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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

  TABITHA

  On the inside I was fuming, on the outside I tried to conceal myself like normal. There was something wrong though, but what was it? He had been dangerously close to me. For some reason, I found a small part of me – a part long since buried – that wanted to feel the exquisiteness of his lips. That’s totally messed up though.

  Why did I want for something like that?

  I was used to being alone, anyways.

  Foolish girl, I thought to myself. Your indecisive heart will get you hurt. “Lose your courage?” I said with some venom, “for a second there you had my heart actually beating.”

  The Prince of Crime stepped back further, and it looked as though something dark was plaguing his mind. His eyes brought me to a place of richly colored moss; peering into this private place, I saw a melancholy sky hanging over all. He said, with thinly veiled pain in his throat: “It’s nothing. Now sit there and be quiet before I make you so.”

  Fat chance. “I plan on being the nosiest captive possible.”

  His smile returned for a moment, “You know most people that I snatch up… they don’t need to be told to be quiet. Don’t need to be gagged with socks or tape or anything of the sort. They usually start listening before I have to break out the knives.”

  “If I’m so much trouble then why don’t you just let me go?” I watched him carefully; saw the way that his eyes weighed the decision. There was something there that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

  “Can’t do that, gorgeous,” Leonardo flicked back his hair with a hand, “I’ll see how this plays out though. Don’t you worry a pretty hair on your head, I’ve got my eye on you.”

  “And if things don’t turn out the way you wanted them to? How did you want all of this to turn out?”

  “I’ll cut you free,” he announced, “for a price. If Killaine rakes his dirty hands through this, well, I don’t trust him to treat you with respect.”

  Like a stone in free fall, I felt my stomach dip with fear. “And your so called price?”

  His smile lowered to just a smirk, “We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.” Damn. I have to keep him talking to me, any information or rapport could help me – he wouldn’t really gag me, would he? Why, why was that making me feel things between my legs?

  No. If he really wanted to gag me, he would have just done as such already. “Why do you do it?”

  Leonardo sauntered over to the bed with the red blanket and jumped onto it, kicking his legs over one another and putting his hands behind his head. When he looked at me pensively, I decided that further clarification was needed, “I mean. Your whole family is infamous for… a slew of bad things. Why live a life like that?”

  I watched his glorious chest rise and fall as he took a breath. “I guess it’s what I deserve now,” he spat out the words like they were bitter. “Your dad builds ships, so you build ships. Your mother orders a hit on a kid because he doesn’t look at you the right way… it’s what I’m born into. What’s not to love?”

  Chewing on my lip, I considered his words for a moment. “One look at you and I can tell you’re ready to leave it all.”

  “What?” Leonardo grimaced, perking up at what I’d said.

  “I can see it on your face,” I continued, shrugging my shoulders. “You look tired, you look lost.”

  He said nothing, but the bed creaked when he shifted his weight and sat up, eying me even more carefully than he had previous.

  “Don’t think you can hide it,” I warned him. He was a man I’d seen many times before. In a strange way, although I’d never tell him – he reminded me of Dad.

  That really hurt to think about, so I kicked that thought to last Monday and mentally scolded myself.

  Leo sighed, “You’re talkin’ nonsense.”

  I smiled and folded my arms over one another. “You can blow smoke all you want, but there’s no sense in kidding yourself.”

  Leonardo blinked, “Maybe I will happily give you to Pops or to Laine. Stop tryin’ to tell me how I’m supposed to feel about my life.” He straightened out his back more now, letting his broad shoulders and his thick neck and his powerful pushed-out chest send a clear message. Don’t keep pushing my buttons.

  There was a tickling amusement in my chest, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the man. “You say that like it’s supposed to change things.”

  Now he stood on his feet and pointed to himself, an aggressive smile that showed a bit too much teeth was on his face. “You’re really starting to piss me off,” he said and began to approach me again.

  It was then that a series of knocks came at the door and a voice came from just outside. It was rough and low and said: “Boss is ready for you, boss.”

  Leonardo stopped in his tracks and locked eyes with me. “Come on,” he growled, taking my hand and whisking me over to the door. Next was a familiar series of narrow corridors all dark and muted in color; occasionally we’d pass by thick pipes that would connect through the walls overhead of us. I got the feeling that this place was more than it seemed. That there were entrances that only Leonardo knew.

  We finally reached the meeting hall. This time around, there weren’t as many men as before. Slightly more than a dozen men, not including Mr. Ligotti and Killaine.

  All eyes quickly fell back on me once again, and an uncomfortable quiet filled the room. After a moment, Leonardo stepped in front of me and closer to his father: “That wasn’t as fast as I thought it’d be.”

  The old man nodded in acknowledgement. “It took considerable time to argue with your brother, you know how he can be.” Ligotti proclaimed.

  “No, really?” Leonardo’s tone was dripping with insincerity. “Well,” he continued, “what’s the word then?” Something felt off in the room, but maybe that was just me being spooked – maybe to them this was just an everyday sort of vibe.

  Ligotti craned his head and looked towards Leonardo’s brother. There was something there on the lines of the father’s face, a quiet discomfort with dolling out the decision that he had come upon. However, he wasn’t the person that I had my attention most tuned to. Killaine looked at me with cold, observing eyes. Distant. It unsettled me, sent a cold chill down my spine. When Leonardo made an impatient gesture, his father brought his gaze back to the younger son, “It pleases me to see yourself with such agency,” he started, “normally something of this value—“

  “Someone,” Leonardo corrected.

  Ligotti waved a hand, “Someone… would be handled by me or your brother. Your initiative and your growth, well, it couldn’t make an old man like me more proud.” There was genuine pride in the King Criminal’s words; I hoped with the way things were leaning that Leonardo would just let me go soon. Still, why was I so unsettled?

  The men around the room sat like shadows. Perfectly still. When I turned my head to better examine some of the nameless people, I noted one that looked particularly uncomfortable – a sweating, nervously jittering man.

  Leonardo beamed with joy and his father continued, “Do with the girl what you will.” From the corner of my eye, a shadow moved. Ligotti’s chocolate eyes locked with his son, “I trust you’ll do what’s right.”

  Before I could even bring my gaze back to the scene, there was a man behind me that shouted something and he stood abruptly.

  An ear deafening bang filled the air and I instinctively flinched backwards hard.

  A spray of blood colored the chair and table at which Ligotti formerly sat. Killaine’s suit was smattered with red and the barrel of his gun had wisps of smoke about it. His face was like a blackhole; uncaring, mutely monstrous in its abominable nature. With dead eyes, he looked to me, and then to Leo.

  Ligotti’s body collapsed limp onto the table and I found myself frozen by fear. I could not breathe, I could not blink – the only thing I was capable of now was watching the horror unfold.

  Leonardo was not so stric
ken with shock. He cried out in a bellowing rage, “DAD.” The word and the pain was not enough to bring him back; in an instant of which I couldn’t control, I remembered a bottle to my father’s lips. In the tangled web of memories, of melancholy smiles and awkward conversations… somehow my brain recalled how perfect the coffin was.

  In that moment my heart sank for Leo.

  Killaine pointed his gun towards his brother now. But he was not the only one to move. Two men shot up from their seats along with the previous man that had been first to notice. In a second’s notice they brandished their weapons.

  Too little, too late.

  The remaining mobsters drew their various pistols of silver and black, aiming them at the three men – clearly siding with the killing bastard.

  I did everything that I could internally to try and remain calm, yet my heart just wouldn’t stop hammering away.

  I’m really going to die.

  This is it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHEDDING SKIN

  LEONARDO

  He’s gone. No, no he can’t be gone. Every bone in my body ached, and my throat became filled with the ashes of grief.

  How could I let this happen?

  “Dad…” I hardly noticed myself say it in that terrible, pained voice. Even though I felt those hot tears forming in my eyes, I didn’t care. I’d let the whole world see me grovel if it meant—

  I just don’t understand.

  Killaine remained exactly where he had been standing. Every brutal second that he lived was an insult. The next words out of his snake lips made my gut churn: “I wish it hadn’t come to that.” His horrible little nose sucked in a breath of air – something that my body didn’t feel capable of even doing right now. “Do you think…” Killaine tilted his head carefully to the side, “you can forgive me?”

  Just behind me Tabitha called out my name. But it didn’t matter. At this point I was long, long gone. How had pop’s men not shot him? The rage was coursing through me hot and thick, and my fist quivered in anger.

  Lunging at Killaine, I took a bullet to the shoulder mid-stride. I hit him hard and I barely even felt the pain – if it hadn’t been for the flash of the muzzle, I wouldn’t have even thought that he’d shot me. We crashed down onto the floor and the smell of iron from my father’s corpse caressed my senses; there was a throbbing heat that surrounded my skull – I’d never wanted to kill someone so badly before.

  I started to try and knock the gun from Killaine’s grasp. He struggled with me in that second of time that seemed to last forever – but I was stronger. I was faster and madder and the burning wings of vengeance was my impetus; the gun slipped through the air and slid across the floor, making a scratching noise as it went away.

  Tabitha begged me to stop, telling me that ‘they’ will kill me.

  Let ‘em.

  So long as I strangle the life out of him, I’ll gladly join you, dad.

  Poor girl. She doesn’t deserve any of this mess.

  My hand shot out to Killaine’s throat, and I squeezed tightly enough for his eyes to bulge with the primal look of terror. He clawed at my hands at first, and then he switched to trying to kick me off of him – but I wasn’t having it. There was nothing but death that was going to stop me now.

  Bringing my forehead down against him with a great force, I felt some bone in his face split and a small cut quickly formed; the pain from doing that I did feel, and just like that, I felt the damage from that bullet. All my senses started to come back to me.

  I felt mortal again as the adrenaline slipped away.

  Not satisfied with the way he was dying, I spat on his face and howled, “Why’d you do it?” I slammed a fist into the side of his face, “huh? Answer me!” Blood pumped hot in me as I landed another blow.

  Suddenly I felt several hands on me, and although I struggled, I couldn’t overcome the strength of the people behind me.

  “No!” I yelled out in protest, watching helplessly as Killaine wiped the blood from his cuts – as he gasped for air. Turning my head I got a good look at one of the men. “James,” I said with disgust.

  “Sorry…” he offered.

  I turned my head again, “Jim? What is this,” I said, “what the fuck is this.”

  Killaine moved to his feet and took another breath for composure. “Don’t worry, Leo,” he said, “I forgive you. I’ll always forgive you, you know,” he touched his lips with his fingers.

  Every part of me wanted to end him. Like my guts had been displaced, and the only way for my body to ever function again was to see him dead and gone for what he did.

  “Just tell me why,” I said plaintively. The thought skittered across my mind time and time again, over and over.

  For the first time in a long time, even though I had tried my hardest to stay away from brother mine – I saw pain in his eyes. His Adam’s apple stirred.

  “Because he loved you more than me.” The words stabbed at my chest, and I wanted to collapse into the floor. To vanish. “I saw it coming for a while now,” Killaine admitted, his lips curling into a melancholy smirk. “This wasn’t the first time that he looked to you over me, and I’d kept Cagliostro spying on him for some time. Don’t worry, Cagliostro loved the sea.”

  “Bastard,” I croaked, pulling my head to one side as the pain in my breast swelled – all the agony from those many years ago when Lenore perished seemed to come roaring back in the heat of despair.

  The monster bowed his head and breathed through his nose, and then the door in which I and Tabitha had previously come through opened. In walked a number of armed men.

  My men.

  They aimed their guns at Jim and James and all the rest that had seemed to be perfectly content in betraying my dad.

  I wished for a moment they would pull the trigger.

  Instead, a deadly stalemate ensued. Neither side willing to bloody the other. There was only a locked and heated tension between them as my boys crept through the room, looking to me for orders and or clarification.

  In a situation like this, I had no means in which to clarify.

  “Please,” Tabitha insisted from behind me, “stop this senseless violence.” I felt a pang of guilt for getting her so involved.

  “Let her go,” I said, “Killaine. She’s not a part of this.”

  Killaine eyed my men carefully, and then brought his gaze back to me. “She’s a valuable asset,” he started, “and beautiful to boot. Did you wonder how you heard about her?”

  What the hell did he mean by that?

  His smirk widened by an inch. “I discovered her myself one morning, I believe I was drinking my preferred brand of green tea at the time,” he chuckled without opening his mouth. “Making that information known to Connifer was even easier. Believe it or not, but three of the men that you both go to for information… well. They’re me. No easier way to put that. Why get my hands dirty when I know you’re well and fully capable.”

  “Sounds like a cowards excuse to me,” I countered, “I thought you didn’t want… I thought you didn’t want for me to be seen as capable. As a worthy heir.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” Killaine waved his gun casually in a gesture, “not in the long run. Where I inspired fear, Leo, you inspired loyalty. There was no approval for me to gain, you see. It was never there since the day that you and—“

  “Don’t you dare say her name,” I raged against my captors, violently trying to free myself from their grubby, pathetic hands. “Don’t. Just stop talking and let me hear you die with some regret you reptile.”

  “Very well,” he sighed, “I know that you blame me for a lot of things, dear brother. But for her?”

  “You were supposed to be there,” I felt the heat choke at my throat, “you were supposed to be a lot of things. Now you’re a killer.”

  “We’re both killers.”

  “Murderers.”

  “Semantics. Regardless, I don’t hold the same desire that you do. The girl must stay
, but so long as you—“ he pointed the gun to me, and then jiggled it over my men, “and all of you can be good. I’ll allow you to leave.”

  Tabitha stiffened like a statue, “I’ve seen enough.”

  “She comes with me,” I growled, “and so does Pop.”

  He had the audacity to laugh. Somehow, I wasn’t that surprised at this. “What remains of the dearly departed can go with you, but what makes you think you have any leverage here?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  SPAT

  TABITHA

  The air was thick with violence just waiting to burst out. The next words out of Leonardo’s lips sent chills down my spine.

  “Because this can only go one of two ways,” he said. “Trust that I’ll kill you before I hit the ground.”

  Killaine’s face seemed to visibly pale at the threat, and he considered the words for a terse moment of time. “You really think you can beat the odds, little brother?”

  Leonardo loosed a dark, rumbling kind of laugh. I watched his hand ball into tight fists, and in one powerful motion, he broke from his captor’s hold. Immediately they went after him, and all of the armed men on both sides of the room re-aimed their weapons, warning one another not to make a move both verbally and physically.

  Leo got a whole swaggering two steps before being apprehended again, held tighter this time. “I like my chances,” he stated. “You think you can wear the crown? You’ll be spat on every corner you walk – course you never had the balls to hit the streets anyway. It’s all going to come at you, even if I don’t get my hands on your throat again… you’re a dead man.”

  Killaine took a deep breath, looked to the bloody corpse that was their father, and then brought himself back to Leo. He shrugged his shoulders absently, as though some floozy of a woman had asked him where they wanted to eat and he couldn’t summon up the strength to properly answer.

  It was that pure absence of caring. That unfathomable lack of compassion or empathy, that was what made my blood turn to stone. “Let them come. Six years is a long time to think about something, you’d be surprised how important a paycheck and a lifestyle is to a hungry man or a lonesome woman. I’ll do you this last favor, but only because I pity you.” His cold, dead eyes drifted over to me – and my stomach clenched with primal fear. “Miss Godric, I leave you with an open invitation to join me for dinner. Don’t worry about getting in touch, I’m a man of many ways.”