Page 70 of King of Cruelty

“Reach into your pocket and take out your phone. Show me the text that you sent.”

I didn’t fight or argue or hesitate. Tugging out my phone, I showed her.

Debra swore foully. “Fuck! She warned them! She warned them all! How?” She shook me, opening more cuts on my neck. “How did you know!”

“The scar on your cheek was my first clue,” I spat, hatred burning my throat. “The next was your pride.”

“Pride? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You couldn’t stand toloweryourself to the likes of me and the other survivors of Luca—women who were seduced and manipulated by that cockroach. So you fed me all that garbage about being some high-powered attorney attacked in a penthouse parking garage.” I scoffed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that the key to a good lie is not to embellish?”

“My lie was good enough,” she hissed, strangling the blood out of my arm. “It got me and my brother and sisters into the most secure building in the world. Ha! You Merchants are so simple, it’s pathetic. Running around pretending to be heroes saving the day. All the while never looking back at the trail of bloodshed and bodies in your wake. All I had to do was bleat and cry out of a battered face, and they swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

“Down!” She shoved me to the ground. “Kill her if she moves.”

My chest burned listening to her footsteps retreating back into the room—no doubt to get some curtain cords for me. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Bane and River. “If I hadn’t insisted we come down here—”

“—they’d have turned on me when I came down here alone to escort them out of the building,” Bane said. “This is not your fault, Kenzie.”

“Yes, it is. Because she forced my hand.” Debra knelt over me and bound my hands. “Things are about to get very unpleasant very much ahead of schedule.” She shoved my phone in my hands. “Send another text. Tell those Merchant scum that I’min charge now, and they’re not to do anything until they receive instruction from me. No moving, thinking, breathing, or fighting. And make sure they know I can slit your throat much faster than they can test me.”

I looked at Bane and River.

They both tipped their heads ever so slightly.Do as she says.

I typed out the text and let her see it.

“Good. Send it.”

I did so, then it was plucked out of my hands. I heard the sound of her crunching it beneath her shoe.

“Move.” Another shove. “All of you.”

Two on one, the bastard brothers marched us down the hall, their knives firmly pressed to veins that didn’t like to be cut.

Bane was forced ahead of the pack.

“Open it, and don’t think you can trick me.” The entire way Debra moved had changed. Gone was the terrible actress pretending she had human emotions. Her tall figure towered shoulder to shoulder with Bane, and standing up straight you could see the purpose in her walk, and the hard, corded frame beneath loose, borrowed clothes.

“I know the Fairfield is loaded with security measures no one could ever see coming, but if we’re surprised, I promise you my hand will slip, and your little fuck toy will die.”

“Don’t call her that.” Bane’s voice was as light and jovial as it always was. The man was not in the least bit cowed. “We’re all enemies here, but there’s never a need for misogynistic insults.”

“You don’t give the orders here.” Debra withdrew the knife and stabbed me in the arm with a quick, shallow jab.

“Ahh!”

“Hey!” Bane and River shouted.

“I do,” she said over our noise. “I’ll decide what there’s a need for.”

Bane glared at her, lips peeling back from his teeth as a dark, ferality dimmed his eyes. “You’re in.” He threw open the hall door. “Fuck off into that swarm of cops and SWAT teams. I beg of you.”

She laughed. “Thank you for the suggestion, but I have a better idea. You go out there and evacuate Thatcher and everyone on your security team. Now,” she barked. “They’re all out the front door in two minutes, or I paint the walls with her blood.”

Bane took two steps.

“Uh-uh.” Debra hauled me around River and his captives.