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The rush of joyful relief washed through me and seemed to leave me feeling hollowed out. We’d succeeded, we’d proved our point—but I couldn’t fully enjoy that fact while my head remained on my mother’s chopping block.
“It is great,” I said. “Now we need to make sure we can actually show up at Worlds without it turning into a mass murder scene.”
Rafael stepped closer to me, but even his looming presence wasn’t as comforting as usual. “I can handle your mother if you want. You just say the word, and you won’t have to be involved at all. I don’t want you to get your hands dirty if it’s going to weigh on your conscience.”
I smiled up at him, my heart swelling with love. It didn’t surprise me that he’d make the offer, but it meant a lot that he had all the same.
“Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t think sending you to take her out would make me feel better. You’d still be acting on my orders. I’d feel even more guilty sending you into the danger alone.”
He let out a scoffing sound. “I can deal with that.”
I grasped his hand. “I know you can. But it still doesn’t feel right.” I shook myself, trying to work the tension out of my nerves. “Anyway, I have an even bigger problem than that. Once Mom is gone, the Devil’s Dozen members are going to expect me to step up and take her place. Even if you’re willing to takethatrole, I’m not sure they’ll just take my word that you’re qualified for the job.”
Quentin rubbed his mouth. “So we don’t only need to figure out how to off your mom but also how to handle what’ll happen right after. Rafael killing her wouldn’t be enough?”
“Not if he kills her as my bodyguard, protecting me.” I let out a groan. “Why did I have to be born a Cordova?”
But I had been, and there’d been privileges to my life as well as downsides. Who knew how I’d have turned out in some other family? Maybe I’d never have found skating at all or never had the means to pursue it.
Speculating didn’t get me anywhere. The fact was, as long as my mom was living, I could never be free. And as long as there was no one else to inherit the Deadly Rose throne, I could never live how I wanted to, even though I couldn’t be less interested in the job. If only—
An idea struck me like a bolt of lightning. I had to pause and catch my breath as it unfurled through my mind. A giddy shiver ran through my chest.
I looked up into Rafael’s dark eyes again. “I might know how to pull this off. But I’m going to need your help.”
He didn’t hesitate for even an instant with his response. “Whatever you need, it’s already yours.”
“Good. I’m going to arrange a meeting with my mom tomorrow.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Luciana
I breathedin the dusty air with its scent of old, varnished wood and willed my nerves to settle. Not that I could actually feel calm, but I’d rather not be totally jittery if I could help it.
The theater that’d been out of use for a few years seemed like the perfect setting for this confrontation. I stood with Quentin, Jasper, and a few dozen figures that Beckett and the Blood Hunter had sent to support me off in the wings on one side of the stage, the curtains rippling around me. No one else was around—no unwitting citizens who could get caught in the crossfire.
Mom wasn’t going to distract me that way. This one thing, we were doing on my terms.
I hadn’t spoken to her directly. Ursula had ensured the message trickled through her contacts to my mother, and we’d gotten confirmation that the Deadly Rose had agreed to a parlay here just this morning. But I could easily imagine Mom’s face hardening as she heard the request.
I could imagine her spitting her agreement into my face.We can do this wherever you want, Luciana. Pick where you want to die, because that’s all you’ll get from me now.
My heart thudding, I waited for her to arrive. My fingers curled around my pistol. I touched my knife in its sheath at my hip just to reassure myself of its presence.
Jasper and Quentin adjusted their own grips on their guns, scanning the rows of seats beyond the stage. We’d left Niko tucked away in the rosy love hotel room, because I’d insisted I wasn’t putting him through physical combat while he was still recovering from the last time my mother’s people had shot him. But he’d helped in his own ways.
All of the Devil’s Dozen lackeys who’d joined us were armed and ready as well. Ursula and Dámaso crouched near the back of the stage, their gazes flicking over the theater. Beckett’s and the Blood Hunter’s people were clearly disciplined and focused. Not a murmur escaped them or a restless stirring passed through their cluster—a few in front of me as a shield and the others gathered behind me—as the seconds ticked down to my mother’s entrance.
The door we’d left unlocked creaked open at the far end of the building. I made out the faint scuffing of various footsteps. My shoulders tensed, and my gun-hand bobbed up a few inches.
The curtains at the other end of the stage swayed. My mother stepped forward, surrounded by a mass of lackeys. She had to have brought at least as many people as I had around me. But that wouldn’t matter in the end.
She peered between the two men standing guard in front of her with an expression as icy as I’d pictured. Her voice came out equally cold. “So you’re willing to look me in the face after you stabbed me in the back. I’m surprised you didn’t flee the country the instant you heard I was on my way.”
My heart thumped so hard I’d swear I felt my ribs rattle, but I raised my chin, refusing to let my anxiety show. “I’m not backing down. I’m claiming my life to live it the way I want. And I didn’t stab you in the back. You attacked me first, more than once. All I did was defend myself and the people I care about the only way I could.”
Her lips curled with disdain. Spittle flecked the air as she hurled her next words at me. “So caught up in your silly little competitions. My daughter, prancing around on the ice. But you’re not my daughter anymore. No daughter of mine would have made a mockery of our name and dragged me through the mud!”
