Page 53 of Royally Ruined

The last time they’d cornered me, I hadn’t been ready.

This time I was.

“Listen, little shit, next time you better have that cold million or—Fuck!” He reeled backward as the top of my skull connected with his nose. The brittle crunch broadcast that I’d broken it.

“Romeo!” one of the men shouted.

He stumbled back, holding his face. Blood ran over his off-color teeth; he pointed at the two men. “Don’t fucking let him go, Merrick. I’m fine. Shit!” Hissing, he shook himself violently. The flutter of delight I’d felt at hurting him vanished as he threw his head back, howling with laughter. “Whoo! Motherfucker! Yeah!”

Sweat slid down my body, over my exposed ribs. Romeo sneered as he approached. Attacking him had been stupid ... but my father had taught me never to back down. Never to buckle.

Never to break for anyone.

And he’d warned me that many would try. That was my fate as the future ruler of our little clan. There was no way he could have guessed it’d happen so early in my life, and I had no plans to tell him. Asking for help was a sign of weakness.

I was proud ... and I didn’t yet know the danger of that.

“Costello?” Lulabelle stood at the entrance of the alley, the summer sun creating orange smears all around her white dress. Her eyes flew over the scene, all icy coolness as she took each of us in. She was seventeen, but her poise was unparalleled.

Romeo looked her up and down like a butcher eyeing a hunk of meat swinging from a hook. “Oh-ho, and what’s this? The sweet-as-pie princess, gracing us with her presence.”

“She can grace me with that tight pussy of hers anytime,” Merrick chuckled thickly in my ear.

“Bet she tastes like roses,” the other man holding me said.

“Roses don’t taste good, Santana.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Hey!” he called out, making my eardrum ring. “Sweetheart, come settle a bet for me. Sit that cute ass of yours right on my face.”

Sickening rage swam in my blood until the world began to shrink.

“I’ll lie down on the ground, it’ll take just a sec, I don’t even mind!” He laughed, and so did Merrick and Romeo. They laughed even harder when Lulabelle’s features melted into a look of shock.

But not so loud that they couldn’t hear me growl, “Leave her alone.”

Snapping his stare from my sister to me, Romeo spit blood onto the cement. “What was that, kid?”

“I saidleave her the fuck alone.”

He considered me with a cruel curiosity. Patiently he looked toward my sister again. I didn’t see her, couldn’t; I was too focused on Romeo’s awful smile. He jerked his head to the side. “Drop him.”

The men threw me forward. I spun to face off with them, but they were already walking away. Their casual pace wasn’t just a show of bravado; they’d taken my gun, just as they’d taken the others. Every ambush had me losing weapons. The longer this went on, the greater the chance my father would notice and question me about why I kept taking new guns out to replace the ones I’d lost.

There was nothing I could do to harm them today. So why were they leaving? Surely they weren’t scared of Lulabelle. That look on his face, like he’d seen something in me he hadn’t before—I was rattled by it.

Heels clicked my way. “Costello, are you all right? Who were those men?”

Drifting my palm down my middle, I clutched at my torn shirt. “No one. I’m fine, forget what you saw.”

“Are you insane?” She started to corner me; I was breathing heavily, too hyped up to let her touch me. When she reached out to graze my forehead, I backed up. Instantly her sympathy curdled into suspicion. “You’ve got blood on your forehead.”

I wiped it away. “It’s not mine.”

“Listen to yourself! ‘It’s not mine.’” Her long hair flew like a cape as she shook her head. “Tell me who they were or what they wanted.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll handle it myself.”

“There were three of them! Can you not count?”

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