Page 43 of Broken Queen
I tapped my fingers on the fuzzy brown bedspread, then turned my head toward the door, wondering if I should leave.
“So you want mass murder, then?” he asked.
A whirlwind of hatred foamed in my mouth. He was missing the point.
“It has nothing to do with murder and everything to do with making sure that people get what they fucking deserve,” I said. “I am Zira Bloom, and if there are women who are forced to die when they become Marked Bloom Wives, then there will be men who die for the Syndicate too.”
“The scales,” Hazard shouted with glee. “Balance it, love.”
Balance. The word ripped away at my soul, forcing me to face ideals I didn’t have the luxury of understanding. I was brought up inside of a secret society that valued women as objects, and I had always been an object too.
Maybe it was about objectification. Maybe it was about my mother and his sister. Maybe I feared the inevitable, that I would end up like them too.
But I wanted my crown. My scepter. My throne. I wanted to rule over my kingdom. And if that meant a crowd of men dying for me, then I wanted to watch their blood run through the streets until Opulent Gates was pure red.
“I used to imagine burning the banquet hall down,” I said, “with everyone trapped inside of it. A Masquerade, maybe. Or another event. Like a ceremony. Something where they have to go in person.” A flickering energy rumbled through my veins. I was admitting this out loud for the first time. I locked eyes with Hazard, his brown eyes focusing on me. He was the only light in a dark tunnel, and therefore, my only way out.
And as much as I needed him, I despised that dependency.
“That’s brutal,” he said. For once, there was no sarcasm or playfulness in his voice. He was taking it all in. Adrenaline roared inside of me.
“You know, there’s a security system,” I said. “A lock down mechanism. The board members are the only ones who can control it. It requires fingerprints, but once they set that code, the whole place is locked down for twelve hours. No one can undo it. Not even the board members. No one can get out.”
“So that’s how you’d do it?” he asked.
I nodded. It was a dream I used to have every night, thinking of the men who had hurt me since I was ten years old, finally getting their well-deserved ends. I even added the men I had seen hurt my mother. I wanted to watch them all burn.
But whenever I had those daydreams, it showed how powerless I really was. It was a fantasy. I needed membership. I needed my place on the board. And I needed my father’s approval before I could do any of that.
I touched my lips. They were trembling with nerves. Why had I said all of that out loud?
“It’s not about balance,” he said thoughtfully.
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
“You want so much more than that. Be honest with yourself, love. You can preach about how you want to change things, all of that righteous bullshit. But in the end, you know what you truly want. You want to fuck them over, just like they fucked you. You want revenge, my queen. You want power. Why try to claim that you want anything else?”
I stared at him blankly. That fiery red hair. The freckles cresting over his face. His flexed arms. I hated being this open with him, but he saw straight through me, to the core of my soul that hated everything about the world I had grown up in.
Except for him. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hate Hazard.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I did just want to watch them die.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I asked.
“Why would I think that?” he asked.
“There’s a difference between killing one or two people, and killing a building full of them.” I lifted my shoulders. “I should be locked up. Shouldn’t I? I’m not right in the head.”
He pulled me closer to him, and my insides were molten. He was the fire, and I was the wick, waiting to be ignited.
And together, we would burn down the world.
“And there’s a difference between doing it and thinking about it,” he said. “If you do it—” a grin spread across his lips, “—when you do it, I want to see that look on your face when you finally get what you want.”
I sucked in a breath. How was it that he could see this side of me, and he still treated me as if we were on the same level?
“Have you ever done something like that before?” I asked.
