Page 40 of Broken Queen
The soldier pounded on the door again. “Open up, or we’ll have to take immediate action.”
I squinted my eyes, trying to see through any gap in the curtains, but I couldn’t see anything.
“How many?” I asked quietly as I pulled on my clothes.
Zira slipped into her dress. “Looks like there’s at least two cars out there. A handful of men.”
“A handful?”
“Probably between ten and twenty, depending on the vehicles.”
“Shit.”
I motioned toward the back door, then peered through the peephole, seeing nothing but my white truck. I opened the door, but the hinges creaked loudly, and our jaws dropped. We raced to get inside of the car. As soon as I started the engine, we peeled out, and an SUV rounded the corner of the back of the motel units. I laughed.
But Zira scoffed, wiping her bloody hands on her lacy dress. “They would have killed you and you’re laughing?”
“I don’t give a fuck, Bloomy,” I said. “Live. Die. It doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
She furrowed her brows together. “You can’t do anything for your sister, or me, if you’re a dead man.”
A sliver of frustration wormed its way into my brain, sinking down my neck. I popped my jaw, then leveled myself. My sister was already dead. It wasn’t like I could do anything for her, besides try to avenge her. Zira had a lot more at stake than me.
“Now, who does that affect more?” I asked. “Me, or you?”
She stared vacantly at the road. The highway passed beneath us.
“Go back to the Bloom Estate,” she said.
“Why?” I asked. “You just got done saying they were going to kill me.”
“Trust me,” she said, annoyance simmering in her tone.
Three SUVs followed us, tailgating with their noses up my ass as we curved along the driveway. But as soon as we parked, Zira jumped out of the truck with her hands up and spoke to them, shouting something that I couldn’t quite hear inside of the cab. Under the night sky, everyone was washed in a hint of blue, making Zira’s blood stained skin and dress purple, like a rare flower.
Her father burst out of the estate, stomping toward her, and it made me sick to even think of him in her presence. If Zira didn’t need him alive, the bastard would be dead, because I wanted to see a man like him fall to his knees, blubbering like a coward. I jumped out of the car, racing toward them.
“What have you done this time?” Bloom stammered. “You little?—”
I wrapped an arm around Zira, baring my teeth. I wasn’t going to let him get near her without me standing in front of her like a human shield.
“I killed him,” Zira said, confidence oozing from her words. My jaw dropped, and both me and her daddy gawked at her. She was owning up to it. I hadn’t expected that.
“What?” her father asked. He reached to brush her shoulder with his fingertips, but before I could block him, Zira snapped her jaw at him, baring her teeth too.
“Don’t touch me,” she growled. My queen was even standing up to her father now. A wave of heat and pride filled me. “I killed Toben,” she repeated. “And you know what? I liked it. I killed him with a knife. I even took out one of his teeth, and it felt so damn good, father. Like heaven. Like paradise. Like eating a gift from the gods.” She chuckled to herself. “Like fucking someone and not caring whether or not they get any pleasure, only that you get off.”
His eyes shifted between us as he tried to decipher the missing clues. He pulled at his collar, his cheeks redder than before.
“I’m not going to stop killing until I’m on the board,” she said emphatically.
Her daddy pointed at me. “And you?” he said. “Who are you? What’s your part in this?”
“Hazard caught him for me. He’s more dedicated to our family than I’ve ever seen in a member. He knew Toben was stealing from the Syndicate, and so he captured him for me. Hazard even sacrificed his sister. I saw it at the last Masquerade. So did Logan.”
Toben stealing. Sacrificing my sister. Saying Logan saw it. Zira was lying out of her ass, simply to get what she wanted. To make her father fall deeper into her trap.
And she was protecting me.
