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My little sister nibbled on her lower lip. She started to reach out for both necklaces when her hesitation dug its claws into her. “What makes you think he won’t believe you had any part to play in this? He’s kept everything of Mother’s in the vault. The paranoid bastard always checks the safe.”
“Not every night, Li. If I had the time to make a secondary fake for you, why wouldn’t I have taken the time to cover my own ass?” My eyes narrowed into thin slits. “I left others behind.”
Her wariness was beginning to weigh on my patience. Although the desire to shove it into her hand was powerful, I managed to restrain myself and simply let it dangle. Hell, it wasn’t like the poor child could look away. It was the ultimate answer to all her problems and she knew it.
I simply let them continue to swing, grinning at her. “You brought yourself into a country torn between two empires, Li. The angels are losing territory and they’ve begun to act out. All you have to do is get yourself to one of the few states they still control, set the body ablaze, and leave the duplicate on it.”
Calianna ran her tongue along her lower lip. While there was still a small piece of her that wanted to back away, she finally reached out and tugged the necklaces loose from my fingers. “You say it as if it’s that easy.”
“Based on what I’ve heard…it is.” I tucked my hands back into my suit pockets and shrugged. “Humans really get the bottom of the barrel with how this world works, Li. So if a bastard of mixed blood can manage to lift a body from a morgue to cover her tracks and obtain a new identity, then so can you. You’re quite resourceful for someone whose life has never been in her control.”
She slowly brought the necklaces closer to study them. “Where must I go to do this?” Her voice was soft, barely anything more than a whisper.
“Nebraska.” When her blue eyes swung back toward me, I offered a half-assed shrug. “There aren’t too many places left that you can choose from.”
“There’s no way in hell you already control most of this country, Asher,” Calianna fired back.
It took everything I had not to let my lips twitch. What a small girl you are, little sister. I cocked my head to the side. “Let’s just say the trade talks were taken to a whole new level after they stole from me. I don’t tolerate theft, Li. So I doubled the amount of territories that I expected them to hand over to maintain peace.”
Hell, the stunt had cost them nineteen states this round and that gave more than half of the country to the empire. The angels barely had control over the twelve remaining states. The majority that remained under their rule were small. Not a single one of them had the resources to be used against us if they managed to pile it all together. Even their numbers were dwindling with every passing year.
What angel could survive without the undying faith of the mortals that walked the earth alongside us?
“Lift a body. Go to Nebraska. Burn it in a public place…” I leaned forward, causing Calianna to hone in on my smirk. “...and walk away. Leave this country. Completely disappear for all I care. I don’t want a single damn rumor to reach me about you.”
My little sister hesitated. Her blue eyes flickered to the emblem now pressed into her palm. “Are you sure this will work?”
“It would be wise not to doubt me, Li.” My tone took such a hard edge that it caused her to flinch. Still, I didn’t soften the blow. I simply scoffed at her and turned on my heel to leave. “I expect to see your death make the morning news.”
“What if I can’t go through with this?”
I had started stalking down the main aisle when her soft question dragged me to a halt. Turning my head slightly, I didn’t allow myself to peer back at her. I simply glared at the floor. “Then I will hunt you down, Calianna. It’s not beneath me to drag you back to Italy myself and leave you a bloody mess at Father’s feet. He won’t think twice about the wild stories you’ll try to spin. You’re already the black sheep of the family. What good would your word be against mine?”
In essence: who would believe her when she tried to tell him the lengths I was willing to go to in order to let her escape her birthright?
Fear leaked from Calianna in waves at the mere suggestion of what would wait for her confidence to fail. “I-It will be done,” she rasped.
I silenced the snort trying to escape my lips. Instead of giving her an answer of my own, I simply continued out of the bookstore and made my way back through the coffee shop. Not many of the seats that had been filled when I arrived had been taken again. Hell, more of the customers seemed to have left once I went to confront my little sister. As much as it amused me that I had essentially killed their rush hour, I pressed on until I emerged on the front steps.
The SUV pulled up against the sidewalk.
A pleased smile stretched across my face. Perfect timing. Keeping my hands tucked into my pockets, I drifted down the steps and made my way across the street. The driver had already hopped out to open my door by the time I drew close, allowing me to slip inside with ease.
Archer was waiting for me with a bored expression on his face. “Did she take them?”
I relaxed in my seat as the driver pulled away and started the long drive back to my manor. “Check your phone.”
The demon lord’s upper lip curled at my response. Instead of vocalizing his annoyance, he simply shifted enough to retrieve his cell phone from his pocket. With one swipe of his thumb, he had brought up his own personal tracking program. The annoyed expression dissolved into a pleased one. “I’ll be damned. I didn’t think she would buy the little act with you stepping back — or the duplicate angle.”
“Calianna is desperate.” I rolled my head to work out the tension that had settled in my neck. “Desperation blinds common sense.”
He nodded slowly.
“Keep the news alerts on. If we don’t see a segment on a car ablaze in Nebraska by noon, you’ll have to hunt her down and stuff her ass on the closest jet.” I rested my head back, closing my eyes. My entire body was weighed down with exhaustion and I yearned to feel my cock buried within Quinn. I’d endured enough today playing my father’s game as well as Calianna’s. If I wanted to smear Marcillo’s blood on the walls, I would need the one thing that could help keep this rage under control.
I would become a rabid beast unless I had Quinn’s touch tonight.
“She’s on the move,” Archer noted. “Best guess… She’s walking a few blocks before she catches a ride. There’s no way in hell she’s teleporting to Nebraska. Not with her limited use of magic.”
