Page 2 of The Pawn

Just because you can’t see the monsters doesn’t mean they’re not there.

I can’t defend myself by pretending he’s not here. Rolling onto my back, I try to sit up, to move. My head aches. I recall how he slapped me twice before smashing my head against the SUV’s window.

My brother’s face the moment before the bullet struck flashes before my eyes. My brother’s grinning, then stunned expression. Or maybe I’m making that part up. He didn’t see it coming. I don’t think he registered what was happening to be stunned before warm blood splattered across my face and he fell over.

But closing my eyes makes it worse and when I open them, there’s a shadow over me. A face peering down at me. Loomingabove me.

Malek.

Malek, my father’s one time consigliere. The puppet master who played my brother like the fool he was.

Malek the traitor. The killer.

He wasn’t supposed to be the violent one.

He studies me, tilting his head. He clears his throat and his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.

I say my brother’s name, my voice a croak, a broken whisper. “Michael.” He killed him. He shot Michael before my eyes.

Malek smiles. “Gone. No need to thank me.”

I force myself to move, to get up. My head is a leaden weight, my neck not strong enough to carry it and it hurts when I finally manage to sit. I’m dizzy and lean my back against the chaise. What’s left of it, what the fire didn’t devour. I look up at him.

“Murderer.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “He had it coming. If it wasn’t me, and some might suggest the swiftness of my bullet a mercy, Trevino would have done it, and I can tell you he’d not have been so merciful.”

A soldier brings him a glass of water. He sips, makes a satisfiedahsound. I lick my cracked lips. I’m so thirsty my throat burns.

“Drink?” Malek asks, holding out the glass.

I turn my face away. I won’t drink from his glass. I look around the large room of the ruined house, take in the destroyed furniture covered in five years’ worth of filth. Splatters of blood somehow stand out in a deep, terrible brown against the walls. Who cleaned up the bodies of the dead men? I didn’t see that part. Soldiers, I suppose. Menwho are used to seeing death. Cleaning up murder. Men used to delivering it.

No. I can’t think about that. Can’t think about the last time I was here. I can’t. He hasn’t killed me yet. If I want to survive this, I need to focus. No time to relive the horror of those days and nights.

The place where my pinkie used to be throbs. Ten days. Ten nights. Rescued on the eleventh. Rescued too late.

Stop it. Focus.

I’m alive. He would have killed me if he didn’t need me, I’m sure of it. As long as he needs me, I’ll be all right. I will. I need to get my racing heart under control.

I won’t be all right, though. How can I be? The way he murdered Michael? Michael who didn’t even see it coming. Michael who trusted him. Amal was right. Cassian was right. Michael wasn’t in charge. Malek had been taking the reins slowly, but surely, biding his time, ever since my father’s death. I knew it too, didn’t I?

I blink, look up at him, realizing something.

“Did you kill my father too?” I ask, my mind working on a different question. A more important one. Why did he bring me here, to this place of all places?

Because who killed my father is not a question that keeps me up at night. My father died a better death than he deserved. If you reap what you sow, he got off easy.

“Do you truly expect me to believe you mourned his death? It was for show, Allegra. A good one, I must say. My compliments. But you knew him as well as I did. You knew what he did.”

I don’t comment on that. I can’t.

“Sir,” a familiar voice comes from behind him. Malekturns. It’s Rami. Rami who worked for my father. Who worked for Michael. Rami who doesn’t even look at me. I’ve always known he was a mercenary only loyal to the highest bidder.

“What?” Malek barks.

Rami just shakes his head.