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I stare at her. How can it be done? What about everything we said about the documents being her legacy? What about gifting the treasure to a museum?
“Why?” I ask.
“Why?” she frowns. “For all the reasons I’ve already said. Because we need to get rid of Nero. Because this might be the only way of drawing Mackenzie out into the open in a situation that I control. Because I need power more than I need a bunch of dusty old tomes. Because I’m the Imperator and I don’t have to explain my decisions.”
Her words grated against old wounds. I put down my fork. “But why? Why do you have to destroy Nero? Why can’t you be happy with the empire you already have? We don’t need any more power.”
“Because we’re not safe.” Her perfect face screws up.
“You’re a crime boss. We’ll never be safe. You said yourself – the documents will just go back into the underground. They’ll be lost forever. Do it some other way. You said Cali knows where Mackenzie is hiding—”
“If I send Cali after Mackenzie and she gets away, we won’t get another shot. Instead, she’s going to force my sister to come to us, on my turf, under my terms. I want to protect my family. This is how I do it.” Claudia shoots me a look that turns my blood cold. She looks just like Mackenzie. “This is not a discussion.”
My eyes flick to Noah, who shifts in his seat. He saw it too.
“So that’s it, then? We’re not your equals, your partners? We’re soldiers in your war against Nero. Against your sister. We’d better fall in line or you’ll cut us off? Stuff us inside a brass bull and boil us alive?”
At the end of the table, George sinks lower in her seat, a look of utter misery on her face. Yara looks like she’s ready to jump to Claudia’s defense. Gabriel hums under his breath. I’m making everyone uncomfortable, but I can’t stop. This is too important. This is our lives.
This is our family, all of ours. And I thought that when my father went to jail I was done doing things I didn’t want to do for the good of a family. I was done listening to people who thought they knew better than me. Even if they are my beautiful, stubborn girlfriend.
Claudia shakes her head angrily. “That’s not fair. Everything I’ve done has been for you.”
Noah fixes me with a stare across the table. Years of friendship means I read his features perfectly. He’s with me. He thinks this is too far.
“No one’s saying you don’t care about us,” Noah says. “But isn’t this risky? You’re relying on Cali to come through for you. She tried to kill you in the ring. What’s to say she’s not preparing to betray you?”
“Cali and I have an understanding.”
Noah fists his knife. “Forgive me if I don’t trust her. What if we lose the treasure, and you?”
“You said you needed me to be your moral compass,” I say. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I feel like I’m talking to my father again, trying to get across how much I didn’t want a Reality TV film crew in our house. I’m not talking to my beloved girl anymore, but to a wall of brick and indifference. “You said you need someone to point you north. Well, I’m not just pointing this time, I’m a fucking neon sign blinking TURN BACK. Don’t do this. Let us figure out another plan, together.”
“Why did you go to Harvard?” Claudia barks at me.
“You know why. I had that meeting—”
“You went because you’re still holding back,” she says, an edge of triumph in her voice. As if she wanted me to disappoint her. As if she relishes it. “You still believe that after everything that’s happened, after everything you’ve done in my name, that you can still have that Ivy League life, that you can go back to being legitimate. You gave me your word, your blood, Eli. That world is closed to you now. You are mine.”
“That’s not what love is,” I shoot back. “That’s control. That’s what my father did to me and what Noah’s dad did to him and what Gabriel’s dad did to him. You are becoming everything we raged against, everything we ran from.”
Claudia’s face clouds with rage. “You didn’t just fucking say that.”
Even Noah looks shocked. George has slid so far under the table the only thing visible is the top of her blue hair.
“Damn right I said it. And if you really loved me you’d be willing to hear me. We’re not mindless clones who rush to fulfill your every command. You said that I was the angel on your shoulder. Well, here I am, flapping my fucking angel wings. Love means I can tell you when you’re being pigheaded and foolish and making the worst of the mistakes your father made.”
Claws looks around the table, at Noah, at Gabe, at the top of George’s head and Yara and me. She fixes each of us with her Ice Queen glare, searching our souls for the blind loyalty she demands of us. My blood turns to stone. There's no love or respect in that gaze – only cold, hard rage.
“Is that what you all think?” she hisses. “You all think I’m making a mistake?”
Gabe stares miserably at his drink. Noah’s eyes search hers, those dark chasms now shallow and fragile.
“Then I don’t need any of you. Get the fuck out of my house.”
Claudia turns on her heel and storms out.
Claudia
