Page 182 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twelve

Riva

I come out of my bedroom the next morning on my way to breakfast and find Toni standing in the hall just outside my door as if she’s waiting for me.

As I jerk to a stop, my pulse hitches. Did she somehow realize what I got up to last night?

Has she come to deliver some horrible new punishment?

She simply tilts her head toward the end of the hall with a swing of her bobbed hair. “Mr. Balthazar wants to speak with you.”

I guess it’d be a little much to expect even a “Good morning” from one of his close associates.

My hands rise to fidget with the deadly manacles around my wrists. I push myself to follow her, my nerves prickling.

What does the psychopath want with me now? Can I get anything out of him that will help my goals?

How much longer will it be until I can splatter his blood all over the villa’s walls?

As the familiar anger sears through my limbs, I glance at the woman beside me. The sight of her square jaw and the firm line of her lips above it reminds me of the photo I stumbled on last night.

What can I get from her ? She must know all kinds of things about her boss.

She’s been working with him for a long time—she’s stuck with him through all the horrors he’s carrying out. She can’t be totally unaffected, right?

Even if whatever she does feel about the situation is in favor of his methods.

“Is it really worth risking your life for this jerk?” I ask abruptly. Surprise seems more likely to get me an unusual reaction than being coy about the subject.

Toni stops and turns toward me with a slight arch of one eyebrow. “Risking my life?”

I fold my arms over my chest, gazing steadily back at her.

“I could kill you right now if I wanted to. Before these bracelets could stop me. He’s training me to kill as fast as possible.

And I’m not the only one here who could.

” Or who’d want to, although spelling out our desire for vengeance feels unwise.

Toni’s expression doesn’t even twitch. Her tone stays mild. “I don’t think you will, though. You know the others would suffer for it. Balthazar would be awfully angry. Who’s to say whether they’d all even survive?”

My jaw clenches despite my intention of staying cool and calm. I temper my voice. “You’re so sure he’d care that much? He might be pissed off that we destroyed one of his tools, but I haven’t seen any reason to believe you’re any more of a person to him than we are.”

One corner of Toni’s mouth curves upward—just a tad, but enough to notice. She thinks the point I just made is fucking funny .

“You don’t know very much, kid,” she says dryly. “I would focus more on keeping yourself safe than on threatening me.”

Before she can start walking again, I snatch at another tactic. “And how much does his wife know? Or his son? Are they oh-so-happy that their?—”

I haven’t even finished hurling the questions at her when an emotion I can’t identify blazes in her eyes. “You know nothing about that either,” she snaps, cutting me off. “You’ve got no idea what family even means, lab rat.”

I hit a sore spot—but she’s managed to prod one of my own too.

My shoulders stiffen with a flare of anger I can’t contain.

“I guess you don’t know much either, then.

The guys I grew up with are closer than family—closer than I bet you or your boss could understand.

We’ve only had each other. And here you are trying to tear us apart. What does that say about you?”

Toni glares at me for a moment before she visibly reins in her irritation with me. “Enough. Let’s get going. He won’t be happy if you make him wait.”

She heads down the hall again, and I stride after her, following her down the grand staircase.

“Why should I care about making him happy? He doesn’t give a shit about what I want.

Is he going to start killing off my ‘family’ over a five-minute delay now?

That’s the kind of lunatic you’re supporting? ”

This time, Toni doesn’t even answer. Her silence gnaws at me.

Something I said got to her. I provoked her out of her professional front.

How can I do it again?

“They don’t know, do they?” I venture, speaking quickly to get as much out as I can before she interrupts again. “ His family. You’re helping him go behind their backs while they figure?—”

Toni lets out a laugh so dark it sends a chill through my bones. “You really don’t have any clue.”

I lift my chin. “Then how about you tell me? Explain to me how this job you’re doing is anything other than horrific.”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

She ushers me into the drawing room. In another few seconds, she’ll let Balthazar know I’ve arrived, and I won’t get to push any farther.

I fling my arm toward the case that contains Dominic, as still as ever with the medical equipment keeping him stabilized in his coma.

“That’s what Balthazar’s done to my family. To one of the people I love more than anything in the world. You helped him do it. Maybe you can’t be bothered to justify it to me, but if you’re more than a total idiot, someday you’ll have to justify it to yourself.”

Toni looks at Dominic with a faint twist of her mouth that might actually be discomfort. The moment only lasts a couple of beats of my heart before she returns her dark gaze to me, but the edge in her voice has softened.

“I know who I owe and what they deserve,” she says. “We have our own loyalties. You’re best off accepting that.”

She must give some signal, because the screen begins to hum up from the tabletop across the room. Toni marches out through the doorway.

I find myself staring after her, turning over her words in my mind. Who she owes… Her own loyalties…

Something about her phrasing leaves me with the strange sense that it wasn’t Balthazar she was talking about. But who else could she mean?

Could she really see what he’s doing to us as a necessary evil? I’ve certainly slaughtered a lot of people in the interests of protecting the men I’m loyal to.

Of course, those people were outright attacking us in most of those cases. If Balthazar hadn’t taken us prisoner, we wouldn’t have done a thing to him.

We still haven’t, as much as I’ve burned to.

The screen clicks fully upright. I file my thoughts about Toni away in case they’ll be useful later and focus on the man whose image is blinking into view before me.

Balthazar rests his thick hands on the desk in front of him. My gaze flicks from it to the walls behind him, searching for some clue about where in the villa he is.

Can I decipher the shape of the room’s window from the fall of the light? Guess which floor it’s on from the angle of the beams?

Are there any sounds seeping through the speakers alongside his voice that might help form a clearer picture in my head?

If I knew exactly where he is, I could wait until he summons one of the other shadowbloods to speak and then dash over there. It doesn’t matter that I’d need to smash the window if I’d be gutting him an instant later.

Or I might even be able to shriek his death without so much as leaving the grounds.

“Hello, Riva,” Balthazar says in his throaty baritone. “I’ve been glad to hear about your progress in Matteo’s sessions.”

My fingers flex at my sides, the imagined fatal blow tingling through me. I don’t give a fuck about how glad he is. “I do what I have to do.”

“But it’s impressive seeing your powers grow. Don’t you find that too? Isn’t it satisfying to know how much you can accomplish?”

A renewed wave of fury washes over me. My voice comes out taut. “I’d rather if I could accomplish things that I want to do instead of having to follow someone else’s orders.”

My captor lets out a low chuckle, but the feral glint that unnerves me keeps dancing in his penetrating eyes.

“Sometimes your best interests are served by following someone who has a better idea of the world than you do. When we’re finished, when you’ve seen the full picture, there may be time for you to pursue other things. ”

“Finished what ?” I ask, pulling my attention away from him to try to study the room around him again. “Why don’t you show me the full picture now, if it’ll change my mind?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll come together as we continue our work. After we’re through, the decisions will be in our hands—all of them. What more do you need to know?”

The confidence in his tone rankles me. I can’t concentrate on the details of his surroundings. Nothing jumps out at me as identifiable anyway.

I glower my frustration at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He gazes back at me intently. “You aren’t happy with this world you’ve been forced into, are you, Riva?

The guardians have had their various complaints, but they’ve never been willing to go far enough to really fix the grand scheme.

Can you really tell me that you wouldn’t want to set an awful lot of things right? ”

The grand scheme? Setting things right?

He sounds almost like Clancy right now, only puffed up with a hundred times more ambition.

“Are you going to tell me that our missions have been to destroy ‘bad’ people?” I demand. “Clancy already tried to convince us we were going to be heroes. We figured out the truth.”

“James Clancy was a petty man swayed by money and the opinions of his peers. I can see straight through to a wider vision. A world with everything in its proper place. But that takes time.” Balthazar cocks his head. “And help. I’m only doing what’s necessary to bring about the future we all need.”

Are all these vague claims supposed to make me feel better about the murders he’s carried out?

I grimace at him, the scream that wouldn’t affect him through the transmission anyway vibrating beneath my throat. “Why are you telling me this? I don’t care what the fuck you think you’re working toward when you’re forcing me and the others to go along with it.”

He hums to himself. “You’re still upset with me. That’s understandable. I can’t tell you more when you might try to use it to undermine me. But I want you to know that I appreciate the strides you’ve taken and the assistance you’ve given so far.”

Did he call me in here just to thank me? To rub it in my face that I’ve been forced to carry out his dirty work for him?

I bare my teeth, a dozen caustic responses jangling together at the back of my mouth, but Balthazar goes on first.

A slight smile crosses his face. I have the feeling it’s meant to be apologetic, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark.

“I will also be limiting your distractions. From now on, you’ll have fewer responsibilities to worry about.”

My pulse gives a painful lurch. “What are you talking about?”

He straightens up, a move that I know from experience means he’s about to end this conversation. “The younger shadowbloods haven’t been making any progress with the procedures. Continuing on an unproductive path is pointless. I’ve arranged to have them sent away.”

With that, the screen goes black, leaving his last words ringing in my ears.

Panic jolts through my veins. I haven’t seen any of the other shadowbloods since yesterday.

I spin toward the door and sprint to the hallway, heading for the stairs.

The names burst from my lips in a frantic yell. “Nadia? Booker? Ajax?”

No one answers.