Page 46 of Queen of Madness

“You have ten seconds, Embros.” The voice, a voice I’ll never forget for the rest of my life, booms through the limo.

“You have to stay strong, because I need you to finish what we started. And after that...” She pauses, pressing a kiss to her fingers before pushing them through the slit and onto my forehead. “I want you to kill them all. Every last one.”

A chill runs through me, coiling with the pain searing my skin. My body is on fire and there’s nothing I can do to stop it from burning me alive.

In the next blink, they are both exiting the car and the thick clunk of a lock tells me they’ve somehow managed to lock me inside.

“On the ground,” the man instructs.

“We’d rather stand.”

The sound of four shots ring out. Each one a mere millisecond from the last, and with every pop, my chest deflates more. Still, I somehow manage to suck in a breath, holding what little air I can as I wait.

Wait for a cry.

A scream.

Movement.

Something.

Anything.

“Now, isn’t that better? The king and queen, on their knees in front of me. I must say, I like this a lot.”

A round of laughter seeps through the hole, and it... pisses meoff.

I throw everything I can into my shoulder, jamming it against the bottom of the seat.

“Miss Onyx. Please don’t do that.” The driver’s voice is barely above a whisper. He’s crying. I want to cry. I want to scream. But nothing is coming out.

I try again, but this time when I fall back, my right leg hits something sharp. My hand fumbles in the dark, reaching for whatever is lodged in my calf. When I yank it free, I realize it’s a crowbar.

“Nothing to say? Don’t wish to beg for your wife? Come now, you make this less fun.” The man goads my father as I shove the metal between the lock and seat and use every bit of strength I have to pry it open. “Well, since you have nothing to say, can I tell you how I found you? How I was able to get you?”

The most disturbing chuckle I’ve ever heard falls from the man, causing bile to surge into my throat. Shaking my head, ridding myself of the nausea, I jerk again and one side of the bolted hinge breaks. My heart flutters, working overtime with the new surge of adrenaline pounding through the vessel. They may be risking themselves for me, but I can save them.

“It was your personal guard. The one that sleeps mere feet in front of your room every night. The one that has guarded and protected you for seven years now. We got to him, offered him a few hundred thousand, and he got everyone on board. Your soldiers drove you to your death. How does it feel, knowing that?”

It takes my entire soul to not react to his words. To not crumble into nothingness at what he’s saying. The guard they are talking about is a friend. Someone who helped me with homework when my parents were too busy. The one that snuck me extra servings of dessert when I had a rough day. He was part of our family.

My body shakes as I put all my weight against pulling the lock free.

Thunk.

The sound of the metal hitting the floor spurs me into action. I jump from the space, grab my father’s gun from the passenger door and rush to the side they are on.

The sight of my parents on their knees halts me. Both of them have been shot in the thigh, and blood pools down their legs and onto the cement beneath them. My mother’s eyes are on my father, and vice versa. They don’t care what the man is saying. They only want to look at each other in their last moments. And then...

Blood.

There’s blood on the white roses behind her.

Splattered.

Dripping.

I hear my screams now. The pure agony rips my body inside out as I watch my mother’s head tumble away from her fallen corpse. Her eyes still open and full of so much life. But there is none. They just took it.Stoleit.

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