Page 60 of Princess of Vengeance

Who was he mourning when Malcolm came calling? Whose death was he trying to avenge?

“No.” I shake my head, but the denial feels weak even to my own ears. “My father would have told me if?—”

But would he have? He protected me from so many things over the years. I didn’t even find out about the fucking marker he tattooed on my body until after he died. So it’s not like this is the first time I’m wondering what else he never got around to telling me.

Princess winds around my ankles, meowing softly, but I barely notice. My mind is racing, flipping through memories, searching for clues I might have missed.

“I have to go,” I say suddenly, nearly tripping over the cat in my hurry to reach the door. “I need to…”

I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. What do I need? Answers. The truth. Something solid to stand on when it feels like everything I know is suddenly falling apart.

Imogen follows me to the door and gives me a surprisingly sympathetic look. “Quinn, wait. Look, I didn’t mean to drop all of this on you. I just assumed you knew.”

“It’s fine,” I say automatically, even though this whole situation is anything but fine. “Thank you for taking care of Princess. And for… for telling me the truth.”

She hesitates, then reaches out and gives me a half-hug that’s brief but still comforting. “Be careful with what you do with that truth. Malcolm doesn’t like people asking too many questions.”

It’s a warning that I know firsthand to be true. I nod stiffly, then hurry out the door before either of us can say anything else.

In the elevator, I lean against the wall and wonder again who my father lost and why the hell he never told me.

Fuck, will I ever live long enough to learn all the secrets that died with him?

22

QUINN

I barely registerthe passing scenery as Malcolm’s men drive me back to his house. I can’t stop turning Imogen’s words over and over again in my mind.

Every member of the Dark Lotus Syndicate has the same kind of story.

They all joined to make someone’s death mean something.

The only way into the Syndicate is through blood.

The pieces click together with a clarity that makes my stomach turn. Malcolm says the Syndicate is a partnership of equals, a collection of Detroit’s most powerful crime bosses united for mutual benefit. But it’s all bullshit. It’s not a partnership—it’s a fucking leash he keeps around their necks.

He kills someone they love, then offers them power as compensation. It’s a twisted kind of blood money. And the rules they all follow so strictly? They’re just another method of control. Malcolm changes them whenever it suits him, like he did for me, proving to everyone exactly who holds the real power.

No wonder Imogen looked so bitter when she talked about him. No wonder she said they were all suffocating.

The guard sitting next to me clears his throat. “Are you okay, Mrs. Mercer? You look pale.”

That disgusting name snaps me back to reality and I force myself to blink and breathe again. “I’m fine.”

But I’m not. I’m so fucking far from fine that I can’t even see it from here.

I twist the wedding ring on my left hand and remind myself that it’s a symbol of my own blood debt. My own sacrifice. I made a deal with Malcolm to save my men, just like the others made deals to honor their dead. We’re all trapped in the same fucking web, with Malcolm sitting at the center.

We pull into the driveway of Malcolm’s suburban mansion, and I stare up at the imposing place I’ve been forced to call home. Before, I thought of it as a prison. My prison. Now I can’t stop seeing it as a mausoleum that’s been built from the lives Malcolm has destroyed.

Including someone my father cared about.

I storm through the front door, barely acknowledging the staff members who scurry out of my way. For once, I’m not trying to creep around unnoticed or avoid Malcolm’s attention. I need answers, and I need them now.

I check Malcolm’s pretentious little library first, full of books he probably hasn’t even read, then the living room. Empty. A maid tells me he’s in his office on the second floor, and I take the stairs two at a time.

There hasn’t been a lot of time for me to think through what I’m going to say when I’m face to face with him, but I’m not inclined to hold back at the moment.

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