Spiky, but back then, I ended up with a broken leg, a fractured jaw, and a lawsuit. The rapist was the brother of our local drug lord, and the family wanted every penny that we didn’t have. In that hospital room, Gabby bit her bottom lip, clutching my hands, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
It was the first time I ever saw my sister upset. She hadn’t even acted like this when we found out about our parents. I preferred the vomit to the lack of eye contact. It made my stomach sink.
We’ll take care of this, I said, pushing through the pain in my jaw, and for once, not letting myself make a joke of it. We always do.
Gabby kept her head down and guilt poured through me like a waterfall. It was a selfish thing to say. I was the one who had caused the problems. I was the one who needed to do something about it.
I will take care of this, I corrected.
It’s a lot of money, Hazard, she said, her bottom lip quivering. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.
I’ll figure something out, I said. Once I get out of this hospital bed.
She finally met my eyes and forced a smile. I’ll take care of this, she said quietly. I’m going to fix it. Everything is going to be fine.
I furrowed my brows, but I nodded. Gabby was the smart one out of us; she always knew what she was doing. If she said it was fine, then it was fine.
It always is, I said.
And that was the last time I saw her.
By the time I got out of the hospital, my legal troubles and hospital bills had disappeared, but my sister was gone too. And like it was on automatic withdrawal, a money order was delivered to me every month for five grand from a generic account. My anonymous guardian angel watched over me, never asking me for anything in return. It had to be Gabby. She never liked that I made dirty money, but even after that, I still wouldn’t take her money orders. I put the funds into an account for her. She could have it all once she came back.
But then, after a few years of this same pattern, out of nowhere, it stopped. Gabby wasn’t the type to stop something like that without an explanation. She’d always have another plan ready to go. But nothing ever came.
The whole thing made me curious. I wasn’t emotional about it. You took life one step, one con, one kill at a time. Because you weren’t guaranteed your next.
But I still owed it to Gabby to figure out what happened and pay that mother fucker back. And when it came to Zira, the one person who could likely get me the name I wanted, I had a feeling she wanted a favor that would best be fulfilled with murder.
Spiky’s corpse was chump change compared to what Zira deserved. She probably didn’t even remember that he had molested her before pressing that button for the guillotine’s game.
You’re a smart man, Hazard, Zira had said. What do I get?
What do you get, my love? I thought to myself, looking at Spiky’s red and white corpse, his gerbil of pathetic flesh crumpled next to him. I’ll give you anything you want.
I needed to clear my head and think straight about all of this. I stood in the backyard, taking in the cool night air.
Then the next-door neighbor’s doorbell rang, and the door creaked open.
“There you are, sweetheart,” pretty boy Logan said.
“Geez, babe. You kept me waiting,” a light, feminine voice said. Not Zira.
The door slammed, then it was silent again. Logan Astor’s property was mid-sized compared to some of the neighbors’, with all angles and modernism like you could buy it from some high-tech magazine. Logan—Zira’s pansy husband—and his head of fluffy blond hair was like a beacon in the middle of the house. I walked around the property until I found Logan’s driveway. He must have been my age, or maybe a year or two younger. A brunette sat on his lap.
I didn’t understand the attraction when he had a woman with wisdom and power waiting for him back at the Bloom Estate. All he had to do was go get her.
But what did I know? I was just a contractor. And now, I had other business to take care of.
I called my contact who had gotten me the job at the Bloom Estate.
“Yep?” he said.
