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“You have five seconds to tell me what the hell you are talking about, or I will start removing fingers,” Scarlett said with icy calm. She let more and more of the darkness out of its cage within her soul, the man’s eyes fixed on her.

“Too bad my brother has already laid claim to you. I can see why,” he said, and Scarlett could see the lust lingering in his gaze. This man was a lunatic.

He suddenly sprawled to the ground at her feet as Nuri landed a clean kick to his back. The man hissed, pushing himself to his knees. Scarlett crouched before him, and Juliette slammed a boot onto his hand. The man smirked at Scarlett,and she smirked right back as she brought a dagger down atop his left middle finger.

The man screeched in pain as the finger was severed from the rest of his hand. The fog was getting thicker and fast. Too fast. Too unnaturally fast. “What is your business here?” Scarlett demanded.

“You,” he seethed. “You are my business here.”

“You mean the orphans? The orphans in our Syndicate?” Scarlett demanded.

“No,” he gasped around the pain. She placed her blade against his pointer finger. “They are not my responsibility. They are someone else’s.”

“Whose responsibility are they?” Scarlett pressed down on her dagger, cutting into flesh.

“I do not know his name here,” the man hissed, “and even if I did I would not tell you.”

In two heartbeats, Scarlett had another dagger drawn and shoved into the man’s shoulder. “Bitch,” he gasped out.

“That’s one of the more pleasant names I’ve been called,” Scarlett purred. “Who is taking our children and for what purpose?”

“To restore my king’s throne,” he answered with a sneer.

“Who is your king?” Scarlett demanded.

“Who is yours?” the man replied with a smile through the pain. Then, again before any of them could sense his movements, the man lunged at Scarlett, knocking her to the ground. He straddled her, his hands wrapping around her throat. The fog was so dense and thick now that Scarlett could hardly see him above her, but she felt him as he leaned down next to her ear and whispered, “What sweet darkness dwells in you, Princess. I can see why he claimed you. I can see what calls to him. Shadows always return to the darkness.”

Then Scarlett was gagging as blood sprayed from the sword being plunged through the man’s throat. He was kicked off of her, and Nuri was dragging her to her feet.

“What in every burning pit of hell was that?” Nuri spat as the three girls stood around the man, now dead, before them. Juliette crouched and dug through his cloak and pockets.

“Nothing. He has absolutely nothing on him other than his flask,” Juliette said, standing and chucking the flask to the curb.

“Did you really need to kill him? He had information,” Nuri snapped.

“That he was never going to divulge,” Scarlett said pointedly.

“You had hardly started on him,” Nuri retorted. “We could have dragged him down an alley somewhere—”

“No. I’ve seen that look in men’s eyes before. He wasn’t going to give us any information. He was just going to lead us in circles with his random bullshit,” Scarlett replied, stooping to pull her dagger from his shoulder. She wiped the blade on the man’s pants, cleaning the blood from it.

“Then maybe you’re growing soft,” Nuri sneered.

“Shut up. Both of you,” Juliette interjected. “He had both of you in compromising positions tonight. I wasn’t risking it happening again.” She used her sleeve to wipe her own blade clean. “Let’s take care of him and go home. I need a bath. His blood smells like piss and vomit.”

“You’re telling me. It’s in my mouth,” Scarlett said, spitting on to the stones of the street.

“What did he say to you?” Juliette asked as they reached down to grab the man.

“Nothing noteworthy. More nonsense.”

“Where do you think he came from?” Nuri asked.

“The depths of hell?” Scarlett offered.

Her sisters laughed in the night as they dragged the corpse to a secluded area of the docks to dump him in the sea.

Scarlett shot up in bed.