Page 93 of The Masked King

Malevsky ignores her. “Shame those balls have been dragged through so much mud, they’ve lost their appeal.”

Her reputation has obviously reached the Bratva too. Is it the reason why the ‘deal’ fell through? Did Malevsky’s cousin find out, too late, that Bianca only serves herself? He said his family has suffered enough because of her; does he know the truth about the fire that killed everyone in this house? Or would it make no difference to him if he did?

“My reputation might be muddy,” Bianca continues, “but you’ll always be an ugly fucker who has to buy his women.”

I swallow. This is it, I think. Every nerve ending in my body is primed for the gunshot that doesn’t come.

He walks away from us, and I twist my neck trying to see him over my shoulder, but his dark hair and black suit are blending into the murky shadows and the charred remains of the walls.

“What’s going on?” My voice is strangled from the smoke clinging to the house and the silence I’ve held while I was listening to them bickering like siblings. “Where has he gone?” I ask Bianca.

She doesn’t respond.

Before I can repeat the question, I hear something wet sloshing about in a container. I’m still desperately trying to get it into context along with everything I’ve heard so far, when I smell gas, and fear plummets cold and heavy inside my stomach like a rock dropped into a well.

“What is that?” I ask although I already know the answer.

Nothing from Bianca. Finally, she has nothing to say.

Malevsky comes into view, painting a deadly circle around me and Bianca with gasoline from a can. He avoids eye contact, focused instead, on the fuel soaking through the already ruined carpet, his top lip curled into his familiar snarl.

That’s when gunfire reaches us from somewhere above our heads, and my heart forgets which tune it’s been beating to my whole life.

Enzo is here.

Malevsky’s eyes meet mine, and there’s no mistaking the gleam in them as he tosses the container inside the circle, gasoline still pouring silently from the opening and forming a river that oozes towards my feet.

“Right on time. He must know I don’t like to be kept waiting.” Malevsky pulls a lighter from his pocket and flips open the lid.

I gasp before I can stop myself. “Don’t you want to know the truth?” My tongue feels like rubber inside my mouth, and the words slur into one another.

“The truth according to the Sabatellis?” Frown lines appear between his brows. “I have the evidence. What more do I need?”

“You have a video.” I’m talking to a backdrop of gunfire, and knowing Enzo is in the house is making my pulse skitter, and a lump sticks in my throat. “It’s hardly evidence.”

“You say it’s fake.” He talks to me through a sneer, flipping the lighter lid open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. “I say it’s real. My word against yours.”

“I didn’t say it was fake.” I try to tune out the gunshots above our heads, focus on making my point. I don’t have time to lose his attention. “I said it wasn’t evidence; it’s what someone else wants you to believe.”

He stops flicking the tiny lid and trains his eyes on me till they’re little more than slits. “You calling me a fucking idiot?”

“If the shoe fits,” Bianca quips.

His eyes flicker over my shoulder to her, and I realize that he could snuff the life out of us, one in each meaty hand, and neither of us could do a thing to stop him. But he won’t. Because he wants to watch us suffer, and more importantly, he wants Enzo to watch us suffer before he kills him and Gio too.

“Bianca, shut the fuck up!” I snap as the gunfire stops and the quiet settles all around us in a flurry of dust motes.

The silence is more unsettling than bullets.

I want to believe that Enzo is still alive. I have to believe it or what I’m about to say will be pointless, but it’s hard to think when the house is keeping too many secrets.

Malevsky’s lips quirk into a smile when I snap at Bianca, like the game is just getting interesting.

Dickhead!

“The person who sent you the video evidence,” I continue, silently encasing the word evidence with quotation marks, “had something to gain from framing Enzo.”

He watches me, his expression neutral, humoring me until it’s finale time.