Then his voice. Echoing from speakers hidden in the walls. Smooth. Cultured. Smug as hell.
“Welcome home, my prince.”
Rage exploded through me. Hot. Blinding.
“Where are you, you coward!”
“Downstairs. Where all the best secrets hide.” His laugh cut through the comm. “Come find me. If you dare.”
Viktor's hand found my wrist. Grounding. “It's a trap.”
“I know.”
“We should wait for backup.”
“No time.” I pulled away. Headed for the door I'd spotted behind a bookshelf. “He's destroying evidence. Every second we wait, he gets away with more.”
“Sebastian—”
“You coming or not?”
Viktor swore in Russian. Followed.
The door led to stairs. Stone. Old. Leading down into darkness that smelled like water and rot.
We descended into hell's basement.
The corridor at the bottom was flooded. Six inches of water covering the floor. Flickering lights. Shadows moving.
“Dmitri, Troy, converge on basement level,” Viktor said into the comm. “We've got?—”
Gunfire cut him off.
I dove behind a support beam. Viktor hit the opposite side. Bullets sparked off stone and metal.
Marcel stood at the far end. Immaculate in a suit that probably cost more than most people made in a year. Gun in one hand. Data drive in the other.
Our eyes met across the flooded corridor.
“You killed my mother,” I said. Voice steady. Cold. Every word a promise of violence.
“Correction.” He smiled. “I killed a queen who forgot her place. Who thought love and reform mattered more than order.”
“She mattered more than you ever could.”
“Perhaps. But I'm alive. And she's bones in a pretty tomb.” Marcel's voice carried across the room, calm and conversational. Like we were discussing weather instead of murder. “Just like you'll both be.”
He raised the gun.
Everything happened at once.
Marcel fired. Viktor moved. I loosed an arrow.
The bullet caught Viktor in the shoulder. Spun him around. Blood bloomed across his shirt like a deadly flower.
My arrow caught Marcel in the arm. Should have made him drop the gun. Should have stopped him.
He didn't even flinch.
