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“It looks like you’ve been indulging in too many pasta meals, Imperator,” Eli laughs.
“Daughter, help me out of this pool.” Nero’s face contracts with fury. “I command it.”
“Fuck you,” Livvie calls down to him cheerfully. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to impress you, but you never saw me. Well, the great Nero Lucian can fucking see me now. I’ll be the last face you see before that lion tears you to pieces.”
Nero turns then. He sees the lion at the same time the beast pounces. Nero’s screams echo across Harrington Hills. They’re beautiful – wild in their torment. They’re the screams of a man finally doing what he should have done right from the start – bowing to Claudia fucking August.
I etch every beautiful moment of it to memory. There will be many moments in my undoubtedly short life where I will need to recall this bloodletting, and revel in it, and learn from it.
When it’s done, when the screaming stops, when all that’s left is a red-lined pool and bloody chunks of meat, I let out a breath. A great weight lifts from my shoulders. Gabriel brushes his lips across mine. The lion drags the stump of a leg across the bottom of the floor, drops down, and gnaws at the end.
“Is it safe to leave this open?” George touches the snapped netting.
“I think so,” Livvie says. “He’ll be too full now to want to move anywhere for a while. Plus, I don’t think he can jump out of this pool. The hole is over the deep end.”
“Thaaaa—” I moan.
Livvie frowns at me. “Why’s she all limp and zombified?”
“Mackenzie got her with a tranquilizer,” Eli says. “She can’t speak.”
“I prefer her like this.” Livvie pats my head affectionately. “And you’re welcome, Claws. Always a pleasure to save your ass.”
“It is a damn fine ass,” Gabriel quips.
“I have only one request – when you’re feeling better, the first thing you need to do is pull out that damn succulent garden.” Livvie winces as she pulls an evil-looking spine from her palm. “When you didn’t show up at the docks, I figured you were in trouble. So I pulled everyone back, not a moment too soon, by the way, just as Nero’s men showed up. They got the two cylinders you sent, but none of us were there. Then they got a call and packed off to come here, obviously.”
Eli gazes at her with awe. “But Nero has the house surrounded. How did you fight your way through—”
Another figure steps out of the garden. Cali. Blood plasters her long hair to her back, and an array of knives on her belt jingle as she strides over to us. Her bloody hands grip a small crate. “Sorry I was late to the docks.” She drops the crate at my feet. “I wanted to get you a present.”
She kicks the lid off the crate. I peer down at a human head, its mouth open in a silent scream.
Gabriel’s father, the Duke of Blackwich.
“Bloody hell.” Gabe staggers back. Noah has to grab him before he joins Nero in the swimming pool.
“This fool showed up demanding to see me, wanting to make a deal on Grey Death that would cut you and Nero out.” Cali makes a face at the decapitated duke. “I would’ve killed the girl too, but she’s pregnant. I figure we could hold her until she pops, and then we can have our fun with her.”
I open my mouth again, trying to push the words in my brain past my unyielding lips, but Cali glares at me. “Save your strength,” she says, nodding toward the house, where I’m sure Mackenzie is waiting. “Et in morte fidelitas. We’re not done with the slaughter yet.”
Claudia
Gabriel carries me back into the house. We move as a group, clearing each room as we go. A trail of dead bodies paint Cali’s path to us, their throats slit, bleeding Rorschach patterns across my marble floors.
We move through the dining room, past the kitchen and the billiards room. Noah turns toward the front of the house – probably to secure the wide-open gates – but I mumble something and he stops in his tracks.
“Offfff…” Damn, why can’t my stupid mouth work?
“Claws, what are you saying?” Noah’s fingers dig into my shoulders, his dark eyes boring into mine as if he can read my thoughts through my retinas.
Eli frowns. “I think she means Howard Malloy’s office.”
His eyes meet Noah’s in one of their silent conversations. They know the treasure is there. And the treasure is what Mackenzie wanted all along.
Noah steps over a decapitated body and heads down the hall, placing his feet carefully on the carpet so as not to make any sound. Eli and Livvie follow him. Gabriel hangs back, and I don’t have any choice but to do what he does. George holds on to Gabriel’s sleeve, rubbing her neck, which is covered in bruises from Nero’s gross hands.
“Come with me,” Cali waves her gun at us. “We’ll head around the other side.”
