“You have one issue,” Kosta mutters, leaning forward to flick the ash off his cigar. “You can’t kill me.”
Killian finally drags his eyes off me, taking his heat with him. “Oh really? And why’s that?”
Kosta’s wrinkles press around his cheeks, showing his age. My stomach churns in aversion, conflicted with my thoughts. “Because if you kill me, I have someone ready to take every single one of you out.” Kosta’s eyes drop to the center of Killian’s chest, where a bright red dot is aimed. “I knew you would come here, did you really think that I’d come back to Patience to run from you all? Patience is close enough to Kiznitch to not do that anymore. You underestimate me.”
“Enough!” Kaius snaps, stepping forward and into the firing line. “I can and will kill you, Kosta, but for right now, he’s right. We can’t kill him, which is exactly why I told Delila to hang back until I drew orders.”
“And when would that have been?” Delila asks, an eyebrow cocked judgingly. “When it was too late?”
“Wait!” I raise my hands, clearing my throat in annoyance. “Which is it? Am I the villain, or am I the damsel, because I’m confused.”
Killian comes closer to me, until we’re toe-to-toe. Louboutin to combat boots. He raises his hand and brings it to my cheek. “What do you wanna be?”
I bring my eyes up to his. “Free.”
He freezes, his body vividly turning rigid. I watch as he slowly turns to face Kosta. “I say we kill him and go with our chances.”
“To answer your question,” Delila murmurs, moving to me. “You were part of the plan. I’ve known about you since you were a child. I’ve known where you were all along.”
“Is that right?” Kosta stands from his chair, coming closer. “They’re forgetting one other person that they stole from you, Little Doll.”
My breathing picks up as a tingling sensation forms over my flesh. “What?”
His lips curve around his gold teeth as a grin beams from him. “Hope.”
I freeze. The room changes.
“Hmmm, really?” Killian moves Kosta out of the way. “You really thought you could play that card on her.”
“I don’t need to.” Kosta smiles in triumph. “She’s already mine.”
Chills break out over my flesh as flashbacks fly through my brain. I’m conflicted. My head pounds as the two sides of myself battle with each other. My stomach sinks as my focus flashes between Killian and Kosta.
Someone who did despicable things to me, to us all, but also conditioned us to make us feel important. Wanted. Is that what abusers do? They violate not only your body, but your mind. Hope said it was normal. Everyone said it was normal. Everyone I trusted.
“She was the bug that you planted in Midnight Mayhem…” King whispers to himself, and I turn to face him as he seethes at Delila. “You can’t just overrule the Four Fathers and expect there to be no consequences to your actions.”
Kosta’s eyebrows draw in, his stance becoming restless, as he slowly stumbles back to his chair. “No, this was my plan. I needed you all here so that I could finally take over the business that was mine to begin with. Saskia was my weapon, not yours,” Kosta sneers at Delila.
Delila smirks, lighting a smoke and blowing out the cloud. “Wrong. She was mine, and now I get to kill you for what you did that day to Kyrin, Kosta, and for what you do to all of the children of Kiznitch. I brought her in with the intention of bringing Patience down. This has been planned for years, but I had to wait. Always wait until the right timing. In order to have the Dragavei back in her home, we knew we had to get her in a different way than we usually do. We knew she wouldn’t just leave you, so we decided that we would make you think that you had her.” Delila smiles. “We made you think that it was your plan, but really it was ours, so the seven-point star is complete again. Aside from that, you were the reason why we had to close down Mayhem in Kiznitch. There’re years and years of bad blood between us, and finally, I get to fucking spill some. Patience will be no more after tod—” A gun fires and I flinch, shooting up from my chair.
Silence rings out loudly. In slow motion, my eyes fly to Killian and his to mine. I did a quick search over his body as his eyes dropped down mine. Spinning around, I grab onto Lilith’s hand, pulling her down to take cover on the ground.
I flinch when I see Delila on the ground, blood spilling out of her ear. I quickly spin around to face Lilith, just as shots fire off behind us in fast waves. I start crawling toward Delila when someone grabs me by the ankle and yanks me backward.