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Adrian leans forward in his seat, eyes gleaming in anticipation.

I look at him curiously. He shakes his head, puts a finger to his lips, and gestures for me to watch the desk.

So I do.

His face turns red almost immediately. He coughs a few times, then sets down his empty glass. He rubs his throat. He clears it.

He gags.

“Jack?” Stephen blinks, staring at the other man in confusion. Jack? Stop fooling. You said this meeting would only last ten minutes. Come on.”

With all of us as witness—and none of us able or willing to help—Jack chokes. He grabs his neck, squeezing it, gasping,choking, until a dribble of red wells up in one corner of his mouth. He stands up, stumbling a few steps away, before he lands on the carpet, face-down.

“Jack? You trip or something? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Alright. I’m comin’.”

Stephen gets up from his chair, crouching down at the other man’s side. I don’t think he realized what was happening at first, but suddenly he curses under his breath, then grabs for Jack’s throat. It takes him a few seconds to check for a pulse. When he does, but can’t find one, he yelps. Babbling nonsense, running from the room, he’s gone long before Jack Collins will get cold.

The whole thing took about two minutes tops.

“Poison,” Adrian announces with a satisfied grin. I stare at my husband, shocked, and he shrugs. “When I called Nicholas and told him he owed me a dead body, he gave me the options, but he really pushed poison for some reason. Something about showing up the Hummingbird.” He shrugs. “It was on short notice and he promised to pull through. If Nicholas Reed wanted to use poison, that’s fine with me.”

“Nicholas?” I’m so fucking confused. Kinda grateful that King Collins is dead, but… what the fuck just happened? I latch on to the one thing I’m sure of. “He said his name was Hunter. Was it a fake name? Like I used to use?”

“Nope. Guys like these get off on killing the bad guys right under our noses. They don’t use pseudonyms. But that Reed? That was his identical twin. Seems like Nicholas is the manager. Hunter is the muscle. Trust me. If you saw them both together, they look the same, but they’re very different.”

I get it. “Like you and Dallas.”

Ah, shit.

Dallas…

Adrian nods. “Right. And Stephen did exactly what I needed. Poor drunk was the witness that proves the poison came fromthat bottle, and that bottle came from a future Owed who doesn’t actually exist. That donation? It never happened, but Jack was so damn money hungry, he never even checked.”

That makes so much sense. And no wonder he firmly told his mentor not to take a sip. Otherwise, we’d havetwobodies on our hands.

Should I be freaking out more than I’ve just watched another man die? I guess, after your groom is assassinated on your wedding day, you kind of get sort of blase about things like this… especially when everyone in Harmony Heights knows that, in the Order, murder is just another hobby.

Still—

“Won’t you get in trouble? Killing Desmond is one thing… I saw the blood oath… but the King? Adrian, you might’ve gone too far.”

Leaning over his seat, he strokes the side of my jaw. “When it comes to you, there’s no such thing.”

“What about Dallas?”

“He knows. Don’t worry, princess. He signed off on it. His first official act as the new King of the Order.”

The King is dead.

Long live the King.

Adrian gets to his feet, holding out his hand, he waits for me to place mine in his again. Once I have, he helps me up. “I figure we have maybe two minutes until Stephen comes running back in here with whatever Order members he can find. Once it gets out that Jack was stealing from the Order, he’ll be lucky if they don’t just chuck him in an unmarked grave. Selling girls? I’ve done so fucked-up shit, but even that’s too low for me.”

Hooking my arm in his, the two of us walk casually out of Jack’s office, leaving his corpse behind. There’s no secretary waiting out here, or any enforcers, either. More of Adrian’s handiwork?

I’d put every cent I had down on it.

Whistling softly, he leads me into the elevator. I lean into him. He presses floor20, and away we go.