Page 25 of Broken Queen
He must not have known how good he had it. Zira had her own reasons, but she stayed faithful, even when it was obvious that he wasn’t what she wanted. I had no sympathy for an idiot like him.
You make a vow, you stick to it, you dipshit.
As I finally finished that hole in his chest, I stared at his dead eyes. He must have promised to love Zira forever, and there was a chance that he actually loved her. There was even a possibility that while he cheated, burying his dick deep inside of a throwaway brunette, he still wanted Zira to rule her kingdom while he helped her take back that throne.
But I doubted that. If he were on her side, he would have told his father-in-law to make the right decision. Instead, he celebrated his position by getting his dick wet.
In my world, the queen always gets what she wants. I made sure of that.
CHAPTER 8
Zira
“Come here,” Hazard said, his voice low. I adjusted the phone against my ear. “I’ve got something to show you.”
A small grin built on my lips. I glanced out my bedroom window, half expecting him to be on the lawn, holding a freshly picked magnolia, but the lawn was empty. The exterior lights beamed down like spotlights, and a breeze traveled through the trees.
“Come where?” I asked dryly.
“Shit,” he muttered, then a dull thud crashed in the background. “Your husband’s.”
I raised a brow. I knew what that meant.
“Be there soon,” I said.
Slipping into a black midi-dress with an a-line silhouette, I tucked my hair into a messy bun, the bulb on the back of my head as big as a second brain, then added some casual, four-inch wedges. I dismissed my driver, preferring to take my own car; I rarely had a reason to drive myself, but this seemed like the perfect occasion.
I parked in the driveway. Stepping toward Logan’s angular house, I almost expected to be ambushed, but the front yard was silent. Hazard’s truck was missing, but every single light was on inside the house. My husband was usually asleep by now. Hazard was in there.
As I opened the front door, loud bangs cracked through the house, broken shards of ceramic laid scattered over the ground. A metallic bang echoed, vibrating so loud that I could feel it in my chest. What was going on? A trail of blood skimmed the walls, almost as if someone had run their fingertips along the wall, carefree, not giving a second thought about whose blood it was or the mess they were leaving behind.
Hazard was reckless. How had he made it this far into Opulent Gates without someone catching onto him was beyond me. But that didn’t matter. He had piqued my interest, and now he was basically working for me.
Metal crashed against tile again, then a delighted noise of surprise followed it. In the kitchen, Hazard jumped up from the ground, his red hair sticking up, his brown eyes wired. His chest was exposed, freckles dusting his shoulders, his muscles clenching as he shifted toward me. Blood smeared his body in careless strokes; he probably didn’t know that he was dirty.
“You’re here,” he said like he was shocked. “Good. That’s good.”
I tilted my head. “You invited me?”
“I have something for you.”
He reached down, then carefully picked up a silver tray with a dome top. Red fingerprints dotted the silver like leopard spots, and a pleasant anxiousness burned inside of me. I had never seen Hazard be so careful, but he held the silver platter like whatever was inside of it might break, and that made me curious. Eager. Excited. His erratic, spontaneous nature drew me in, like the darkness at the bottom of the basement stairs, whispering to me.
Hazard lifted the dome top. A bloody heart, the size of Hazard’s fist, lay on the tray. Firm and wet. Deep purple and red flesh displayed like a piece of gold. It was bigger than I expected, but seeing it there made my own heart flutter in my chest, and it wasn’t from nerves or disgust.
“You carved out his heart for me,” I murmured.
With the tray balanced delicately in one hand and the lid in the other, Hazard bowed before me. Growing up with the Marked Blooms Syndicate, I had seen a lot of messed up things. Violence comforted me, even now, and seeing Hazard offer my late husband’s heart like it was a rare diamond made my icy soul palpitate with warmth.
“Anything for you, my queen,” he said.
I grabbed the heart off of the tray. It was heavy and slick; it slipped out of my hands and I quickly caught it, then laughed. It was almost as if my late husband was as clumsy in death as he was in life.
“Have you done this before?” I asked Hazard.
He shook his head. “It was a bitch to do. Believe me.”
I clutched my late husband’s heart in my hands like a football, then with my free hand, I squeezed Hazard’s arm.
