Page 21 of Iron Crown

“When you present my corpse to Cosima, which might be the only way you will get her to surrender, even temporarily, whatdo you think your lovely Kira would say?” Morelli tilted his head to the side, entertained by this morbid train of thought.

“You were the reason she ran in the first place,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not eager to go through that again. At least not yet.”

I looked away, guilt choking me again.

“I’ll tell her,” I promised, “One day.”

Morelli shrugged, as if to saynot my monkey, not my circus.

“Hmm,” Morelli said, his lips lifting into an expression of paternal pity. “You know secrets have a way of festering.”

They absolutely did. But this one was a festering I would bear, until I couldn’t anymore. Kira might die if she ran from me again, and I wasn’t willing to risk it. If I were nothing but a husk of a human, festering full of maggots made of lies, then so be it.

We sat for a moment of silence, trying to ignore the heaviness of our predicament.

“The war comes,” Morelli said ominously. “Are you prepared?”

“As well as I can be.”

Morelli nodded. “Good.”

My heart ached, because I knew that our time was drawing to a close. We would not be here next year. We may not even be here, drinking together, next month. I felt the weight of the sands of time, like I was in the hourglass itself, crushed beneath each grain as it descended.

“With great sorrow, I congratulate you on regaining your wife and child,” Morelli said, his eyes glassy, though resigned. “Our time together is running out, Young King.”

Chapter six

Change Your Hair, Change Your Life

Kira

Istared at myself in the mirror, looking at the last dregs of what had once been Anna Jones. My hair was shorn and dyed purple. I knew it would need to go, if I was to be the woman I needed to be—for my son, for Paradigm… and for Eoghan Green.

I had to be someone I had never been before. Somethingmorethan Kira Kekoa, who sold paintings in Gallery Four. I had to be more than Anna Jones, the single mother who painted on the side of the road. I had to be Kira Green, a woman who was stronger, bolder, and capable of things that would be unfathomable to the regular person.

I brushed the black dye into my hair, as dark as the eyes of my lover, until it covered every strand.

Who was it that said that a woman who changes her hair was about to change her life?

I spent the twenty minutes I needed to let it soak in staring at myself, at my body, at my fucking soul…What am I doing here?

I wanted to talk to Blink. I wanted to hear his voice and have his counsel. My purpose had been so clear long ago, when my hatred of Giorgio Morelli and his kind had driven me to be very good at what I contributed to Paradigm. I wanted to bring men like Eoghan Green and Eugenio Durante down.

Things used to be black and white. But Eoghan had a way of staining everything blood red, lined with various shades of morally gray.

He wanted me to rule by his side. He loved me. He’d kill and die for me.

It wasn’t metaphorical, either. It wasn’t to have me as arm candy. He listened to me. It wasn’t just a marriage, it was a partnership that he wanted.

God, I wanted to give that to him.

If Blink were here, I think he’d tell me to influence Eoghan to correct his ways, and to steer us into the kind of paradigm shift we wanted—to steer them out of extortion, crime, and misery, into the kind of living that would result in growth and wealth instead. That was the way to find peace.

I did not want my son to grow up like his father. I didn’t want him to have a dead mother, tortured by an enemy, like Isla Green. I did not want him to be kidnapped as a child, starved, and left for dead like Yuliya Vasilieva.

I did not want him to have a father drawn to madness the way Alastair Green had been.

I loved Eoghan for all that he was, boils and all! His flaws made him who he was. But I wanted something else for our child… for ourchildren!I didn’t want that darkness in them.

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