Page 39 of Lethal King

It’s time to call Tytus back.

“Is this the infamous Black Cat?” he quickly answers. “Crown burglar? Hologram model? Pig’s blood aficionado?”

“No.”

“Okay, then you must have the wrong number. Bye.”

The line goes dead, and I can only roll my eyes as I wait for the jester to call back. It doesn’t take long.

“Was that worth it?” I ask, already fed up with his antics. Clearly, he’s still reeling from the high of our successful caper.

“I thought you might need some cheering up.”

“Cheering up from what?” I play dumb. There’s no way I’m getting into a conversation about PMSing with my brother.

“Oh shit, you really haven’t heard, have you?” The sudden seriousness in his voice makes me pause.

“Haven’t heard about what?”

Tytus hesitates to respond.

“I really don’t want to be the one to break it to you,” he says. “But I guess I’m all you’ve got. Shit. What the hell were you doing on your trip back? You’re usually listening to the Kilpatrick airwaves. That’s what I was doing—even as I prepared for my big meeting with our new associate.”

Fuck. Our new associate. I completely forgot about that shit.

“I wanted to take a break from those pigs,” I spit. “Plus, I had some debugging to do on the crown we stole. Tell me what you heard.”

But I already have my phone out, and I’m searching through a long list of hacked email accounts and texts for any hints.

Interestingly enough, I almost immediately stumble upon a name I’ve been trying my best to ignore.

“Dragomir,” I hiss.

“What? No,” Tytus quickly replies. “Why the fuck would you think this has something to do with Drago?”

Clicking on the text, I scroll up on my phone screen to the source of the information.

“One of your little birdies put a listening device in Rian’s guest bedroom for me. I’m looking at a voice-to-text transcription of a conversation that was held there a few hours ago.”

“Between who?”

“I’d have to listen to the audio.”

“Well, listen to it later. As far as I know, the coward is still in hiding… or dead. I don’t care. He’s not worth our time anymore. But something else is. What else do you see?”

My finger glides across the screen as I search for more keywords. One of the programs I’ve installed in my spy software picks up on predetermined words of interest, then highlights them for me.

“Dragomir. Italians. Dad…” My stomach drops. “Marriage.”

“That’s what I was talking about,” Tytus confirms.

My vision suddenly goes blurry. A fist of dread punches me square in the gut.

“Who the fuck is getting married?” I snap, desperately trying to see my screen through the black spots invading my eyes. “Fuck. Tytus. Don’t say it’s Rian. The whole point of our stupid ambush was to draw him away from the safety of his empire, not entrench him within it. He’s the weak point in that entire operation. A reckless hot-head. The only one of his countless aunts and uncles and cousins who would even think of breaking from the group to do something so foolish as chase me. We saw it when he killed those union reps and got exiled to the west coast. We were trying to replicate that. It’s why we added the pig’s blood. It’s why we chose to take his crown. To maximize his embarrassment. To force him to choose to chase after me instead of marrying one of those Italian child brides.”

I’m just rambling now. The world feels like it could collapse in on me at any moment.

I was so confident this plan would work. But was I just blinded by my desire to be chased by those haunting blue eyes?