by Janet Tait
She let him help her up, getting to her feet slowly. Her entire body ached.
Kristof motioned her back to the house and its large central plaza.
She marched forward. Time to face the music. The Hamiltons had gambled…and lost.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kate knelt on the cold stone plaza of the Makris compound, between Victor and Dylan. A cold sea wind blew in from the beach below, hitting the wall of the estate behind her and raising goose bumps on her skin. She still felt the ache the primal magic’s assault had left her with. Her hands, twisted behind her back, throbbed inside the spellcuffs. Her throat burned with the smell of smoke and salt and defeat.
A group of Makris enforcers loomed over the vanquished Hamiltons, Dmitri’s smirking face leading the bunch as he walked up and down the line of prisoners. Kristof stood against the estate’s wall where it bent to form an L shape and faced the line of Hamiltons, his face and neck spotted with blood. They were waiting but for what?
Victor looked like Victor now, dressed in the same gray uniform as the rest of the Hamilton strike team, an angry red welt around his neck. Dylan was missing his glasses, but neither of them looked half as beat up as the remaining Hamilton strike team. Broken limbs, bloody skin, torn uniforms—her father’s best operatives lined up on either side of her, on their knees, hands spellcuffed behind their backs, heads bent down.
Then there were the dead.
Over by the still-burning stand of cedar trees, the corpses were laid out in a row. Two Hamiltons and one Makris. Grayson’s assistant, looking almost peaceful with her hair pulled back and arms crossed over her chest, lay next to Gordon, all anger gone from his still face. Slightly apart from the Hamiltons, the Makris guard Kate’s magic had taken lay stiff and cold on the green grass.
Kate swallowed down the tears that threatened to well up. She glanced at the still form of the Makris guard. I killed him. I can blame primal magic all I want, but if I hadn’t tried to cast a spell, that man would still be alive.
Her gaze skipped over the Hamilton casters, settling on the hard ground in front of her.
But then, in a way, haven’t I killed them all?
The Hamilton strike force came to rescue her and get the stone. And her stupid idea to call up her primal magic had blown the op. After she’d been captured the others had no choice but to surrender.
Still, there had to be a way out, right? Rules for when things went bad? No one had ever attacked her home before, but she’d heard stories of ops gone sideways. Well, maybe not as bad as this, but…the Game had Rules, and the Rules covered how to treat prisoners. Ransom them back, treat them with respect. If the Makrises wanted their prisoners to be cared for in the future, they’d have to follow the Rules.
She nudged Victor with her elbow. “Got a plan?” she whispered.
“Working on it. Keep quiet, and don’t provoke anybody. Think you can manage that?”
“I—”
The Makris enforcers came to attention. Kristof pushed off the wall, and Dmitri’s head whipped around to stare at the entrance to the Makris house. Kristof’s father stalked out, bodyguards walking a few steps in front. His blue suit had a long, dark stain across the jacket. He took it off and handed it to a servant, who gave him an identical, clean one.
Melina followed him a step behind, in a short white dress. Her face seemed smooth, unlined by worries, untouched by the chaos.
They stopped in front of Victor. Dmitri reached down and grabbed the back of Victor’s uniform, hauling him to his feet. Kate’s heart began to pound.
“How did you break our security?” Nico Makris asked Victor.
Victor gave a half-smile, his version of name, rank, and serial number.
“You can tell me now or later. Later you will beg to tell me how you did it.”
Victor said nothing. But Kristof glanced from Victor to Dylan. His hands ran through Victor’s talisman chains. His gaze settled back on Victor, then he straightened and shoved the chains into his pocket. His eyes held that look of Kristof’s—that calculating, “I’m plotting something” look.
He knew. Kristof knew how Victor had gotten through the grid. Or he thought he did. But why wasn’t he saying anything to his father?
Victor still wasn’t talking. Kristof’s father gave a dramatic sigh.
“So be it. After a few hours in the Pit, perhaps you’ll be more forthcoming. But we have a few other matters to settle.” He held his hand out, and his servant gave him a cell phone, the connection already established.
“Ah, Cooper. Thought you should know I have your people. You aren’t getting them back.”
The bitter taste of adrenaline flooded Kate’s mouth. She strained to make out her father’s rapid-fire words across the phone line.
“You speak to me of Rules?” Makris said. “Rules? You broke the truce. You sent a strike team into my home. My home! And you have the audacity to talk to me about Rules. I make the Rules now.”
More muffled words from her father. Nico Makris’s face got redder, and his hand on the phone went rigid. Kristof stepped forward, mouth open to speak, hand reaching for his father’s shoulder. But Melina leaned in, gently pushed the phone away from her father’s ear, and whispered to him. The redness paled back to pink, a toothy smile curved his lips, and his eyes gleamed in the light of the still-burning fire.
He spoke into the phone. “Shut up. You broke the truce. You will pay the consequences. I don’t care about the Rules, I don’t give a fuck-all about DiOrsini and his so-called oversight. You will pay for this. You will pay.”
The cold seeping into Kate’s bones from the tile floor was nothing compared to the ice in Nico Makris’s voice.
“Come here, tomorrow at noon, alone. I want you to witness the execution of two of your people, in exchange for the one of mine your daughter killed. Victor Cole and…” His eyes went down the line of Hamilton operatives. “Your primal magic specialist. Dylan Pearce. You won’t be needing him anymore.”
Dylan went still beside her. He swallowed. Victor didn’t react at all.
More words from her father. Then Nico Makris’s response: “Well, of course, you would be a fool not to come. A fool with a dead daughter. Kate will join them if you don’t show. Remember: noon, alone.” He hung up.
Kristof opened the cell door and led Kate inside the small concrete room. The cell looked clean, but the smells hit her before she crossed the threshold: the stink of urine and vomit, the faint odor of dead animals and decaying vegetables. No amount of scrubbing could eradicate the stench of despair. Kristof stepped in with her and closed the door behind him, dismissing the guards who had accompanied them. He traced out a cloak spell, its violet mists settling around them.
Kate studied his face. Back at the plaza, Kristof had followed the interplay between his sister and his father, intent on what they said and did. His eyes had flared when his father pronounced his sentence of execution on Kate.
But Kristof hadn’t stopped his sister from whispering her suggestions in their father’s ear. Hadn’t said a thing to stop his father from ordering Victor’s and Dylan’s executions. Hadn’t said or done anything to save her.
Afterward, he’d followed his father’s order to take her to a cell while Dmitri took Victor to the Pit. And the whole way here, he’d been in his own little world, silent and brooding.
Maybe Victor could break free. Maybe not. They’d have people guarding him—Dmitri, their enforcers. And they had so little time. Twelve hours, maybe less, before the deadline arrived and her father showed up…
Or not.
She’d have to try something. And with the primal magic determined to defy her control, Kristof was her only hope.
She sat on the spare cot against the wall, hands still secured behind her back. Kristof leaned against the cell wall, his eyes somewhere far away.
“Can you at least let me move my arms?” She shrugged her taut shoulders. “Where am I going to go?”
Kristof pushed off t
he wall and reached for her. The brush of his hand against her brought a shiver to her skin. Heat rose in her cheeks. She flinched back as he touched her cuffs. They disconnected from each other at a word from him.
“Better?” he asked.
“A little.” She leaned forward and circled her shoulders, restoring some of the impeded circulation. Pins and needles rushed into her arms, and she winced.
“Sorry.” He sat next to her. Close. Too close. The sea breeze scent of his skin mingling with the sharp, coppery tang of blood from the cut on his shoulder filled her senses. The solid presence of his body next to her felt comforting and familiar. But his eyes were shuttered behind his dark lashes, his mind analyzing, strategizing, playing the Game.
“Are you going to let your father kill me?”
He looked away from her.
“Are you? Is that the kind of man you are?”
He shot to his feet and stalked away. “Events are spinning out of control. Melina—”
“You’re the heir, right? Doesn’t your father listen to you?”
He laughed a bitter laugh and turned to her. “Maybe it works that way in your family. Not here.”
She’d seen who had the influence in the Makris family. The one who whispered in her Papa’s ear.
“You said you had a plan.”
“Between my family and yours, it’s pretty much shot to hell right now.”
“Why didn’t you let me go? You had the chance, you could have—”
“Yes. I could. But if I had, my father would have known I’d betrayed him. One betrayal too many. I would have been left without the means to fight him. I’d prefer a plan that leaves us both free, not one of us dead.”
Kate peered up at him. She couldn’t tell whether he was lying or not. But then, when had she ever known his thoughts? “So what now?”
“I…don’t know yet. Either your father shows up tomorrow and my father executes Victor and Dylan or he doesn’t, and…”
“And you’re okay with that?”
He looked at her, his eyes a desolate wasteland. He turned and walked out the door, slamming it behind him. The lock clicked with a finality that almost stopped her heart.
Kristof opened the door to the Pit and stepped inside. He walked down the narrow staircase, watching his steps in the glow of the dusky gems lining the black walls. He felt like one of his father’s fishing boats that had lost its moorings, rudderless and adrift. He fingered the long silver chains he’d taken from Victor. One of them provided the key to the Hamilton’s ability to clone Dmitri’s aura and slip through the grid. They might provide the key to much more. He shoved them in his pocket. What he needed was a plan.
Victor hung in midair, upside down from the center of the room, inside the circle stones. His eyes were half open, chest rising and falling slowly. A single drop of blood fell from his clenched hand to the black floor.
Dmitri leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Melina stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder. She let it trail down his arm and leaned in close to whisper something in his ear.
Melina and…Dmitri? A vague discomfort arose from the depths of Kristof’s gut. He’d told Melina he’d back her. A lie, but she didn’t know that.
“We need to talk,” he said to Melina. “Now. Outside.”
Melina let go of Dmitri and walked up the stairs to join Kristof. A brief flicker of her eyes in the dim light betrayed nothing of her intentions.
Dmitri posed another problem. Dmitri couldn’t be allowed to find out how Victor had cracked the security grid. Not while Kristof might have his own uses for that information.
He knew just the words to achieve his goal. “Dmitri.”
His cousin’s head snapped up toward him. “What?”
“Go easy on Victor. I don’t want your usual over…enthusiasm wrecking Papa’s show tomorrow. We need him presentable.”
“I know how to run the Pit. Aren’t you still feeling the result?” He shot a hand out and green lightning hit Victor in the back, shaking his body back and forth until something cracked. Red spittle flew from Victor’s mouth, and his eyes rolled back in his head. His limp body swung above the circle stones, around and around, until it gradually came to a stop.
“Shit. Out cold.” Dmitri stalked to Victor and hit him, a sharp slap meant to wake him. Nothing.
Kristof hid a smile. With spells like those, Victor wouldn’t be providing Dmitri with information anytime soon. It wasn’t like Victor wouldn’t have done the same thing, in his place. Besides, Victor could take the punishment. After all, Kristof had, time after time.
He opened the door for Melina and stepped outside. The night was quiet, with the sharp wind from the sea calming down to a gentle breeze that brought the scent of fig and apple blossoms wafting by. Cicadas buzzed as they walked up the stone path toward the courtyard behind the estate.
Kristof reached out to stop Melina before she walked through the vine-covered pergola. He pulled her over to a small wooden bench and sat her down hard, crushing the apple blossoms that lay on it. “So. What the hell are you doing?”
She turned to face him, her eyes hooded. She tapped out a cloak spell, and when its purple light had settled around them, she said, “What do you think?” She frowned, then smoothed her face out in an effort to control the backlash from the spell. “Going ahead with our plan.”
“Tell me how executing Dylan, Victor, and Kate has anything to do with using the stone and overthrowing Papa.”
“I told you to leave the stone to me. Your job is to deal with the Hamiltons and keep Papa’s attention away from the stone. Focus on that.”
“I can’t if you keep interfering. What does luring Cooper Hamilton here have to do with our plan?”
“He won’t come. No clan leader has ever come into another leader’s stronghold. Alone. Unarmed. And when he doesn’t show, we can kill Kate without Papa suspecting why.”
The warm night air turned cold against his skin. “How do you plan to do that?”
“You’ll have to trust me on that one, brother dear. Do you want to run this family or not?”
“Yes. You know that.”
“What are you willing to sacrifice? Is sitting in Papa’s chair worth a few Hamilton lives or not?”
He pictured Kate’s hair lying on the pillow next to him, smelled the rose-petal scent of her perfume, remembered the soft feel of her skin.
Depends on the Hamilton.
If you want to save her, you need to concentrate, he told himself.
“How are you going to kill her?” he asked. “Are you going to use Victor’s and Dylan’s deaths to power the stone?”
She put a finger to his lips. “Be ready to move against Papa when I give the word and make sure the Hamiltons don’t interfere. You’ll leave the stone to me, yes?”
He nodded, watching her eyes. Where the hell was the sister he’d played with for hours on the beach as a child? The one who’d hidden him in her closet when his father had his rages, who’d held him tight when their mother passed? He didn’t see that girl in Melina’s eyes. The ambition that shone like a hard beacon he understood all too well. But when had the little girl in the pink jumper and the happy green eyes disappeared so completely?
“Good,” she said. “I have a lot to do before tomorrow. So do you. Make your preparations, and stay away from the Hamilton girl.” She rose, her dress swirling around her, and shut off the cloak spell.
He let her go. When she disappeared from sight over the crest of the hill, he pulled Victor’s silver chains from his pocket. Kate’s pearl buttons fell to the ground. He picked them up and smoothed them over in his hand. He tucked them back in his pocket where they would be safe.
He focused his magesight on Victor’s silver chains. He peeled away and put back the lightning-bolt talisman, glowing with the green power of the spell, then the kinetic-punch chain, then the fire talisman, and the others he could identify until there was only one left. It shone with a purple iridescence that sparkled under
the moonlight.
Piece by piece, a plan formed in his mind. He’d have to keep this one loose and limber. No battle plan survived contact with the enemy, and he had a lot of enemies.
Maybe he could level the playing field a bit.
He took out his phone and searched his contacts. Time to bring in an asset.
But first things first. He couldn’t just walk his asset past Anton, who was watching the grid as his backup, or his father’s eagle eyes. He needed another way to sneak his ally through the grid in time for tomorrow’s deadline.
He put the chain, still shimmering with a faint purple glow, in his pocket, next to Victor’s lockpick. He got up and strode toward the prison cells.
Kate finished picking at the stewed greens and rice in the wooden bowl in her lap. If this was her last meal, it sucked.
She threw the spoon in the bowl and tossed it on the floor. The clang echoed across the small cell. What was the point of eating anything? In a few hours—best case—Victor and Dylan would be dead. Worst case, she would be joining them.
And everything would be her fault.
If she’d refused to take the stone from Brian, it wouldn’t have possessed her. Brian would still be alive. She wouldn’t have this horrible…power inside her. Wouldn’t have sneaked out to seek comfort from Kris. Damn, from Kristof. Wouldn’t have taken the conch shell from him, letting Dmitri through their security spells. She wouldn’t be a prisoner. And Victor and Dylan wouldn’t have to pay for her mistakes with their lives.
So what was she going to do about it?
She stared down at the spellcuffs around her hands, the wrappings so tight they raised red welts against the skin of her fingers. Even if she could get the damned things off again, the darkness inside her would only try to eat her up. Her heart sank.
Across the cell, a line of the red ants attacked the last remnants of greens and rice, marching in the bowl to efficiently devour the food. A black bug with huge pincers on its head darted in to rip a piece of spinach away, then another joined it, then another.