“Danny Boy, you will not need to worry about any bullets coming from me.” He relaxes slightly. “For now.” He snarls. I smirk.
“You’re a real piece of work. You need to go back into that hole you crawled out of.”
Nate’s leg gets increasingly faster.
I look up at him, unaffected. “Oh, you mean hell?”
Bishop laughs, stubbing out his cigarette in the astray. “All right, that’s enough, you two. We get it, you’re never going to like each other, but can we form this alliance for our offspring, and Brantley, for the safety of Saint?”
I stand from my chair and look out over the city of New York through the glass of Bishop’s downtown office. This is where we conduct most business meetings, but The Palace at Nate’s is where we have our Kings’ meetings. “Stay out of my way, Danny Boy. For now,” —I turn to face him— “and forever.”
“We will stick to our side, and you stick to yours,” Danny says, nodding.
“And if this treaty is broken?” Nate asks, and I have to hide my proud smirk as I lower myself down onto the window seat.
Bishop reaches for the paperwork that he printed off. He takes out a knife from the drawer beneath his desk and cuts his thumb. “If the treaty is broken, the next time you bleed near us will not be to sign a blood oath, and it won’t be only your blood.”
Danny steps forward, giving his hand to Bishop, who drags the blade over his palm. “This oath covers our families, too. We do not go after them.”
“We do not,” I say, making my way to Bishop with an open palm.
And then Nate.
We all squeeze a droplet of blood beneath our names, including Danny’s henchmen, and then shake on it. “The treaty has begun.”
Danny and his merry men leave, and as soon as the door closes, Bishop’s office phone starts blaring.
We all look down at it. The fuck. That thing never rings.
Bishop hits the answer button. “What?”
“Bishop!” Ophelia cries on the other end. “She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.”
Saint
I think we are all wired to fear death. The second we come into this world, we start finding ways to dodge it. I thought over this as she slowly wrapped her arms around her small body and rocked back against the wall. She hadn’t seen me yet. I would wait. She would probably never understand why I did what I had done, but there was no point trying to hide now. I was ready to bare it all to her. I was out of time.
I watched and patiently waited as she brought her eyes up to me. Her brows pulled in. I didn’t see her injury, but I gathered it was on her head, since I had a godforsaken migraine, I couldn’t get rid of. “You’re alive.”
I noticed when she recognized my face, because all movements stopped. Her head was no longer shifting, and her eyes were wide open.
My mouth curved. “What is it, Saint?”
She still hadn’t moved. “No,” she simply said. A range of emotions shifted over her face. Exactly what I expected and why I didn’t come in my true face to her until now. “No.”
“Yes,” I said, unbuttoning my suit jacket. “Say my name.”
“No,” she shouted. This time her voice cracked and whimpered in pain.
“Say it!” I screamed, flying off the chair and falling down to her face. I squeezed her cheeks with my fingers. “Say my name!”
Her mouth opened, and right when I was caught off guard, expecting her to whisper it, or not say it at all, she arched her back so high until her head tilted backward. “Lucan!”
“Wait, Saint—”
My retinas are like rings of fire, begging to be put out as I fly up from the position that I am in. My throat burns and my limbs are weak. Concrete walls with moss growing through the cracks, a single bed, no windows, and one door. Unlike the last time I woke up in a strange place, this one reeks of danger.
“Where the hell?” I bring my hand up and wince when the lump on the back of my head echoes through my mind. I need to tell Ophelia that it was Lucan inside my head all this time. We were wrong thinking he was alive. It was another case of Ava Garcia, only smarter. Like a snake, slithering into my mind. Aside from my throbbing head, I don’t feel pain anywhere else, so I move off the bed and try to find an escape. Anything. An old vent, a crack in the wall, a hidden window, but I come up short. Turning around, I lean against the wall as drops of water slide down my arm.
Footsteps echo outside and I begin stepping backward, when I recognize the sound of heels. I already know who it is before she appears.