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He continues, “But I’m much smarter than you. I know not to wear my hate on my sleeve. It’s far better to bide your time, to let the world believe you’re the dutiful soldier, the loyal cousin, the one who will clean up Julian August’s mess. So I raged in silence, and I waited for my chance to strike. And then Mackenzie Malloy burst into my life like a cheerleader out of hell and dropped that chance right in my lap.”
“We bonded over our mutual hatred of her, didn’t we, babe?” Mackenzie squeezes Antony possessively, her lips pursed.
“We did.” He kisses her, long and slow, until each stroke of his tongue lashes against my oblivion, whipping me back to the present, holding me in this moment so he can torture me further. “At first, when Mackenzie came to me with this revelation, I went along with her plan simply because I wanted revenge. Julian loved me like a son. I should’ve been his heir. I thought for sure one day he’d see I was born to rule, that he had made me into exactly the leader he is. But he kept on with his foolish charade that this weak child he’d hidden away from the world would one day be fit to rule it. I wanted Julian to know what it felt like to be buried under the weight of obligation. I wanted him to know true fear, to reach for me to save him and see on my face the moment he realized that I was the one who’d condemned him. I wanted him to pay. Mackenzie and I formed a plan to get exactly what we both wanted, and over the months we worked on the plan, we fell in love.”
We fell in love.
How many years have I wished my cousin would find someone who’d appreciate his loyalty, his strength, his cunning? What a laugh. Alanis Morissette should write a song about me.
“First, we had to deal with the Malloys,” Mackenzie says, happily snuggling into Antony’s shoulder. “They deserved to pay for what they did to me, to us. And we needed Daddy to give up the location of the treasure. We knew we’d need money to start over, and Daddy’s money would be tied up in the company and all his creditors would come knocking, so we couldn’t count on that if we wanted to disappear. So I knocked them out with drugs I brought from Cleo St. James, and I dragged them down into this very tunnel. Our mother died on her knees, begging for her life like the weakling she is. I took my time with dear old Dad. I even had a bucket of water down here to throw over his head when he lost consciousness. I had to make sure he learned his lesson. You would have been proud of me. I punished him for both of us, sister.”
In some deep, dark recesses of my fog-addled mind, I feel a tug of solidarity with my twin. Women like us get our justice on the business end of a blade. Our father deserved everything she did to him.
“Daddy was so stubborn. He kept saying that he lost the treasure. It had been stolen from him. What a silly lie to tell. Such a drag! That was not what I wanted to hear.” She pouts and stomps her foot for emphasis. “Poor Daddy thought I would spare his life if he gave me some other secret, so he kept on talking. He told me all sorts of useful things about his deal with Lucian August, about how the Triumvirate worked, about the deal he had with Senator Marlowe and how that was falling apart, and about exactly what Walter Hart was doing over in Tartarus Oaks. I got him to record the message that I played on the maid’s voicemail. Then I stomped on his head until he popped like a balloon. I emptied the safe of cash, drove their car out, and made that phone call. We had time before people would notice the king and queen were missing. Antony wanted us to take Howard’s money I stole from the safe and go off somewhere, but I couldn’t leave Emerald Beach without doing what I set out to do. I want the treasure my father hid from me. I want my inheritance.” She beams up at Antony. “This is fun, babe. I love reliving these old memories. I wish I’d taken more pictures for a scrapbook. I think I’ll start one now.”
She’s insane, which I guess is how I know she shares my DNA.
Mackenzie pulls something from her pocket and holds it up. Through the encroaching haze I can just make out the sparkling pink heart on my phone case. Mackenzie took my phone… all the guys’ numbers are on there…
What if she tries to contact them? What if she lures them somewhere and hurts them?
Mackenzie holds the phone over the coffin, but Antony knocks it out of her hand.
“Not a good idea, babe. You don’t want any possible way her harem will figure out what happened here today.”
Still weird hearing Antony call someone babe.
Why is that the only thing I can think about right now?
My sister pouts, but she replaces the phone in her pocket. “Pity, but I guess I’ll remember this day without a selfie. Anyway, where were we?”
“The night we buried Julian August alive,” Antony says, his voice dripping with pride.
She claps her hands gleefully. “That’s right! So, there we were, Antony trying to be sensible, me wanting to burn everything down. But I won, because I always win. We lie low in Tartarus Oaks for a few weeks – enough time so that the disappearance of the Malloys and Julian August’s death won’t seem connected. We needed more men, so Antony went to Constantine. He didn’t reveal the whole plan, but there’d been an undertow of dissatisfaction about Julian’s reforms, and Antony played on that. He said that if Constantine helped him get rid of Julian – made it look like an international hit from a disgruntled client – and supported Antony’s claim for Imperator, August and Dio would have an alliance and push Nero out. Constantine agreed. He drew up a contract and gave us the men we needed, and we were ready for revenge.”
Oh, Daddy, I’m so so sorry.
I hadn’t believed that contract Nero showed me was real, but it was. Only, it wasn’t between Constantine and Brutus, but Constantine and Antony. I don’t even blame Constantine for agreeing to help – I would’ve done the same thing in a heartbeat to wrestle power from Nero.
“Julian taught me how to disable the security at your house,” Antony says. “We knew your parents usually left early from Triumvirate parties—”
“—Mr. and Mrs. Parent of the Year wanted to be home to kiss their baby girl goodnight—” Mackenzie sniffs.
“—so we waited outside until they got back, then we let ourselves in.”
“I slashed your mother,” Mackenzie grins. “I enjoyed cutting her perfect skin. I especially enjoyed watching your face when you saw her.”
The figure in the window.
It wasn’t my reflection. It was Mackenzie’s face, splattered with my mother’s blood, watching as Antony dragged me away.
I think of other times when I’d seen my reflection in strange places, or a face in a crowd who looked uncannily like me. There was this time Antony took me to Colosseum for my birthday… I thought it was a trick of the light, a combination of too much alcohol and seeing Brutus again, but it was her. It had always been her.
How did I not know she was watching me? Characters in books always feel a prickling on their neck, eyes boring into their back. But I felt nothing. All Daddy’s security guards and extra precautions never picked up that my sister was stalking me. And he paid the ultimate price.
Antony puffs out his chest as he explains the next part of the story. “We took you and Julian to Beaumont Hills cemetery, where Constantine had arranged with Hart for two fresh graves to be left open for us, two fresh coffins waiting for their corpses. I threw in the first shovels of dirt myself. Mackenzie and I laid a picnic blanket under the oleander bushes and fucked to a soundtrack of muffled screams. Julian was the first to fall silent. We were waiting for you to die when Constantine called to check up on things. I’m shooting the breeze with Constantine and out of the blue, he tells me he’s fucking sorry, but the plan has changed. Brutus went to Malloy Manor after that party to have it out with his brother. He saw us enter Julian’s house, saw Constantine and his team cleaning up. He knows what we did, and he wants in. And Brutus has support within the family and a blood claim. Constantine decides it’s better if Brutus claims the killing as his and he becomes Imperator with the full support of Dio. But this isn’t what we fucking agreed.” Antony smashes his fist against the side of the coffin, which rocks on its stand. “I’m supposed to be Imperator.”
He sounds exactly the way he used to sound when we were kids, bitching after he lost a fight in the ring and thought it was because his opponent cheated. He never could stand to be second.
