Page 60 of Vicious Kingdom (Dynasty of Queens #3)

He shook his head with a pitying smile. “Not you, Anna. You’re just the match. He’s the fire.”

Leo said nothing, but I could feel him, warm and solid behind me, the thrum of his pulse even through the air.

Jon advanced, one slow step at a time, gun never wavering. “You took everything from me. The company. The clients. My own brother’s death is tied to you!”

“Dad’s death is closer to your own doorstep than you think,” I croaked.

“Annaliese,” Leo warned.

But I was done hiding. It was time this man knew what his son was. How he failed as a father—and as an uncle.

“Move, Anna,” Jon said. “This isn’t your problem.”

But it was. It had always been my story, and I wasn’t letting the ending run away from my pen.

I straightened, planted my feet, and glared at him with all the venom I could muster.

“Your son abused me since I was a child. He’s the one who murdered Dad.

This is my fight. I published that story at Blitz Media because what Callahan Voss was doing was equally bad.

I gave voice to the helpless, and if it cost my father his name and reputation, then fuck him. ”

My uncle’s eyes flickered, just for a heartbeat. A flash of something like pain, or maybe regret.

It was hard to say how much he knew. How deep his involvement in the coverups went.

And then, his eyes steeled.

“Fucking lies.” Jon squeezed the trigger, and the world jumped the rails.

The gunshot was less like thunder and more like a door slamming shut forever. The windows trembled, a pulse of sound ricocheting through the open-plan emptiness, but the bullet itself buried in the drywall behind Leo’s head—a warning shot. Or maybe just bad aim.

It shaved decades off my life.

The silence afterward was absolute. Even time seemed to hold its breath.

Jon’s hand shook now, just a trace, but the rage that flooded his face left no room for doubt. Next time he’d aim to kill.

Leo didn’t flinch. He took one step forward, putting his body between me and Jon. I should have been grateful, but all I felt was the ice in my own blood, the clarity of fear burnt down to its white-hot core.

But I wasn’t that frightened little girl anymore.

I spoke before I could stop myself.

“You missed,” I said. My voice rang out, sharp enough to cut glass.

Jon’s lip curled. “Doesn’t matter. Got your attention, didn’t I?”

“You always did like theatrics,” I said, my words echoing in the double-height ceiling, bouncing off concrete and glass. “But this isn’t your stage anymore. Hertz Media is done. You are done.”

He sneered, gun drifting from Leo’s chest to my own. “You think you’re safe just because you have him?”

I held my ground, though every nerve screamed for me to dive behind the island. “I’m not the one who’s scared, Jon.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think I’m scared?”

I took a breath, filling my lungs with the bitter, chemical tang of gunpowder. “I think you’re terrified. That everyone’s going to find out what really happened in that house. What your son did.”

For the first time, Jon flinched. The movement was tiny—a tic in his left cheek, a tic I’d memorized in childhood whenever someone got close to the truth.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat. “Jonatan was a good boy. A GOOD boy, you hear me?”

I stepped out from behind Leo, drawing Jon’s attention back to me. “And that’s how he’ll remain if you walk away. If not…I’ll publish every damn truth, make it so his name rots long after his body is dirt.”

His jaw worked, teeth grinding audibly.

“Jon,” Leo said, voice steady as ever. “Put the gun down.”

Jon’s laugh was pure venom. He cocked the hammer again, finger curling. “This time, I won’t miss.” Jon’s breath came ragged. “You ruined everything.”

“No,” I said. “You did.”

Jon’s hand trembled, his knuckles bone-white around the grip. “Shut up. Shut the fuck up!”

I clenched my jaw. He would never see his son as the demonic plague. That was the Tormentor’s legacy.

“Tie him up,” Jon spat, tossing a zip tie at my feet. The flimsy plastic fluttered to the ground, out of reach.

Leo bent and scooped up the thread. He held it to me, crossing his wrists. The look in his eye promised it would be okay.

I didn’t believe him.

My fingers trembled as I failed to push the tip through the snare. Leo bent and gave me a reassuring smile. I wanted to believe the mobster in him would survive.

The moment Leo’s wrists were secured, Jon grabbed Leo by the collar and slammed him against the wall hard enough to shake the wine rack.

Leo’s head cracked back, but his eyes never left mine.

“If you call the law, I’ll kill you too,” Jon snarled as he pushed my husband through the front door. At the end of the hall, the service door to the roof access banged open.

I didn’t hesitate another moment.

My fingers gripped a weapon, drawing it from the block next to the stove. And then I was running, blade pointed down, hidden beside my body.

The wind hit me as soon as the door opened—hot, wild, updrafts catching every scrap of grit and tossing it in our faces.

I tasted blood in my mouth and realized I’d bitten the inside of my cheek.

I hated it up here. The feeling of stepping off the edge and becoming one with the sky.

The roof was an expanse of tar and gravel, ringed with a steel railing that looked more decorative than functional.

The city beyond had turned violet in the dusk, every window a molten square, the skyline burning and indifferent.

Jon frog-marched Leo to the far edge, the one facing Lake Michigan. I followed, every step a new surge of dread, my mind already cataloguing every way this could go wrong.

At the parapet, Jon shoved Leo so hard his ribs bounced against the rail. Leo didn’t grunt—didn’t give Jon the satisfaction. He just stood, back to the void, breathing slow and even.

Leo smirked. “You think you can win?”

“Shut up,” Jon snarled and slammed Leo’s head into the rail again.

I ran for it, the knife cold and perfect in my palm.

Jon saw me coming. “You really want to play, Anna?” He let go of Leo and turned, arms spread. “You’re going to kill me? After everything?”

I rushed at him, blade pointed at his heart. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

The wind whipped my hair into my eyes.

Jon shook his head, a terrible, fatherly disappointment in the gesture. “You don’t have the guts.”

I lunged.

The knife caught him just above the kidney, sinking in with a sick, elastic resistance. Jon gasped, eyes wide, and staggered back. “Jeezes, Anna,” he managed, voice cracking.

I didn’t stop. I buried the blade in deeper, twisting with a savage force.

Jon buckled, blood spilling black in the encroaching dusk. He tried to turn and point the gun at me, but Leo batted it out of his hands.

His own were free.

Of course they were. He stood there, indomitable, power leeching from every pore. This was his city, and he was king of it all.

Jon tried to crawl, but he didn’t get far. He looked at me with something like awe, or maybe just the shock of seeing a legacy shattered in its own blood.

“You did it,” he croaked. “You fucking did it.”

I nodded. “Someone had to.”

He laughed, wet and filled with disgust. He rolled onto his side, fingers groping for something—anything. Blood streamed in ribbons from his shirt, but his face was calm, almost serene. A movement caught the corner of my eye: the black steel of the revolver, half-buried in the rooftop gravel.

He lunged.

So did Leo.

The two of them collided in a flurry of limbs and breath, Jon’s teeth gritted, Leo’s face a mask of pure, wild resolve. The gun scraped the tar, skittering to the brink of the roof before Leo’s foot pinned it down.

Jon clawed at Leo’s shirt, desperate, animal-like. Leo bared his teeth and ripped Jon’s hand free, the effort painting new streaks of red across his knuckles.

Leo didn’t stop. He drove his knee into Jon’s gut, then wrenched the revolver free and swung it up in both hands.

Jon didn’t plead. He just glared at us, a world of hate in two blue eyes.

Leo cocked the hammer.

My own expression hardened. “Goodbye, Uncle.”

Leo pulled the trigger.

The shot was muffled, anticlimactic, but Jon’s body jerked like a marionette cut from its strings. He collapsed, deadweight, limbs splayed across the rooftop.

For a heartbeat, nothing moved but the trickle of fresh blood.

Leo straightened, breath coming ragged. He tossed the gun onto the corpse, then staggered toward me.

His eyes found mine, bright and haunted. “I will always protect you.”

My throat closed up, so I nodded, mute.

“You should have stayed downstairs. I had it under control.” He bent and pressed his forehead to mine.

“I’m a fighter too,” I whispered. “It just took too long for me to find my fists.”

He chuckled, brushed a hand over my hair, and said, “I’m proud of you.”

It hit harder than the gunshot.

I sucked in a shaky breath, heart banging so loud I thought he could hear it. I realized I was still holding the knife, knuckles locked white around the handle. I dropped it, hating the sticky crimson coating my skin.

Leo covered them with his own. His other hand gripped my jaw, pulling my chin up with a firm insistence, while his fingers deftly tucked the wild strands of hair behind my ear.

He claimed my lips fiercely, with the desperate intensity of someone who had danced too close to the edge of life.

I savored the intoxicating thrill of raw, pulsing existence.

It was a collision of need and relief that stole the air from my lungs.

I gasped into him, tasting copper and adrenaline as his tongue swept past my lips with possessive intent.

My body melted against his, knees weakening as his hands tangled in my hair, tugging just hard enough to make me whimper.

“Annaliese, my fierce little authoress,” he growled against my mouth, biting my lower lip and then soothing the sting with a slow, deliberate lick.

I clawed at his shoulders, pulling him closer, desperate to feel his heartbeat against mine.

Leo backed me against the wall beside the rooftop door, his body caging mine, one hand braced beside my head while the other slid down to grip my hip with bruising intensity.

The rough brick scraped against my back as he pressed his hips against mine, the hard ridge of his arousal making me gasp.

My hands slid beneath his shirt, nails raking down the taut muscles of his back, marking him as mine.

“I need you,” I panted against his mouth.

Leo groaned, his hands cupping my face before sliding down my throat, thumbs pressing just enough to make my pulse race. His touch traveled lower, palming my breasts through my shirt, thumbs circling my hardened nipples until I arched into him.

“Here?” he murmured, voice rough with desire. “With a body ten feet away?”

I should have felt shame, horror at my own desperation, but all I felt was fire licking through my veins. The danger, the death, the knife—all of it had awakened something primal in me.

“Leo,” I whimpered, but I relented. I buried my face in his shoulder, breathing in the smoke and sweat, the deep animal warmth of him. He wrapped me in his arms, and for the first time, I let myself believe the danger had passed.

“I don’t know what happens next,” I said, voice muffled in his shirt.

He kissed the top of my head. “We go home,” he said. “We clean up. And then we figure out what we want to be, now that no one’s writing it for us.”

That sounded impossibly good.

I squeezed Leo’s hand, harder than I needed to, and he squeezed back. Below us, business empires slept and the underworld awakened, unaware that its king was reunited with his long-lost love. Above it all, we stood, ready to invent ourselves from scratch and take our rightful place, ruling it all.