Page 64 of Broken Queen
But I needed Hazard on my side.
No. I had to do this, even if Hazard died tonight. I had warned him, hadn’t I? He would run before it was too late, and if he didn’t, that was his own fault.
I curled my fists, watching a window where a man dressed in black took a sacrifice from behind while the other men took turns caning her backside. Her skin was painted in streaks of purple and red, but my vision glazed over her. Her pain, my pain, Hazard’s pain, all of it would mean nothing unless I did something. I had to lock those doors somehow and burn everyone alive. Clear out the scorched earth and make way for a new generation.
But I must have been going soft, because I couldn’t accept that idea without concerns bubbling up anymore. If I killed the sacrifices and staff with the members and initiates, it made me too much like the men I hated. Selfish. And fucking predictable.
Again, Hazard was right. I always claimed that this planned carnage was about my mother and changing the future, and yet, it wasn’t that at all. It was because I hated being dismissed.
But if we all died tonight, at least there’d be no more suffering.
I had hidden explosives everywhere earlier that day. Tucked inside of some of the dungeon furniture. Hidden in the walls. In the ballroom. Everywhere I could find. I couldn’t lock the doors without being caught, but I could watch the chaos unfold, and cross my fingers that my father was near one of my bombs. I didn’t care how much damage I did or didn’t do, as long as he died.
A fit of laughter broke out in a room as the men took turns face-fucking a woman. Tears ran down her face. I held a device in my hand. With one click, it would detonate, and they would all be gone. At least, most of them would. A few might escape. If they were lucky.
My fingertip ran over that button, a tingling sensation growing inside of me. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t make myself press that button. Couldn’t let myself finally do what I had always wanted.
Because I couldn’t kill Hazard.
One of the windows caught my eye. My father, in his classic black mask and suit, stood in the farthest room with two guards next to him. Hazard was in a traditional suit, accentuating his masculine frame. God, he looked good dressed up like that. It was like a cage keeping him locked inside.
But then I noticed his mask—the same bull skull as before—and his work boots, dirty, scuffed, and brown.
He might have been dressed up in a black suit, but he still didn’t care about the social decorum of wearing all black, and I loved that about him.
I loved him.
I tried to pull myself away from staring at their window, but it was true. As much as I wanted to hate him, I never could. He didn’t see the fake persona I put on for others. He didn’t see the abused daughter who could never do anything right.
He saw me. Flaws and all. Saw the selfish, power hungry side of me, and saw the little slivers of light I had left. And Hazard still wanted me to kill him, so that I could kill my own father before he did.
I tilted my head as the two of them talked. It was a heated argument. A knife gleamed in the back of Hazard’s pants, but he never grabbed it. A sex machine was to the side of them, right by the guillotine. They had options, but they didn’t take any steps forward.
I wanted chaos. A fucking show. But instead, Hazard was talking like a civilized person.
My heart grew with warmth and pride. He was stalling, wasn’t he? He was waiting for me to make my entrance.
Taking Hazard’s pistol with me, I walked through the side entrance without a mask on, wearing black pants and a tight black shirt. A few members gawked at me, but I disappeared into the room with my father and Hazard, locking the door behind me.
Hazard’s eyes held me, a knowing expression covering his face.
Neither of us wanted to do this alone.
“Zira,” my father said. “We thought you’d never make it. To make it official, why don’t you get on that machine, and Hazard and I will take turns with the guillotine remote. You can be his sacrifice tonight?—”
I shot the guards in the face, their bodies falling to the ground in silence. My father’s jaw dropped. The Masquerade continued on as usual. The other members must have thought those bullets had finally killed me.
My father gawked. Hazard spit on the floor, and my father sneered at him.
“Do something,” my father demanded. But Hazard didn’t move. “Son?”
“I’m not your son,” Hazard growled. Then he elbowed my father in the face, then punched him, sending his body barreling to the floor.
Blood gushed from my father’s nostrils, dripping over his mask. Hazard pulled off the bull skull. “We only have a few minutes before he wakes up.”
“Then do it,” I said.
“Kill him?”
