Page 311 of Poor Little Rich Girl

Behind me, Constantine cracks up laughing. I glare at him, and he shrugs. “Sorry, kid. You made an amateur mistake. You didn’t secure the room.”

My face reddens. I checked every fucking corner of the room when we walked in. I stayed at Claudia’s side the entire time, but it never occurred to me to look up at the ceiling. I tilt my head back now and spy the narrow metal rafters, with a wide enough span between them to hold a body. Cali must’ve lay between them, holding her body weight by her hands and ankles, not moving, not making a sound, for the entire conversation.

Shit.

That means she knows everything.

Including who Claudia really is.

“Noah, let her go.” Claudia sighs.

I don’t want to. I want to wring her treacherous neck. But it probably doesn’t help solidify our official alliance with Constantine when we follow it up by beheading his tribune.

I loosen my grip. Cali glares at me as she simpers away to stand beside Constantine. “You should have shot me.”

Yes, I fucking should have. I tap the trigger on my gun. “Keep talking. I still can.”

“I don’t like shooting people,” Claudia says. “Too messy.”

“Agreed,” Cali smirks.

Another flash. Cali slams Claudia into the wall. Fuck, she’s fast. Cali leans in close, snarling in my girl’s face like an animal about to tear out chunks of flesh. “I like to be right up close. I like to watch the life drain from their faces.”

“Do it, and my people will put you down,” Claudia chokes out.

Cali looks over at Constantine, who watches with his arms folded. He’s not laughing anymore. Cali’s shoulders slump, but she doesn’t let go of Claudia.

“You killed my Brutus,” Cali whispers.

“He killed my father. He buried me alive.” Claudia sounds eerily calm, but I can tell she’s dangerously close to losing her shit.

Same, Claws. Same. She shouldn’t have done what she did. She should have told us that she might give our child to Constantine to claim. We don’t even have a child, so why does it make my blood boil?

“Julian August wasn’t your father, though. Was he?” Cali smirks. “I could gut you right now, but then the fun would be over. It’ll be so much more interesting to kill everyone and everything you love first.”

“You and Brutus were made for each other,” I growl as I haul her off Claws and toss her to the ground. She leers up at me with something like admiration, swings her legs beneath her, and leaps at me. I duck the arc of her knife and slam the butt of my weapon into her jaw, sending her sprawling again. She lands with surprising grace and kicks out a leg and—

“Enough,” Constantine’s voice booms through the cavernous space.

Cali freezes. So do I.

“I ask you to lower your weapon.” Constantine nods to me. “Cali is loyal to me. She knows that I do not want the Imperator or any of her tribunes dead, and that she cannot reveal this secret without also exposing me.”

Cali growls at me – an actual growl, low in her throat. But she slinks away and goes to stand beside Constantine. It’s weird, but I admire her. She is clearly unhinged. Her rage has consumed her, a feeling I very much relate to. But she won’t betray Claws’ secret. Oh, she’ll stab my girl in a heartbeat, she’ll use what she knows to destroy us, but this secret will die with her as long as Constantine is her Imperator. I know because I’ve seen loyalty like hers before. In Antony.

“It’s a pity, Cali. In another life, I think we might’ve been friends. I was going to offer you a job, but if you’re going to be like that…” Claudia dusts herself off and nods to Constantine. “I’ll see you at our wedding.”

Claudia

Noah is silent in the car. I know he’s fuming about what I agreed to do for Constantine. A million bitter words dance on my tongue, but I don’t say any of them. I won’t justify myself to a guy who fucked me on a morgue table. It’s my body – my weapon of mass destruction in this fucking turf war – and I did the right thing. I did what any of them would do to secure the alliance that will keep our family safe.

Eli and Gabe don’t ask what happened. The silence looms large in the tiny car. Luckily, Lamborghinis are notoriously speedy. In no time at all, we’re screaming down the underground tunnel into the Malloy garage. As soon as I climb out, the screams and jabbers of the animals wash over me. I’m so fucking tired.

Before Noah can storm off, I drag all three of them outside. I need to be away from the animals. I need to focus.

But even out here, I can’t be alone with my tribunes. The lion lopes in circles in the bottom of the swimming pool. When he sees Eli, he stretches his huge paws up the tiled wall and roars for food. The hunger in his eyes breaks something in me. It’s not fresh meat he wants, but freedom.

Eli comes up beside me, holding packages of steak from the fancy organic butchery in Harrington Hills. He shows me how to toss the steaks into the hole in the center of the wire mesh covering. The lion leaps and twists to gobble the meat – the closest he’ll get to a hunt.

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