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“Trust me,” I mutter darkly, “the irony isn’t lost on me.”
We reach the next gate, and I stop to put in my security code. Oakley’s hands start to shake and my fingers flinch at my side. The need to reach out and hold her pulses strongly through my veins, but I don’t dare. The wires are already getting too crossed between us. I can’t afford to muddy the waters more than they already are.
We get through the main entrance and to the bar, and I pause in the entryway, quickly scanning the crowd around us, making sure there’s no one here who’s going to try and put a bullet between Oakley’s eyes. With the coast clear, we push through the bar and slip into the twisted world of Empire, trailing through the long tunnels and winding our way toward the lonely prison at the bottom.
The further we get, the closer Oakley stands to me, her whole body cold and shaking, proving just how badly this fucked-up place has already messed with her. Shit, she was barely down here for twelve hours. “Zade?”
“What?”
“You’re going to have to distract me before I end up shitting my pants in the middle of this tunnel.”
My brow arches and I glance back at her to see just how serious she is. I let out a heavy sigh and let her have it, determined to not have to be the one to deal with that. “Tonight I followed Hartley Scott out to the countryside and he led me right to the person who’s been behind all of this shit.”
“What?” she breathes, stopping in the middle of the tunnel and tugging on my belt loop to bring me to a stop. I look back at her, those wide eyes staring straight into mine. “This is huge. Why haven’t you said anything?”
Looking into her stare, I find I simply can’t lie to her anymore. “It was my mother.”
Her face falls, horror flashing in her wild stare. “What?”
Pressing my lips into a hard line, I nod and continue down the tunnel, not able to have this conversation while she’s staring so intently into my eyes. “My mother died a long time ago. I was only a kid, but she was the one good thing I had. My father had already started his training to mold me in his image, and my mother was my escape. She advocated for me when I couldn’t do it for myself, and sometimes it worked, but other times, she’d end up black and blue on the bathroom floor. When she died, I died right along with her and became this . . . this ghost of the person I once was.”
“I don’t understand,” Oakley whispers. “If she’s dead, then who did you see?”
Her question is like taking a bullet straight to the chest. “The night I made my vow to rise as the next leader of Empire and was made aware of what I would have to sacrifice, Nikolai told me that my father had gone through the same thing. That he had sacrificed my mother for the ritual. However, that couldn’t be true when I just saw her out in the countryside, living it up in a fucking mansion.”
Oakley gapes at me. “So who the hell did your father sacrifice?”
“That’s a good fucking question.”
Oakley falls silent, lost in her thoughts as we make our way right down to the bottom of the tunnels—the main entrance to Empire’s prison system. I hold my breath, waiting to find Harrison, knowing damn well he’s not about to let me pass for a second time. Especially not after how the last time went down. Only, he’s nowhere to be found.
Pulling out my master key, I unlock the heavy gate and cringe as the loud squeal of the hinges echoes right back up through the long tunnels, and no doubt the prison cells ahead. “You good?” I murmur, needing Oakley to not pass out right now.
“Fine.”
With that, we make our way down the old, rickety stairs, and I lead her through the maze of cells before finally approaching who I believe to be her father. I stop and turn back to Oakley, making a point not to glance at Matthias’s cell as to not give anything away. “Just wait here,” I tell her. “I need to speak with Nikolai in private.”
Her eyes widen as if terrified of being left alone, but she doesn’t hesitate to agree, studiously keeping her eyes locked on mine as if forcing herself to refrain from glancing at her father. I nod and turn back around, following the dark hallway until I finally find Nikolai, looking disheveled and broken in his stiff, dirty bed.
I step right up to his cell as I spare a glance back at Oakley, watching how she makes a show of ignoring her father, though even in this darkness, I can see his hands gripping the bars, trying to get as close to her as possible.
