Page 140 of Broken Souls

“Shit,” Enoch mutters as the rest of the table laughs at his poor combination of words.

Breathing out, I force myself to focus on the details of this meeting. “According to Cara,” I say, “if she had to create a cure for the disease, that’d take her three or four weeks, but for anyone else, she suspects it’ll take months. So we need to kill him in five weeks’ time, or we might not get another chance to ambush him.” Antonio is not a man of habit outside of visiting the alligator farm on her birthday and visiting the place she died on her death date every year. Having him followed isn’t possible either – not if we want to see the men who take that job again. With Siome’s death anniversary being nearly a year away, it will be too late to ambush him then.

“Shit, okay then,” Enoch says, though he shakes his head in despair.

The mood around the table is grim.

I glance at Micha. Her glass is only half empty. I nod at it. She scowls at me but brings it up to her lips grudgingly.

With the fun shit out of the way, I turn to Khalid. After he killed Talon, he got back home in the middle of the night. The next day, we were all rushing around to get ready for the wedding, so we didn’t get a chance to speak. He holds my gaze with dark eyes, and my paranoia shifts harshly in my stomach.

“Tell us what happened with Talon,” I say softly.

All heads turn towards him.

“I killed him,” the reaper says without emotion. “I stuck a knife in his throat and ripped it out.”

“Shit.”

“Was it quick?” Maddox asks.

“Yes.”

He closes his eyes briefly in relief, but Micha’s glass hits the table with a clonk. I glance at her, my eyes hard. This is not the time to express her anger. Clenching her jaw, she looks away from me.

“Did you take him into your shadows?” Rudy asks, his hands trembling.

Khalid nods, and the tension around the table eases a little. In the end, despite his crimes, Khalid still viewed him as a brother. In the confliction of emotions inside of me, my happiness over that is equal to my paranoia about what that means. If Khalid sided with him in the end… like Talon did after Vinny died.

“Did he say why he did it?” Enoch wonders.

“He believed Varius being Boss has led to too many dead. Vinny” –Talon’s best friend– “was merely the last straw.”

My lips tighten. The reaper’s gaze turns to me, and for a moment, I see anger there. Accusation and regret. My heart rate spikes, but I do not release his gaze.

“Was he sorry at all?” Micha asks, her words pushed out tightly between her lips.

Releasing my gaze, he turns to her. “About you, no.”

It’s harshly said, but she accepts it without emotion. I doubted she expected anything else, but hope is a damning thing to have.

My phone buzzes with a timer, and I rise as I turn it off. Eyes flash around the table, judging me over how abruptly I’m discarding Talon’s death. But although he might’ve been my brother, he set up my wife, and I’m not ready to forgive him enough to mourn.

“We’re heading to the portal,” I say, pocketing my phone. “Khalid, Maddox, Leno, and Micha, you’re with me.”

My wife looks at me in surprise, but she said she wanted everyone to know I have claimed her, so they will. She will accompany me to every meeting, every part of the business. The capos won’t appreciate a woman’s presence, but I don’t give a shit about them.

All I care about is her.

Holding out my hand, I wait for her to rise.

Forty-Eight

HER

The portal’s on the west side of town, located under one of the Shadow warehouses. The first floor is a stereotypical room full of shelves that contain landscaping machinery, equipment, spare parts, and supplies. Witches and humans, not all of whom are involved with the Family business, stack shelves and pack orders. The floor manager rushes over and leads us into his office. He shuts the door behind him, then uses his magic to remove the floor behind his desk to reveal a set of metal stairs.

As I peer into the dark hole, Varius’ paranoia flares down our bond. Khalid descends, and the urge to stab him in the back, to eliminate a stronger threat before he eliminates me is making my fingers ache with need. I clench them into fists as I glance at my husband. The hairs on my nape rise. His paranoia’s been ricocheting off every nerve all morning, making me anxious that something’s about to happen.