Page 143 of Tarnished Queen

“I’ll kill you in front of him,” Xena says. “I’d enjoy that, actually. So give me a reason.”

“This wasn’t part of your deal,” I growl.

Xena presses the muzzle under Belle’s chin and smiles back at me. “I wanted to keep things interesting for you.”

Belle walks stiffly with Xena to a wooden door on the opposite wall. Without taking her eyes or the gun off of Belle, Xena reaches over and opens the door. Then she backs away, keeping Belle at bay with the pistol.

I want to charge her, but she’s too far away. She’d sense me coming, and I don’t doubt for a second that she’ll actually kill Belle. So for the moment, I’m stuck watching from the sidelines as her little plan plays out. Just like she wanted.

“Come out,” Xena barks to whatever is waiting. “And don’t forget that I’ll kill you all without blinking.”

I have no clue who she is talking to…

Until a familiar strawberry blonde head comes shuffling out of the closet.

“Elise,” whimpers Belle, nearly folding in half at the sight of her sister. “No. No.”

“I’m okay, B,” Elise says quietly.

Howard follows Elise out. Unlike Elise, his face is up and he’s alert. There’s a deep purple bruise around his eye and a bloody cut on his lip. Whatever happened to them, he clearly fought hard. My admiration for the man grows yet again.

“You thought they were safe?” Xena looks back at me, her eyes raking over me so she can eat up every flicker of emotion. She wants me to be shocked, horrified. She wants me to be angry.

I don’t give her anything more than a shrug. “I hoped you’d be lazy and leave them alone.”

“Hm. Maybe you don’t know me well after all.” She grabs Belle and drags her away from Elise and Howard. “Because when it comes to revenge, there’s no such thing as too much effort. I want all of you to die knowing how foolish it was to keep me from what I want.”

I take a step sideways towards my gun. It’s fifteen feet away, at least. But Xena catches the shift.

“I’ll shoot her,” she warns. “Move again, Nikolai, and I’ll shoot her.”

I believe Xenawouldkill Belle—but the more I think about it, I don’t think shewill.

“No, you won’t. Because Belle is the only reason you have any control over me. Without her, you know I’ll have nothing to lose.” I wait for her to argue, but Xena just stares at me. “I fucking knew it.”

I smirk and take a step.

Xena raises the gun.

“I wasn’t talking about Belle,” she says.

Then she turns the gun on Elise and pulls the trigger.

41

BELLE

Since the moment Elise and Howard stepped out of the closet, I’ve been frozen with horror. I thought Iceland was far enough away from Xena to be safe. I thought I’d sent my baby sister to a place where she couldn’t be touched by the chaos I brought into her life.

But I was wrong.

Everything happens so fast and so slow at the same time. Xena raises her arm and that only takes a blurred fraction of a second. Then I hear the bang, and that sound echoes for an eternity. I’m fairly certain I can see the bullet spinning through the air. The striations on it, the way the air slices open to let it through.

Toward my sister.

“Elise!” I scream, reaching for her helplessly. I’m too far away to do anything. It won’t make any difference.

Something else happens, too fast to comprehend. A body moves. The bullet meets flesh.

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