Page 105 of King of Cruelty

A deep, suffocating silence spread through the room, broken only by my giggling.

“This is hilarious,” I shrieked, reddening Debra and Maryann’s cheeks. “Decades and decades of planning, and you blew it all up like the dumbasses you are. Here it is! The better, smarter class of criminal in action!”

“Shut up!” Debra roared. “This isn’t possi— This doesn’t make any— This is a trick! It’s a Merchant lie, and you’re falling for it. You’re all falling for it,” she shouted at the webcam. “We’ve been working, and fighting, and dying, and planning to get to this moment for years, and just because some random sends you a YouTube link, you’re willing to throw it all away? This is Merchant trickery, please wake up and see that!”

“So, it’s all a deepfake trick?” Eagle Tattoo said, expression blank. “You weren’t planning to run off with the money, and kill us all right along with the Merchants?”

“Of course we weren’t,” Jillian said, going for a soft, motherly tone. “You know we weren’t. The Brotherhood has been there for you when no one else was. We are your family.Theyare your enemies. There shouldn’t be a question of who you can trust.”

“Hmmm.” Eagle Tattoo hummed, bobbing his head. “So, then, maybe you can explain the bombs we watched you two carry in through that secret tunnel you never told any of us about. Because Brother Emily just found one stashed in the lobby linen closet, and she says there’s nothing deepfake about it.”

Debra’s lips peeled back from her teeth. “Proud of yourself? Think you got an upper hand on us because you finally used your big-boy brain after the truth was handed to you? How’s this, Brother Cunt,you don’t matter.

“Your lives don’t matter. Your piddly ass little problems don’t matter!” Spittle flew over the screen. “Saint killed our fathers! He killed them! Then he threw them out like garbage! They will pay for that. Nothing matters except them paying for what they did to our families!

“You should be thanking me,” she shrieked. “You were too stupid, broke, and worthless to bring down the Merchants, but now, thanks to us, you’ll be a sacrifice to the greatest coup in underground history. You must not know what a favor is, because this is what it looks like! I’m giving your pathetic lives meaning. I’m—”

Eagle Tattoo shot her in the face.

I screamed as Debra blasted back. Folding over, she tipped over the side of the couch and dumped on the floor—dead.

“No!” Maryann charged them, bullets flying.

The brothers let loose—firing on Maryann, Natalya, Jillian, and Yumi.

I hit the deck at the same time the Merchants did. Shackled and restrained, they tipped off the couch, taking Genny with them.

Sunny and Liam rolled on top of their sister as Bane pounced on me, covering me as the firefight ripped through the once peaceful, happy home.

An eternity passed before the shooting stopped, or at least that’s what it felt like. Through the circle of Bane’s arms, I strained to see who was still standing, and who wasn’t.

Yumi bled on the coffee table, the laptops crushed under her body...

...Natalya slumped against Sunny’s armchair...

...Maryann was still and unseeing at Eagle Tattoo’s feet...

...and Jillian—

“Please,” she rasped, kneeling on the floor with her hands up. “This was all Debra’s plan, not mine. I never agreed with the decision to kill you all and steal the money, but she wouldn’t listen to me. We’ve built something great with the Brotherhood. The gang that brought the Merchants to its knees.

“We don’t have to throw that all away. Together we can start over,” she cried, eyes wild and rolling in her head. “All you have to do is kill the Merchants, and we can walk right out of here with their digital black book! It’s everything we need to rule the city, so just kill them. Kill—”

“Nice try,” Eagle Tattoo said. “But you were laughing just as loud as the rest of them about the dumbass thugs catching a bomb.”

She growled. “You are dumbass thugs! I’m giving you the chance to have everything you want! Fucking take it, you—!”

Beardy shot her twice.

Jillian flopped over, and he shot her again—making sure.

“You don’t give us anything,” Eagle Tattoo said. “We can get what we want all on our own.”

A chill climbed my spine, chasing out all the laughter and victory that was in the room only minutes before.

Bane rose as their eyes, and their guns, turned on us. “What are you going to do?” Bane moved out in front of me—shielding me. “For the whole world to see?”

Eagle Tattoo peered around the room under the watchful eye of the cameras. “The real question,” he began, tone even, “is what were you going to do? We heard you on the phone with Mom, saying that you’d trade that drive to get both your people, and us, out of the building?” Shrewd eyes narrowed to slits. “Was that real, or a trick for the cameras?”

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