Page 37 of Brutal Crown

“What?”

“Sanctuary. For his daughter.”

My stomach tightens, but I try not to let it show on my face.

He watches me for a second, still panting, but a bit calmer now that he’s talking. He thinks cooperation might save him. It won’t.

“I think he knew he was being hunted. He said if anything ever happened to him, they would come for her,” he says, his voice steadier now. “He said that even if she doesn’t know anything, the danger would find her anyway. So he built a failsafe… some kind of dead man’s switch.”

My jaw clenches. “What kind of failsafe?”

“There’s a journal. I don’t know where it is. It can only be found if she dies. He made it so that her death would be the trigger to release it.”

I grab a picture from the folder. It’s a still image from a corner store in South Boston. A security cam shot, timestamped and dusty. A picture of Lia from three years ago. She’s seventeen in it, laughing. Head thrown back. She’s not in a maid’s uniform; she’s not in my chains. She’s just a girl buying snacks. She looks happy. Unburdened. Free.

Before everything happened. Before I came into her life and destroyed it.

“He knew she’d end up here,” I mutter. “As my prisoner.”

And if someone out there finds out what she is, what she represents…

“There’s a landmine buried somewhere against your family,” the traitor says, his voice low. “And she’s the trigger.”

I slam the picture against the table and pull out my gun. My finger itches on the trigger. “Who else knows?”

“No one!” His body starts trembling again. “I burned the letter after I took the money. I didn’t tell anyone. I swear on my mother’s grave! Please…”

He keeps begging, voice rising into a frantic pitch, and I let him. For a few seconds, I watch him spiral. Then I raise my pistol and aim just above his head.

His eyes stretch wide, a flash of panic blooming across his face.

Pop!

The gunshot cracks through the silence. The bullet embeds into the stone behind him, and dust showers down on him like ash. He lets out a sharp scream and slumps in the chair, gasping and sobbing like the coward he is.

“You’re not dying tonight,” I say quietly. “You’ll vanish from the face of the earth. Get a new passport. A clean identity. If I ever hear your name again, even a whisper, I’ll find you in your sleep, and I won’t miss.”

He exhales as relief crumples his features. His body sags in the chair as he breathes hard.

I let the silence stretch. I let him believe it’s over.

“Thank—”

I swiftly move behind him, pulling the silk cord from my coat pocket before the word finishes leaving his mouth.

“Wait… What are you?—”

He doesn’t get to finish.

I loop the black silk cord around his neck. It’s La Mano Nera’s favorite execution tool. Way stronger than it looks, it is mostly used for quick, clean kills, designed to snap the neck without breaking the skin. I jerk it up and out in one sharp motion, and a cartilage pops. His body twitches, he gurgles once, and then he stills.

I release him from his constraints and gently lower his body to the floor like I’m tucking a child into bed.

Sangius Quartus himself taught me that kill during my first winter under the Society. The kill that makes a man part of theshadows. The moment a man stops being a boy. The moment he becomes a weapon. A force.

I pocket the cord again and wipe my hands clean, as if I can wipe off the life I just took.

I scan the room, checking for anything out of place. When I’m done calling for Nico to head over and cover my tracks, I grab the folder and the USB drive from the monitor and slip them into my coat pocket before sliding it on.