Page 96 of Pretty Vengeful Queen

Dante is right. If this works, it really will be a way to finally end this thing.

“What?” Riley blurts, her panic almost palpable. “No. He’s not going to believe that, Dante! No one would. You and Maddoc are like brothers.”

Maddoc wraps his arm around her middle, holding her against him. “We are,” he says, his eyes locked with Dante’s in grim understanding. “But like Dante said, McKenna can’t wrap his head around that kind of allegiance.”

“And he already knows that Dante defected from the Crimson Crows to join us,” I add, ignoring the fact that the plan bothers me on a purely emotional level that would be dangerous to let myself indulge in. Strategically, it’s brilliant. “It won’t take much for Dante to convince him that he’s just been leveling up.”

“And that I want to do it again,” Dante says with a grimace.

Riley’s expressive face makes it more than clear that she doesn’t want Dante to risk himself like that, but she holds her tongue while Maddoc thinks it through. I can see him running scenarios over in his mind as he runs a hand down her back, smoothing the long, colorful waves of her hair over it, over and over.

Riley must not believe he’ll go for it, though, because when his hand goes still, she whips her head up to glare at him. “No.”

He sighs. “Yes.”

“You can’t ask him to do that!”

“He’s not asking, princess,” Dante says quietly.

She opens her mouth to argue some more, and Maddoc’s face goes hard. This isn’t about his feelings for her. This is about Maddoc doing what he was born to, which is whatever it takes as the leader of the Reapers.

Including making the hard decisions.

Riley chokes back whatever she was intending to say when she sees his expression. “I hate it,” she whispers.

“And I fucking hate what he did to you,” Maddoc answers fiercely, holding her gaze. “This is how I’m gonna end it, butterfly. This is how we get retribution.”

She stares back at him, and we all see the moment she accepts it. Her spine stiffens and her chin lifts, and a feeling I’ve been avoiding examining up until now crashes through me hard. It’s almost overwhelming, but if we’re doing this, it has to be now, so I carefully set it aside to deal with later, and refocus on logistics.

“He’ll need proof,” I point out.

Dante nods, then grimaces. “Yeah.Fuck.”

Riley looks between us. “Proof of what? The… the dead guy?”

“No,” Maddoc says grimly. “We have to make McKenna believe Dante killed me. He’s gonna need some kind of confirmation.”

She swallows hard, her eyes flicking down to his bloody chest. “Like a video?”

“No,” Maddoc says flatly. He flexes his hands, extending his fingers and then pulling them into tight fists, and Dante scowls hard before he tucks that emotion away and forces his face to smooth out.

He’s good at wearing a mask. I have complete faith in him.

Riley still doesn’t get it, though. And then—her eyes widening in horror—she does. “You don’t mean… you’re going to bring him a… a finger or something?” she asks, all the color leaching out of her face.

“That’s easiest,” Maddoc agrees grimly. “Something more vital would be better, but—”

“But that’s not going to happen,” I cut in flatly, silently vowing to make McKenna suffer for my brother’s sacrifice, along with all the slow, painful suffering the piece of excrement has already earned for his other sins against my chosen family.

Dante meets my eyes. “You still got the pipe cutter we used when we had to clean up that mess at the chop shop over on Maine?”

I nod. It’s a quick, efficient way to handle minor dismemberments.

But when it’s finally time for retribution, I won’t allow it to be either quick or efficient for McKenna.

Not after this.

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