Page 13
We move deeper into the building. From outside the meeting room door, I can hear voices—animated, overlapping, muffled by thick wood and layers of plaster molding. The instant my hand touches the handle, everything inside goes dead silent—the kind of silence that drops like a guillotine.
I push the door open, and my pulse kicks up a notch as we step across the threshold. This is new territory for both of us. And one of us won’t be walking out the same man when this is over.
At the long table in the center of the room, Killian sits at the far end, his muscular frame taking up more space than necessary, tattoos snaking up both arms and disappearing under the sleeves of his shirt. The LDZ skull ring glints on his finger as he drums it once against the tabletop. Sy lounges to his right, looking as relaxed as someone can in this pressure cooker, while Verity sits straight-backed on Sy’s other side, her expression carefully neutral. The Counts’ chair remains empty, or more realistically, abandoned.
DK and I move without speaking, taking the two empty seats on our side of the table so we face the others directly. The wood feels cool under my palms when I rest them there, feeling raw and exposed under the buzzing fluorescents and the weight of peeling walls that have witnessed power shifts before.
Killian’s eyes lock on me first, then slide to DK. His jaw flexes.
“I was wondering if you were actually going to show,” he says, voice low and edged.
“Sorry you’re not our first priority right now,” DK says, leaning back in his chair with absolute ease. “He’s in surgery, by the way.”
Killian leans forward, forearms braced on the table, the skull ring catching the light again. His knuckles are bruised from the pounding he gave Liam. He’s intimidating, but no more than any other royal. We’ve all done what we’ve needed to for our houses. There’s not a person in this room who doesn’t have blood on their hands.
“You know what my priority is?” His tone sharpens, anger rolling off him in waves. “Figuring out what the hell is going on, because when your precious King tore off his mask to save his little Baroness, I learned that it wasn’t Clive Kayes running BRN. It’s Timothy fucking Maddox. The whole time. And every single one of you bastards knew. Every last one.”
His fist comes down once on the table—hard enough to make the surface vibrate. There’s no doubt what’s running through his head. He thought he had a grasp on Forsyth. On the houses. On the players. Turns out he was left in the dark. That has to sting.
Sy shifts in his seat, biceps straining at his T-shirt. “We’ve been getting Killian up to speed.”
“On everything,” Verity adds, her voice quiet but firm. She doesn’t flinch under Killian’s glare. “If you didn’t pick up on that.”
That single word—everything—carries a significance that settles heavy in the room. It means Killian now knows how Timothy became King and why he took the crown. Whose spot he stole—his own cousin, Benji Kayes, after killing him. It means the entire table understands that, along with Remy, Whitaker is a legacy. That Amber, Timothy’s wife and Remy’s mother, carried on an affair with Benji and bore a child from it. A child she had planned, in her twisted, fucked up delusions, to sacrifice.
Killian’s lip curls. “And if I understand it correctly, you’re trying to paint Maddox as some kind of savior here.”
No one at the table looks happy about it. The idea sits wrong with the majority—twisted and uncomfortable after everything that’s happened. Neither DK nor I argue the point.
“He’s an asshole,” Sy says flatly. “I know this more than anyone. He’s as selfish and elitist as they come, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t made choices to protect people in Forsyth.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a conflict of interest with a Maddox in your house,” Killian points out.
Verity shakes her head, fingers tracing the edge of the table. “He did the right thing when one of his men tried to hurt me. He didn’t have to do that. He has his own code of honor–just like everyone else in this room.” Her voice stays even, but there’s steel underneath. “But Sy’s right. Snatching innocent girls off campus? It’s not his M.O.”
“Why would he?” Killian asks. “They’re delivered to his doorstep with a contract in hand.”
“I don’t think you’re one to talk about contracts,” Verity says, pointedly.
She and Killian stare at one another, tension building. Sy’s fingers curl on the tabletop; there’s no doubt he’ll defend Verity if it comes down to it. Payne must have realized that, too, because he blinks first, eyes swinging to me and DK.
“Do you know who the Guardian is?”
DK shakes his head. “No fucking clue.”
“I’ve interrogated the surviving traitor,” I say, my gaze meeting Verity’s, “but he’s not talking.”
“Pace can’t get anything either,” she confirms. “He either knows nothing, or he’s willing to die rather than face whoever he’s loyal to.”
“Jesus,” Killian mutters, running a big hand through his hair. “What’s the status on Maddox? You said he’s in surgery?”
“Yes, to repair the damage from the knife wound,” I admit. “We haven’t had any updates.”
Sy’s jaw tics. “What’s the prognosis?”
“We won’t find out until it’s over,” DK says, leaving out any other details.
There’s a beat around the table. Everyone is thinking the same thing—considering the next move, the next fracture in the system we’ve all been holding together by sheer force of will.
