Lucius (Acquisition Series #4) - Celia Aaron Page 0,26

for blood. I can respect it.

Leonard shivers so violently he sends waves pulsing through the black water.

“Ah, fuck it. I guess you can just drown. Maybe that ol’ cottonmouth will keep you company.” I lift my foot so I can kick his chair over again.

“Wait!” He coughs, the sound like death rattling its sabre, and glares up at me. “You swear to me, if I tell you the new Sovereign, you’ll end it quickly?”

I pull down the collar of my shirt and show him the vines tattooed and tangled over my heart. “On my word as a Vinemont.”

He spits again. “Not worth shit.”

Well, over you go, then. I start to kick.

“Beau Corrigan!” he screams.

“What the fuck is that?” I stop with my foot on the chair. “Some sort of hipster clothing line?”

“The new Sovereign. He’s from the families. An eldest son. He’d been in a car accident and wasn’t at the crowning ceremony. He survived.”

I can’t place the name right offhand, but I’ll find him. “Not for long.”

“He’ll put you down like a dog.” He bares his teeth. “You and your whole heretic family!”

I return his pure animal hatred with my own. “You’re lucky I’m a man of my word.” With a quick swipe, I open his throat.

He’s silent now, his thick blood dispersing in the bog water around his feet.

Reaching over, I start the pump running and replace the knife. I’ll handle the rest of him in the morning.

I trudge back to the stairs and leave my swamp boots at the top. Once I’m out of the dank basement, I close the secret door and lock it, then secure it all behind what appears to be nothing more than a paneled dining room wall.

I grab my phone from the table and text the name to Sin.

It rings within a few seconds.

“That’s his name?” His voice is low. I can hear the twins in the background and Stella trying to read them a bedtime story.

“The new Sovereign.”

“Leonard broke?”

“Cracked like a rotten egg. He’s gone now.” I sigh as I pour myself a drink. “Going to be kind of lonely around here without him.”

“Can you be serious for one fucking second?”

“What? I am being serious.” It’s a big house, after all. So much space for just one man. But instead of a Leonard, maybe I should fill it with more attractive prey.

“And Evie?”

“She’s gone. We had a little heart to heart about how badly she wants to ride my dick. Went swimmingly.”

“Lucius.” He says my name with the same warning tone he’s used since we were kids.

I respond with the same smartass tone I’ve used since we were kids. “I’ll handle her.”

“The way you handled Leonard?”

For some reason, I don’t like the thought of that. In fact, I find it … abhorrent. “No.”

He sighs. “We protect the family, Lucius. That’s it. If you start thinking with your dick, you’re going to make mistakes. A lot of them. We can’t afford that right now.”

“I’m perfectly level-headed. Calm the fuck down.” I drain my glass. “I’ll handle the Magnolia dealings, and I’ll put my team of miscreants on finding every scrap of information on Beau Corrigan.”

“Dada!” one of the twins squeals.

“Coming, sweetheart.” When he speaks to his children, he’s almost a completely different man. Then again, perhaps that’s the sort of man he would’ve been if it weren’t for the Acquisition. As it is, he’s cold and calculating, much like me. It’s the only way we could survive.

“I’ll look back through Mom’s stuff. That last name is familiar. They’re definitely players. I just don’t know how big.”

“Talk tomorrow.” I end the call and settle back in my chair, my gaze on the woods.

Evie is long gone. She probably thinks she’s safe and sound in her little apartment.

I pour another and lift my glass toward the window. “To you, my darling survivor.”

It doesn’t even burn on the way down, and I sit for a while longer, my thoughts moving along the lines of her body, through the curves of her mind, and into the deep ravines of her heart.

She loved her brother. That’s the fact I keep returning to. She loved him, even though she knew he was a monster.

I swirl my bourbon and ponder that simple yet impossibly complex truth. And then I take the next step. The one that I’ve been holding my breath for from the moment she shot me in the heart.

If she already loved one monster, why not another?

16

Evie

The Garden District boutique is small, unassuming, and only for the