Page 79 of Fierce Monarch

Siska glanced between her mother and what I assumed was the stairwell. “Is it even safe up there?”

More muttered swearing. “Fine, go to Lena’s. Just get out of here.”

“I still want that trophy.” Siska ran out the door. If I had to guess, I’d say she was desperate for some time with her friends and a moment away from the sorrow.

Aliska walked us outside, her face marred with grief. “I’m sorry about that. She and Mama were close, and she’s?—”

“I get it.” I rested my hand on her shoulder, knowing I couldn’t do anything else besides ease their burden. Their matriarch was gone and had left behind a hole too big to fill.

All I could give them was closure. If that meant bringing one of Cash’s fingers in a jar for Siska, I’d do it.

Grey wrapped his hand around my shoulder as he squeezed, not to pull me away but to offer me support. I leaned back just enough that he could feel my gratitude before I straightened up and stepped away. “We’ll be in touch.”

With another nod our way, Aliska went inside, and we headed off to find Dominic.

“They never should’ve gotten that close,” I said softly.

Grey hummed his agreement. “No.”

Grey and I made our way over to where Dominic and the others were looking at the car. The man inside was already dead, a gunshot to the forehead the reason he careened into Mama Ophelia’s. At least, it would’ve been, if he hadn’t already been heading this way.

“Anything?”

I knew who’d done it, but part of me desperately wanted another explanation. A madman with a grudge just wasn’t sitting well anymore.

“Ace.” Dominic didn’t say anything else, but what was there to say? Cash had done this to undermine my protection, to make the people we took care of fearful and easy to manipulate. As with everything else he was doing, he was making me look inferior while building up his own group to be the better option. He wanted people questioning who to trust. It didn’t even matter if those people picked one of the other territory leaders, as long as they didn’t stay with me.

And one of my protectees dying like this? It was going to cause some ripples in my pond.

“Do you think there was a reason they went after Mama?” Dominic asked, sitting back on his heels as he looked over the inside of the car again.

“If Cash has really been around as long as we think, he might know that Mama was our first official client after I took over. He could’ve done it for that reason, or he could’ve just picked a random place. There’s really no way to know.”

“Maybe not, but it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that he goes after Shara and Mama Ophelia in the same weekend. This feels personal.”

The truth struck me so hard I nearly stumbled. “You think this is Nate, not Cash.”

“I’m just saying that if they’ve got eyes on us, you may have pissed off some people.” His gaze dropped to my engagement ring, and I scowled.

“That happened last night, Dominic. No way it has any bearing on Mama’s death.”

But the text on my phone was a stark reminder that Nate might have said he was sorry, but he was still Cash’s boy. Stay home this weekend. Cash is gunning for you.

Had he done it? Had Nate been the one to put Mama down? Did he shoot the driver?

Was this some fucking flag they were waving in my face?

I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t discount it, could I? Nate wasn’t mine, and I had no real idea what he was capable of or what he’d do for Cash.

Swallowing that uncomfortable realization, I nodded to the car. “Let’s get this cleaned up and get the windows boarded. The family deserves some peace.”

I was a fucking idiot. That had to be why I stepped into Shady Oaks Assisted Living that evening. Not because I missed Nate, liar that he was. It certainly wasn’t because, after the day I’d had, I wanted to believe the fantasy he’d fed me so I could fucking breathe again.

Truth was, the longer this went on, the more I needed to know if he was like Cash—like my father—or if the Nate he’d shown me was really somewhere inside him. I had to find out if there was anything worth saving, because after watching my people wheel Mama Ophelia’s body out of the store she’d spent her life in, I wasn’t so sure I could afford to let him live if there wasn’t.

The part of me that still loved Nate with everything I had didn’t want to hurt him, but if he’d helped put Mama in the ground, I was going to go scorched earth. Cash was already a dead man, but I would send Nate with him if I had to.

With Greyson stationed in the car, grumbling about staying behind, I signed in at the front desk as Nate’s partner, cringing inside at how right it felt to call myself that still, then made my way to his mother’s room.

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