Page 163 of Dukes of Peril

There’s a long stretch of silence as the truth of it washes over us. I don’t know what the others are thinking, but my thoughts are as solid as steel. I wonder how it felt for my sister. Did she hesitate? She could have ended him days before her own death, but she didn’t. Was she hoping she wouldn’t have to? Was it all a very convincing bluff?

When I look up, I become pinned with the intensity of Nick’s knowing stare. A frisson of understanding passes between us. All those long nights at the Crane Motel, in the basement of the Hideaway, here in the tower…

They taught me how to read Nick Bruin.

And they taught Nick Bruin how to read me.

He nods slowly, pulling his own phone from his pocket. “I’ll call South Side,” he says, already aware of my next move–maybe even before I am.

Remy sighs, having already caught the significance of the moment. “I’ll reach out to my dad.” At my alarmed look, he offers a tight grin. “Don’t worry, Vinny. He might not understand family, but he understands business.” I watch, an eerie stillness settling over me as he and Nick leave the room, phones pressed to their ears.

Sy stands in the doorway, arms crossed against his bare chest. “Lavinia,” he says, gazing at me with a similar eerie stillness. “Are you sure?”

“He threatened us,” I say, willing him to understand. “Leticia left me a gift. Maybe she didn’t plan to die, but she left me the pieces, just in case she did, and that’s…” Head shaking, I try to remember her as she was. Elegant and strong, but also ruthless and cold. “It’s the only nice thing she’s ever done for me.” These little hints of Leticia–these secret, kind, compassionate things–should mean something.

He searches my eyes, and I wait. The truth is, if Sy ordered me to stop, I’d do it. I wouldn’t like it. It’d eat at me, corrosive and ruinous until there was nothing left inside but an empty pit of resentment, but I’d follow his orders like a good Queen should.

All he has to do is say it.

His arms unfold, hands reaching for me. When he pulls me against his bare chest, the kiss he brushes against my forehead is slow and soft, unbearably warm. He speaks the words against my brow. “I’ll call Ashby.”

I should feel apprehensive or scared when I look back into the phone, Sy wandering away into his own room, but all I really feel is sure. So sure, that when I open the call history, it’s easy to punch in the last call, bringing the phone to my ear.

I walk sightlessly into the main room as it rings, hearing the distant voices of my Dukes arranging the formalities. I’m already up the staircase and entering my loft when the other end picks up.

There’s a long, static-laced pause, and then, “Tisha?” Hearing my father say her name like that–quiet and surprised, so full of cautious hope–makes my fist clench around the phone. “Tisha,” he repeats, “where are you?”

I’ve already reached the clock room by the time I answer, voice casual. “She’s in the ground–locked away in a box.”

His sucking breath pierces right through my ear. “How did you get this phone?”

“Do you know what it is?” I wonder, carefully climbing the ladder to the open hatch. “How far did she even get into her plan before Saul messed it all up?”

Frustration rings in his voice when he snaps, “What the hell are you talking about?”

So he didn’t know.

He didn’t knowanything.

The thought is both amusing and infuriating. “What did you talk about?” I ask, the idle curiosity piercing to the surface. “When she called you on this number–which you obviously saved as belonging to her–what did you talk about?”

His answer is spoken with a viciousness that twists around my vocal cords. “We talked about you, Lavinia. How intolerable you were, up there in your bedroom, banging away in that chest. How long I was going to keep you in there.” I can practically hear the satisfied sneer in his voice. “Indefinitely, if I recall.”

The confirmation pushes a hard breath from my gut, but I continue. “We found your explosives,” I say, rising out into the cool morning air of the belfry. “Planting them inside the clock? Clever. Of course, now that I think about it, it’s obvious. You always did have a thing for symbology. I guess I’ll never know if you actually have the guts to kill me, seeing as how Tristian Mercer helped us disable it.”

There’s a stretch of silence, and then a low, unpleasant chuckle. “You really think I’d only plant one?”

I answer without missing a beat. “Yes. You’re too arrogant to have a failsafe for your failsafe. That’s why, with Leticia and Perez gone, your whole territory is falling apart.”

“What do you want?” he snipes, the barb making its target.

“I called to say you were wrong,” I say, staring out over Forsyth. “I actually believed you–for a while. But then I woke up this morning, and I had this… epiphany.” I shift my eyes to the horizon in the distance, spotting Widow’s Rock–the cliff. “Leticia loved me.”

He snorts. “You’re delusional.”

I shake my head. “Even after you poisoned her against me. Even after all the years of competition and fighting. Even after you tried so hard to make her into you. You couldn’t strip the soul out of her.” It’s exhilarating, this new awareness bringing a prickle to my eyes. Laughing thickly, I say, “I think I might have suspected it. It’s why I grieved for her so hard, even though she hurt me so much. It had me twisted up there for a while, but I was right.” Nodding, I confirm it to myself more than to him. “I was right to mourn her.”

His reply comes, sharp and impatient. “Leticia didn’t love you.”

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