Page 1 of To Claim A King
Coagulated blood would be a beautiful nail polish color. It was brighter than I would have thought—a rich burgundy with blackened edges, captivating and ominous. The pool fanned out in a bulbous pattern against the clear glass backdrop, the drying whorls and eddies once the vibrant flow of a woman’s essence.
All thoughts of finding my men here and strategizing what to do about the shocking Mutilation Mistress news Joey and I had heard over the radio twenty minutes ago was temporarily on pause while we figured out what to do with the severed head onmy coffee table.
I drew in a deep breath through my mouth and closed my eyes, but the blood vessels permanently held the image of the dulled stare on the familiar face, no longer seeing this side of the living. I fought through the waves of nausea that threatened to drown me in their despair.
Blackbird was more than a professional acquaintance; with the private information we’d shared—including my truest nature behind the shielded window of a computer screen—I could have called her a friend.
Joey shifted beside me and gently placed a strong arm around my shoulders. The move forced my attention back to reality. We had to clean up this mess and get out of here as quickly as possible.
Icy spiders dug their spindly legs between my shoulder blades as I regained consciousness from my temporary fugue state. My condo, my primary shelter of safety, had been compromised. My place of peace had become the drop zone for the true computer brain behind my operation, and I couldn’t trust I wasn’t still being watched.
Joey’s voice broke through the deafening silence, her voice barely above a whisper, but abrupt enough to sound like a shot in a metal drum. It jolted me to life. The bile in my stomach and stiffened spine took a back seat to the very necessary job of risk assessment.
“You check the cameras—I’ll get rid of this.” She nodded in the general direction of our guest and released me from her grip. Stumbling without her hold to keep me upright, I barely stopped from pitching forward into the present.
I’d seen a lot of depravity in my lifetime, from rich goons down to basement-level thugs, but I had never, ever, come face to face with detached body parts. Staggering toward my panic room, my legs wobbled and my guts roiled at the colorful image now boldly painted like neon graffiti on the backs of my eyelids.
I’d be lucky if I slept tonight—or everagain.
My room was as pristine as when I’d left it this morning—not a single rumple in the duvet or a hair-clip out of place on my dresser. The subtlety of my intruder’s violation sent another shudder through me. Without Blackbird left...there, I’d never have known someone crossed my threshold without permission.
I entered the code into the security pad behind my closet door and was relieved to see the hidden room untouched. The quiet hum of the air filtration system and the steady whir of the monitors belied the heaviness of the moment—as if the woman I’d spoken to hundreds of times over these very screens wasn’t lying in pieces in my living room.
These systems were active at all times, and while I wasn’t a hacker like Blackbird or Lucky, I could navigate the software that protected my office and buildings. I brought up the cameras to review the footage from the last twenty-four hours and multiplied the speed to scroll through the images quickly.
Whoever had made me their target today had the technical skills to circumvent my entire security system. The cameras discreetly installed around my building went dark for approximately fifteen minutes—by a quick calculation—just enough time to take the elevator up to my condo, deposit the head, and leave. I cycled through the video feeds three times, but it showed nothing more than a grainy picture of a white van parking on the periphery of the farthest camera before the whole system went down.
It didn’t matter what the feeds said. The only person I knew of with the motive and intel to kill Blackbird was Alvarez.
I saved the complete set of footage in backup files protected within hidden folders and transferred what I could to an external hard drive before deleting every file on the computer entirely. Lucky’s skills would have been useful; I was knowledgeable enough to know nothing ever truly got erased from a hard drive, but didn’t know how tomake the data disappear entirely. A thought for later. For now, we needed to get out of here as quickly as possible.
Joey appeared in the doorway, the single micro-crinkle in her brow letting on she hadn’t been aware of my secret space. Her stoic features remained devoid of emotion, however, as her gaze swept through the dark room, as if scanning for threats.
“I have the head”—she grimaced—“all packaged up, but we’re going to need to dump it immediately. Where are we headed afterward? You’re not coming back here.”
She made the declaration as if challenging me to object. Joey took her job of protecting me seriously, and I was never more grateful for it than I was right now.
I’d always felt safe in my home, but I also walked along a dangerous ledge between two worlds, and had to prepare for every eventuality. I’d had the foresight to have a Plan B, though I could admit I never thought I’d be using it this quickly.
Acquiring Aaron’s warehouse when I’d taken over his company was part of the asset transfer. The building had been outfitted with maximum security in mind—satellite cameras, bullet-proof windows, a fireproof panic room… I’d even gone so far as to install a fail-safe in the walls that would implode the building with the press of two offsite buttons, like the old buildings in Manhattan in the seventies.
“The warehouse.” My voice was thick with exhaustion. “It’s the only place I can trust right now.”
I hadn’t finished the interior, but it had an office, a bedroom, and a kitchen area—with a few sparse furnishings besides. I had hoped it would one day serve as the most secure women and children’s shelter in the state, but for now it would only get the chance to serve as our shelter while I figured out our next moves.
Ourshelter—it finally dawned on me — I hadn’t gotten a single response from the men.Mymen. Where in the fuck were they?
Joey dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Leave everything behind. They could have tracers buried in anything, and we won’t have time to check for bugs. Better just to start fresh.”
If I was right, and I knew I was, the man we’d put behind bars was behind the tortured gift on my coffee table. He would just be getting started. He’d pull any strings he could to be my puppet master, and a weaker person might bow on his stage.
Hillary Lane would never dance in his show.Never.
I followed my protector through the once warm hallways. The light of sunset now struck the cream paint with malice, turning light hues into bleak, somber shades.
I had kept nothing of high importance here except the painting, which was now traveling to the other side of the country, and a few of my mother’s and Isabella's trinkets, which I kept in a safe deposit box three towns over. There were no incriminating paper files to speak of. But the necessity of leaving my home because it had been poisoned, likely by the very man I’d dedicated my mission to destroy, brought an unfamiliar feeling of failure to burrow deep into my belly like a snake.
As we descended in the elevator to our waiting car, I brought up the tracking app on my phone to find my partners in crime. Wherever they were, they’d better be in one piece. My body couldn’t handle another surprise.
