“You killed your own grandsons,” Leo said suddenly with dismay.
“Only two of them,” Basha said calmly.
“Leos Four and Six,” Leo growled. “My oldest and my favorites.”
“Eleven and Twenty are still alive,” she offered.
“Not for long, I’m sure,” he said dryly. “Mortally wounding them and tossing them trussed up into the back of an SUV was very ungrandmotherly of you. Especially when it would have been kinder to just kill then. You know the council will order their deaths. Hell, there’s a standing KOS order on all of us now.”
“What’s a KOS order?” Sherry asked, glancing from Basha to Leo.
“Kill on sight,” Leo said with a scowl.
“You have the right to go before the council,” Basha said grimly. “If you—”
Basha paused as her son spun back the way he and Sherry had come, but then Leo halted abruptly again and Sherry saw that Decker, Lucian, Basil, Anders, and Victor were spread out across the width of the alley behind them, in that order from left to right. Lucian had a hand on Basil’s arm as if he had been holding him back, and Elvi stood a few feet behind them, looking worried.
Cursing, Leo spun back to face Basha, dragging Sherry up beside him. “So what are you waiting for? I’m in your sight. Kill me.”
Basha shifted, her hand tightening on the sword she held and raising it slightly before she lowered it and shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Leo. You have the right to go before the council too.”
“Over Sherry’s dead body,” he growled, dragging her in front of him.
“Leo,” Basha said, taking a step forward. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Snap her neck like a twig?” he asked, catching Sherry’s chin with one hand and turning her head to the right. “Or maybe I’ll just rip her throat out with my less than immortal teeth. With no fangs, it would seriously hurt, huh? Or maybe . . .” he said suddenly, with what Sherry was sure was a smile in his voice, “Maybe I’ll just turn her right here and now with you all watching, helpless to do anything.”
“Crap,” Sherry muttered, thinking, Who was the stupid idiot who had refused to let Basil turn her last night to prevent just this kind of thing from happening?
“You,” Leo said, and Sherry glanced around, wondering who he was talking to and why he’d stopped.
Leo sighed wearily, gave her chin a jerk to get her attention, and said in an undertone, “I was talking to you, Sherry. You are the stupid idiot who refused to let Basil turn you last night.”
“Yes, I am,” she whispered in agreement, and in that moment regretted it with all her heart. And not just because it probably would have saved her life, but because in that moment when she didn’t know if her neck was going to be snapped, her throat ripped out, or she would be turned by a no-fanger, Sherry saw herself and her life with a clarity she had never before experienced.
She’d had a good childhood . . . even after her brother’s death. Her mother and Alexander were always there for her, offering support and love. And yes, Alexander had been controlling and done things she now didn’t appreciate, but hadn’t he done them to ensure that she didn’t make mistakes and fail? Didn’t all good parents do what they could to try to help their children have the best life they could?
And then there was Basil. He said they were life mates and wanted to turn her so they could spend the rest of their lives together. But last night he’d offered to turn her just to ensure that she was safe. His giving up his one turn was an even bigger deal than her agreeing to the turn, yet he was ready to do it despite the fact that she hadn’t yet agreed to be his life mate. She could have let him turn her and then gone on with her life without him, leaving him high and dry. Yet, he’d been willing to do that to keep her safe. If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.
She’d been offered love by two wonderful men, welcomed by all the others now standing around her, and she hadn’t appreciated any of it until this very moment, when it might be too late to do so. She was more than an idiot, she was a moron, and it was time to stop acting like a helpless idiot and do something.
Clenching her hand around the letter opener, Sherry suddenly jammed it back into Leo’s leg. He shouted in pain, and when his hand loosened on her chin and arm, she pulled away and stumbled several steps to the side until she collided with a hard chest.
“Sherry, thank God,” Basil gasped, his arms closing around her.
She started to lift her head, but then swung it around to peer back toward Leo as a whizzing sound cut the air behind her. What she saw was Leo, bent forward, clutching at the handle of her letter opener. It hadn’t hit him in the leg, as she’d thought, Sherry realized. More like his groin. Basha was taking advantage of his bent position, and as Sherry watched, she brought down the sword she’d just raised, beheading Leo in one clean motion. At least, Sherry suspected she beheaded him. She never really saw. Basil grabbed her head and turned her quickly back to face him and she missed the actual blow.
She wasn’t sorry about that. The sounds that accompanied the act, and the blood that rained out over them and across the wall behind her and Basil . . . well, the combination was quite disgusting enough. She was more than grateful when Basil scooped her into his arms and hurried back toward the store’s back door with her. She didn’t want to see what Leonius Livius’s expression was like in death. Was he surprised that his mother actually ended his miserable life? Or grateful for it?
Personally, Sherry was quite sure he’d come looking for his mother to have her kill him. Why else would he be stupid enough to come to Toronto, where the Enforcers’ base was situated?
Despite not wanting to see Leo, Sherry found herself shifting her head to peer back at the scene behind her. She was in time to see Basha collapse into Marcus’s arms, weeping. Sherry supposed the woman was weeping for the child she’d raised rather than the man he’d become, and knew this was probably the hardest thing Basha Argeneau had ever had to do. She hoped it was, anyway, and felt for the poor woman.
As Sherry watched, Marcus scooped Basha up into his arms just as Basil had done with her. Only he carried the woman out of the alley in the opposite direction.
Sherry’s gaze shifted over the others. Victor was ushering Elvi after her and Basil, but the others—including her father, Alexander—all stood around the body in the alley, talking quietly.
“I don’t know his name.”