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A smirk dances across Claudia’s face as she pulls back her arm and lets a second blade loose.
Hissss.
It buries itself into his other arm, near the wrist. Blood spurts like a fountain from the wound, tainting the stale air with its distinctive tang.
Brutus looks up at Claudia with wide eyes. For the first time, I see a flicker of terror behind the drugged haze.
“Claws,” Antony drawls. “Do you want me to finish him?”
“No.” Claudia holds out her hand toward Noah, palm flat. “We should bury him alive, but I’m not that patient. I’m not giving him another chance to hurt someone. I’ll have your gun.”
Noah looks like he wants to argue, but he drops the weapon into her hand. She points it at Brutus’ head, her finger on the trigger. She looks completely at home with that gun in her hand, her perfect skin streaked with Brutus’ blood, her eyes dancing with joy.
“You said you’d make things oh-so-good for me,” she hisses. “You said I was your baby girl. That’s sick, and when animals get sick, we put them down. I was never yours. I’m Julian August’s baby girl and I’m all grown up. This time, you’re the one who’s going to get fucked. I promise I’ll make it oh-so-good.”
“What are you talking about, you crazy bitch?” He’s scared now, his whole body trembling. Blood spurts from his wounds as he jerks his hand, trying to tear himself free. “You crazy-ass bitch. You’re just like him, just like Julian, two sides of the same coin. I’ll get you for this. You kill me and you doom them. All these spoiled rich boys you love so much. I already ruined that one’s father.” His eyes fix on me, and a white-hot bolt of rage strikes my chest. “We’ll ruin him, too.”
Claudia’s face is a pale moon. The weapon in her hands remains steady.
The light flickers behind her, and I catch a glimpse of the gold again. But it’s only a reflection of her face on a mirrored surface, haloed by her golden hair. A queen of hell with death in her eyes.
“He did it, Claws,” Antony says. “You know it was him. There’s no other explanation for the note he left on Brentwood’s body. He needs to die.”
Brutus throws back his head and shrieks. He sounds deranged, like a banshee calling down death and destruction. “The note…” he caws. “The fucking note.”
Claudia’s jaw clenches. Her eyes flick to me.
“Eli, get out of here,” she says.
I shake my head.
“I’m not warning you again. You don’t want to see this.”
My feet won’t move. I can’t turn away. Claudia doesn’t ask a third time.
“Alea iacta est,” she says.
She pulls the trigger.
The gunshot explodes around me. With it, the final shred of my old life disintegrates into dust.
With it, I lay my life down before my queen.
Blood splatters across the wall in a halo of destruction. Droplets rain down on me, anointing me in this man’s life – a life she took to save Gizmo.
To save me.
She shot her uncle in the head.
She. Shot. Him. In. The. Head.
Brutus’ body slumps forward, still held in place by the blades through his flesh. His head’s a mess of blood and gore and… I turn away. I can’t look at it.
I turn away, and I see her.
My queen.
She runs to me.
