Page 7 of Consume Me

“If any of you are unwilling to get your hands dirty, you should leave. I won’t hold it against you.” No one stood. No one walked. I’d expected as much, but it was important to me to know that they were here willingly. Each of them we're capable of murder. Each of them had killed before. But times and people changed. “I know I’m asking too much of you.”

“You know why we’re here,” Georgia muttered.

We were a family—a strange, twisted family but one with tighter bonds than blood could grant, although in a way, it had been blood that bound us—other people’s blood. We’d had it on our hands. Some in war. Some in conspiracy. We’d all done it for some perversion of King and Country. Not it was time to soak our hands in crimson once more. This time for our Queen.

“This was a well-organised attack,” Smith said, leaning back in his chair. “I hope you trust the people in this room.”

“I do.” I knew what he was getting at.

“It’s unlikely it could be pulled off without multiple people on the inside,” he said. “You need to check everyone.”

“I already ordered that,” Georgia said, earning a sharp look from Brex. Her eyes narrowed at the unspoken accusation on his face. “You weren’t around to do it. Someone had to think.”

“Thank you,” I said to cut off the argument at its head. “If it’s true, then we need to move a few people. Brex, you know who we can trust. Reassign them to my family’s personal guard. Elizabeth, Edward, Sarah—I want to know who’s watching them.”

He nodded. “I know who to move.”

“Good. I still—”

“And my wife?” Smith interrupted me. His gaze burned across the room. “I nearly lost her once protecting this family.”

“If you don’t want to do this,” I said coolly.

“I didn’t say that. I already threw my lot in,” he reminded me, “but my wife is pregnant, too, and I have to place a higher priority on her safety. Actually, it’s my highest priority.”

Georgia raised an eyebrow, but if she expected me to rebuke him, she was surprised. I expected nothing less of a man like Smith Price. It was why I’d grown to trust him. He was the only man who came close to showing the same consuming love for his wife that I felt for Clara. It meant he was capable of the same dark actions I was, although I didn’t fool myself into believing he would go as far as I would to save my wife. Still, he’d gone farther than most already.

Every soul in this room had, and that’s why they were here.

“Do you want one of my men? You’re welcome to them, but…”

Smith seemed to consider this. He’d been the one to point out that we likely had multiple traitors in our midst. Taking my security would be like playing Russian roulette with his wife. “Georgia?”

“I know someone.” That seemed to settle the matter. Given their connections and past, I didn’t want to know more about it.

“You want to contain this,” Brex said, bringing our conversation around again. “I don’t see how. Or for that matter, why.”

“Because it will be a shit show,” Georgia said flatly. “We won’t be able to sneeze without the media catching it on camera.”

“But we can’t pretend like nothing’s happened,” he said.

“He’s got a point. We can’t delay the news of my grandmother’s death. So while unfortunate, that will prove a distraction. It will also point interest at Clara.” I cleared my throat and relayed what the doctor had said about my grandmother’s pills. “It might simply be a heart attack, but the doctor seemed to think it was more.”

“How deep does this rabbit hole go?” Brex gave a low whistle, but he looked anything save amused.

“Would Clara do that?” Smith asked and we all turned to stare at him. He held up his hands. “She seems nice, but we haven’t spent a lot of quality alone time together.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. Just the thought of my wife alone with another man scratched at my nerves. I fought against an image of a man touching her now. “No. My wife did not poison my grandmother.”

“No one would blame her if she did,” Georgia pointed out.

That was true. Mary wasn’t well-liked amongst the family. Or the public. Or, well, anyone who’d met her. “It’s just poor timing.”

“Is it?” Brex asked. He and Smith shared a dark look.

“Out with it,” I ordered.

“Your grandmother’s heart attack was a pretty big distraction. It shut the whole party down,” Smith explained. “You went with her without thinking.”