Page 11 of The Broken Queen
We decided to stay the night with our aunt, and enjoyed a fun filled evening with our cousins. However, Archer’s men came around, and while we were all working to get past what we’d done, it was still somewhat dangerous to be on his turf. The smallest misunderstanding could end up with a bullet in either my or my brother’s head. We left at first light, and now, we just wanted to get this over with and get home.
“Gates are closed and locked.” Kingston observed as he began increasing his speed.
“Do we have the capacity to break through that?” I glanced over at him before checking the closed iron gates looming before us. Behind it were acres of manicured lawns and cobblestone, leading to a mansion that rivaled the one we grew up in.
Kingston pushed his foot to the floor. “We’re about to find out.”
“King, don’t be fucking stupid. I’m not in the mood to have my nose busted by an airbag.”
There was a grille guard on the SUV, but it wasn’t as strong as an armored truck would be.
My brother didn’t seem phased in the slightest as we neared the iron gate, and right as we were about to hit them, I cursed and closed my eyes.
“Holy shiiiiiitttttt,” I yelled, pushing back into the seat with a wince.
King sped into the entrance, forcing the gates to burst apart. Our car rushed through them and over the tidy lawns, even hitting a few lawn figures. A fleet of SUVs followed behind us, matching our speed and spreading throughout the courtyard.
Kingston slammed to a stop right in front of the stairs that led up to the house, and within seconds, we were out of the car, with our assault rifles up. We wore tactical vests and gear, with thick- soled boots and cargo pants that allowed us to tuck away blades and grenades. King tossed one up near the front door, and we ducked behind a stone wall while the explosion went off and the front door blew inward.
“Go. Go. Go,” one of the men in our group yelled, and a flow of members went ahead of us into the mansion.
It was hard to focus on anything other than the space in front of us, ensuring we were checking for traps or anything that could harm us. But the more floors that we cleared, the more we realized the place was empty, but there was no sign whatsoever that Markos was dead.
Henry entered through the back, and within minutes, we’d joined the rest of the party that had arrived.
“Clear!” someone called out from the top floor.
Another shouted from the floor right below it. This carried on until every floor was cleared.
“There has to be another level, or someplace we aren’t checking,” I said, while snooping around his office. Dark wood covered the floor, and soft cream brightened the walls. There were bookshelves along each wall and a massive desk in the middle of the room. Pictures, in heavy silver frames, lined the bookshelves.
I picked one up and inspected it: a man near my dad’s age with silver hair, dark brows, and a rigid jaw line. He wore sunglasses in the image, and he was sipping a drink while a man next to him smiled and pointed at the camera. The man in the picture had a tattoo on his hand that looked like an hourglass with a knife cutting through it.
I knew that tattoo.
My mind flipped around memories of where I’d seen it, but I couldn’t place it at the moment, so I continued down the shelves, seeing image after image of this man who had to be Markos in each and every one.
He liked to see himself, that much was clear. In a few of the pictures, it was just him.
Kingston tore open the desk drawer and dumped out all the contents. He did the same with the other few drawers until the surface was littered with all Markos’s items. We began sifting through everything, seeing if there was any information that would lead us to him.
“Bag all of this up.” Henry walked into the room, holding an assault rifle. A few of our men moved around the room and began doing exactly that. I watched as they started packing things away, but saw something that caught my eye.
“Wait!”
Kingston glanced at the man who had frozen with his hands on a pile of papers.
Walking closer, I plucked the picture out of the pile andinspected the blonde woman inside it. There were several images being held together with a paperclip. I could feel my rage begin to unfurl as I sorted through picture after picture.
The blonde woman walking on a college campus, pregnant.
The blonde woman smiling at a guy wearing a hockey letterman jacket. He wasn’t looking at her, but she was staring at him.
The blonde woman walking with the man, his hand around her waist.
My brother came around my shoulder and watched as I flipped through each and every image, then set down his gun, and by the way he picked up each image I dropped, I knew he was just as angry as I was.
“Why the fuck does he have all the pictures of Mom and Dad?”
