The room seems to still and tense, and he shrugs. “If you kill me, will you kill your favorite, as well, Uncle? Emma will inherit everything.”
No one, not even the cousin he has just shocked, has an answer for that. It even shakes Bethania for a moment.
Her face has colored to match the wine she has forgotten. “I will not tolerate you showing your ass here,” she hisses, skirting the table and rushing toward her nephew . “Get out now, or I will have you removed, you little piece of shit.”
In a movement so liquid the party goers hardly register it, Seth's guns are drawn, and one of them is pointing directly at Bethania's forehead. She gasps, freezes, mouth agape. He says, cool and calm, “Get out of my fucking face.”
His other gun is trained on his uncle.
Around the table, a few enforcers reach for their weapons. Emma has her guns drawn before she is conscious of the action, vaguely aware that at either side, the men have drawn as well. Rama takes a half step forward, protectively. She shoots him an icy glare, and he stills.
Emma dismisses him, focusing on her mother. The king and Nic haven’t drawn, but what worries her is Beth. Beth, who hasn’t been unarmed since Isaac was killed, and who hates Seth.
Bethania takes several steps backward, her hands rising in front of her, the universal gesture of surrender. She nearly stutters when she says, “Seth, what are you doing?”
“First, I'm getting you out of my face, you traitorous bitch.”
Cocaine and adrenaline are railroading through his veins. All the rage and solitude of his time in Cuba is like hot lead to his nerves. He vaults onto the table, guns still leveled at his aunt and uncle, and Bethania is stranded between the table and Seth's allies. Seth kicks plates and glasses out of his way as he makes progress toward the other end. He says, “Then, I'm crashing your dinner party.” He toes over a wine glass.
The delicate sound of breaking glass punctuates the deafening tension, the suffocation of real fear as they all wonder if they are about to die by the hand of the rightful king. The red liquid seeps across the expensive table setting portentously.
Unaware of the turn of mood, the violinists in the garden continue their lilting soundtrack for the moment. Seth's attention has narrowed as if his uncle is the only one in the room, and the world, ignoring the woman who could have had that world, the woman who had almost snaked into the heart of his empire. He makes it clear that that life is dead to him by the way he ignores her completely. To devastate his heart is one matter, but to fuck with his throne is something altogether more damning.
He crouches before his uncle, the gun in his right hand trained steadily, the barrel inches from Mikie's pursed lips. The light in Seth's eyes is near-maniacal, and a bitter smile that twists his lips is, too. Without breaking eye contact, he uses his other gun to scoot Mikie's steak and seared asparagus toward the edge of the table until it tips over into his uncle's lap, all over his tailored pants and jacket. Mikie's rage is apparent in his clenched jaw and balled fists, but his hands have been rendered still—by some chance of fate—above the table and faraway from his weapons.
“You know,” says Seth in a deceivingly ponderous tone, “after everything you have endured at the hands of this life, I suppose it's poetic that you would rot from the inside, that you would piss on the memory of your own brother and rob me of mine. I guess we've become just another classic tale of lies and betrayal.” Very slowly, and without a twitch to his expression, Seth lifts his other gun to join the one in Mikie's face. He says, “But you know what else? Dad was right. If you find that you can no longer feel the remorse of your actions, if the suffering you cause stops bothering you, you're no longer fit to rule. And now—now I understand why he said it to me. He warned me about Caleb, but Caleb was never dead inside.”
Seth leans forward, takes one knee so that he is maybe six inches from Mikie, guns shining between them, and he continues, “Dad didn't want his sons to be like you. It was always you. I have failed my father. I couldn't save my brother. But my failure, that falls on you. You set me up to fall hard, sent me to die by the hands of strangers like a fucking coward. You thought I could never be a man, and so you never gave me a chance. But you forgot one thing—I'm still a Morgan. You know why you forgot that? Because you were never worthy of that name.”
His other knee hits the table, so that he's kneeling in prayer to the street, twin gun barrels poised, waiting to call down vengeance for his brother's martyrdom. He says, “And now, by the power vested in me by the blood of the street, by the sacrifice of my father and the murder of my brother, I strip you of the crown you stole, I charge you with treason of the highest degree, and I take from you the name of Morgan. Tonight, you die as nobody.”
In the moments of anticipation, they can all but hear Seth's muscles pull against one another. They can feel his trigger fingers moving. And just when Mikie's eyes grow wide in the assurance that is about to die—
“Seth.”
A single word, just one name spoken calmly and assertively, that stops his blood in his veins and freezes his muscles in place. It's Nicolette, and he realizes that she has drawn her gun despite all the steel and gunpowder aimed throughout the room, and she has made her target the side of his face. With dangerous grace, slow motion devastation, she stands.
“Do not forget your own blame here,” she says. He won't look at her, can't bear to do it, and he still won't point a gun at her. So he must watch the smug and cruel delight on Mikie's face as he watches the storm that Nicolette creates in his nephew. She continues, “Do not forget that you turned your back on this empire that you claim to hate so you could play the hero, the prodigal son who takes it all for granted and still gets the world on a platter upon his return. You abandoned everything, and you were more than happy to do it. Caleb was right, you're too weak to be a king.”
Seth bites down on the heartbreak that tries to push aside the anger that drives him. His face doesn't move, but he knows Mikie can see the pain in his eyes.
“This compassion you so highly praise makes you soft,” says Nicolette. “You see, Seth, you live in a fairy tale, and you're blinded by your ideals. But you fucked up. You thought I would wait for you forever. You presumed that my only dream in life was to be yours. I don't need to have you to rule the world.”
“In the end,” Seth answers, his tone so strained, and so far from the confidence moments before, “the only knife in my back that made it to my heart is the one buried by your hand. I've always loved you. I have never loved anyone but you. And you're right, my love for you has always been a hole in my armor. I don't regret it. But I will never have that weakness again”
She scoffs, like a slap in his face, a sound that is full of her bitterness. She answers, “I loved you once, but you left me. You made me realize that love is just a burden. So thank you, Seth Morgan. I hate you now—and that is a much hotter fuel to burn.”
He winces. He can't stop it. She was there when Caleb died. She heard him tell Seth the same three words. Surely, she knows now the impact on Seth of echoing his beloved brother's last words. Yes, he knows she means to use the play, like the cunning queen she is—just as he knows she truly means it. He knows she's baiting him, but he can't stop himself from meeting her eyes. They are so cold, the exact opposite of the heat and devastation in his gaze. It's not only hatred he finds there. She has her own revenge in mind, that of the woman scorned.
Just as he means to kill his uncle, Nicolette wants him dead.
There's a rustle of movement in his periphery, most likely Mikie reaching for the gun he has been denied, but in this moment, Seth no longer cares if he dies. But then, a gun explodes behind him.
The sound tears through the room, and for a moment, nobody moves, as if the concussion has also stunned them. But then a fountain of scarlet erupts from the v of Nicolette's throat. Her eyes bulge, and she makes a noise, a gurgle. Her lips work themselves, but her voice has been destroyed. She stumbles backward, and the gun slips from he
r hands as she grasps at the gushing wound. All the while, her wide, panicked eyes stay on Seth.
Emma stares at the fallen princess, her blue eyes icy, expression remorseless. Her gun is still pointed, smoke curling slightly. Around the room, there is a wave of whispers, a few screams as Nicolette twitches and writhes in agony. She should feel something—remorse, guilt, shock. She’s never killed before, has been sheltered from that even now that she is fully vested in the family. But she feels nothing. Not even satisfaction, seeing the woman who broke him dead. She feels nothing. All is emptiness, with the tiniest whisper of relief that the gun is no longer pointing at Seth.
She closes her eyes, waits for the inevitable.
“No!” Seth screams—just like he did when his father was pumped full of lead, just like he did when Caleb's head snapped backward. Tears blur his vision. But before he can react, another shot rips through the room. This time, it is Seth's blood that tastes the air, as a bullet slams into him behind—as it burns through the flesh and bone of his left shoulder blade, almost exactly in the same spot as his existing scar.
Behind him, he hears the outraged scream from Emma.
The force of the blow propels Seth forward, a mass of rage and agony, into Mikie. The weight of Seth's body prevents Mikie from wielding the gun he has finally managed to draw. Seth's blood pours hot onto Mikie, but the wail that comes from him is more disabling than the way his body pins Mikie's gun between them. The sound is a haunting echo of the night Gabe died, a reminder of a time less shrouded in shadow.
Mikie knows from the anguish in his cry that Seth has somehow learned the truth, all of it. That's the thing about this way of life: you can't outrun it forever, and you can't always outsmart it. Mikie grabs Seth's throat, like some black oracle, to keep the skinny form in front of him as a shield.
Hell opens on Earth, and the room erupts into a cacophony of gunfire, breaking glass, and splintering wood.
She loses sight of him as the bullet slams into him and screams in fear and outrage. All of the feelings she didn’t feel when she shot Nic, she feels now. She takes a half step forward, and Rama grabs her, jerking her backward and down. “He said to leave,” he hisses in her ear.
“Fuck what he said,” she spits. Ducks as a bullet rips through the back of the chair. “I’m not leaving him. Tinney!”
The bodyguard looks down at her, cool and collected despite the dead and the gunfire. “Wait, little princess.”
He stands, squeezes the trigger on his Glock twice. There’s a muffled shriek as a body hits the floor, and then he nods. “It’s safe.”
She almost laughs. Nothing is safe. Not here. But Seth is hurt, and that thought propels her from the shelter of Rama’s arms, to her feet.
She glances around quickly—three enforcers are laying facedown on the table. Many of the guests have fled—her mother, the cowardly bitch, has vanished.
Seth still hasn’t moved.
The deafening noise conspires with the horrific explosion of pain in Seth's shoulder and chest to obliterate his sense. His mind flashes red—glimpses of his dying father, the same pain. Then, he sees the calm and lust-filled expression of the Cuban druglord just before he pressed a glowing metal brand to the flesh of Seth's hip. He releases a strangled cry of fury. His left side is a useless, burning mess of white pain, but the gun is still in his right hand, so he buries it in his uncle's ribs, and pulls the trigger three times.
He can feel the recoil as the gun discharges. His vision is being invaded by tiny points of light, and soon he will lose consciousness, if his wind pipe doesn't collapse first. He hears the soft “umph” from Mikie, feels the huge hand around his throat loosen involuntarily, but only for a moment before the grip clamps down. Mikie throws their weight to the side—to Seth's right side—so that the chair back crushes Seth's arm right below the elbow. He cries out unintelligibly, and the jolt of the fall knocks loose Mikie's grip. Seth sucks in a sharp breath, but he can't move: one arm has been rendered useless at its source, and the other is trapped. He can't force open his eyes.
“Seth!”
He hears his name. It's Emma's voice. His only thought is that she didn't listen, she didn't leave him when the guns started popping. He knew she wouldn't. He knows he has rolled off of his uncle enough for Mikie to use the gun that had been trapped. Yes, thinks Seth, he's about to get shot again.
Mikie straightens slowly, his gun hanging at his side, his posture riddled with blazing pain. He too is making a guttural noise, blood in his lungs. He glares down at the fallen prince, and Emma trembles, furious. Seth is bleeding, his shoulder a mess of bullet wound and blood. His arm is broken, hanging limply where Mikie snapped it. She steps forward. “Uncle!”
Mikie doesn’t even look at her. His lips twist, and he spits on Seth. His gun swings up, and Emma makes an involuntary noise of protest.
Relief makes her knees weak when the gun keeps swinging, past Seth, past Rama and Tinney, to land on her. She stares down the barrel of her uncle, the man who looked out for her and pampered her, and all she can feel is giddy relief that it is her, not Seth.
And a niggling worry—what will he do, when she is gone? Who will help him carry his demons?
Mikie’s finger twitches, and she hears a low noise, foreign, before something slams into her, throwing her to the side. She lands hard as the gun fires again, and looks up. Time seems to slow as the bullets slam into Rama, hard, gut shots that spray a fine mist of blood. She shrieks, a scream of horrified disbelief as her lover lands on her, covering her with his body and blood.
Seth hears two shots in quick succession, and he flinches with the certainty that he has lived his life with all the whim and grandeur that he had time to learn, but all that follows is a gut-wrenching scream of horror and defiance and loss. Again, it's Emma's voice. Finally, Seth's command to his brain to open his eyes breaks through and his eyelids snap back. At first, everything is blur and smoke. Then, his world becomes his uncle's face as he aims his gun toward Emma.
Seth doesn't think, doesn't need to. He damns the pain to hell with the code and love, and uses what leverage he can create by pressing his upper body against the floor to fling his legs into Mikie's legs. The blow isn't much, but it's enough to knock off Mikie's balance, who roars in rage as bright blood pours onto his nephew.
The gun fires, but it's off-target. Mikie flinches as more screams echo through the room and Tinney shouts.
Seth's body collapses back into the floor, his muscles unable to withstand any more punishment. Three more shots ring through the chaos, followed by a surreal stretch of slow motion in which Seth is sure he can still hear the violins in the garden. Mikie's weight collapses beside Seth, without a face.
Then silence descends, heavy and absolute.
Epilouge
Morgan Estates Headquarters, New York City. August 18th.
It’s been a week since the dinner party, and hell reigned down. She shifts in her chair, listening to Tinney.
The family doctor has been busy, shuttling from one executive suite to the next. They’ve been in lockdown—even the board members have been dismissed and refused audience. She will have to deal with them soon—deal with the inevitable fallout of the dead king.
And the Olivers. Everyone is waiting for their retaliation.
“Ma’am?” Tinney says. They’re in the little room she’s claimed as her office, in Morgan headquarters. The floor is being guarded by his handpicked men, and a handful of Thais who circle the room to the right with furious eyes and itchy trigger fingers.
The shaky alliance is holding, for now. She doesn’t know how much more it can take though.
“Call the Board. I’ll meet with them in the conference room tomorrow at nine,” she says quietly. Tinney nods. “I want them all searched—no one is coming in armed. Do you understand?”
The giant nods again and steps away from the desk. She’s handling the crisis well, he thinks. A regime change is never easy—but this one is especially hard on Emm
a.
There’s a tap on the door, and she jerks, hand dropping instinctively to her gun. Even here, surrounded by allies and armed guards, she doesn’t feel safe.
Kai stands there, his gold skin pale, dark hair messy around his face. “He’s awake.”
The words make her dizzy, and she stands in a rush. Sways, as much from exhaustion and lack of food as from sheer relief.
Tinney catches her before the Thai can, and she spares him a quick smile of gratitude. Then she straightens and strides out of the office, followed by the guards.
The Thai guns block her approach, until Kai says something soft and sibilant in their musical language. She doesn’t understand the words, but she gets the tone. One gives her a sneering look, and her patience, already frayed, snaps.
“You are here,” she says, coldly, “because I honor your prince and customs. I didn’t have to call you to his side. He forged this alliance, and he’s cemented it with his blood. Will you really question him? Now? Because I will see you dead before I allow anyone to jeopardize what we have built.”
Kai stares at her like he doesn’t know her, and she realizes that he doesn’t. Not this new Emma—no one knows her.
The guards grudgingly move aside, and she enters the room.
Rama is propped against some pillows, his eyes closed as if sleeping. A large bandage is wrapped around his chest, covering the smooth muscles and tattooed skin.
He took two bullets. One in his side, a clean shot. The other had been more difficult—it had lodged in his lung. He had been dying when they rushed him into the family’s medical facilities.
His eyes open slowly, and a smile turns his lips as he stares at her. She fidgets with the hem of her shirt, nervous suddenly. Rama murmurs something, and she feels the air move slightly as the guards leave, shutting the door and closing them in together.
“Come here, Emma,” Rama says. Woodenly, without thinking about the fact that she should bristle at the order, she moves to stand next to the bed. Blood is seeping through the bandage, a faint red against the white.
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