Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,10

last riot.”

I barely make it two steps before her voice has my knees locking tight: “Who do you suppose those kids grow up to become, Mr. Priest? Perfect, law-abiding citizens? Adults who meekly accept their lot in life, despite the fact that it’s been ripped to shreds, so much so that it’s barely recognizable?”

Body frozen in place, my gaze locks on Jack, who watches us with sharp eyes while he collects dirty plates from a table. The man’s been with The Bell & Hand almost since the day we opened. Reformed bank thief. Crude around the edges but unrivaled when under pressure. Absolutely, wholly, despises the Crown.

Maybe it makes me a fool but I’m the one who’s kept Jack out of prison over the years. Me, not Guy or Damien. Me. And perhaps that’s my Achilles heel—forging connections with people who hate the monarchy, who hate King John, the way I did.

The way I do, even now.

Even still.

Duty is not voluntary. And, sometimes, loyalty isn’t a gift but a threat. A persistent, barely concealed warning to exist within the structured lines before you find yourself permanently disciplined. Just like Pa.

Voice gruff, I edge out, “You have ten seconds to make your point, Miss Quinn.”

Her chair scrapes back, the sound echoing loudly in my ears. “My siblings are just like those children that the charities support. Twelve and thirteen when my parents were murdered in the Westminster Riots. You don’t recover from something like that . . . I can’t recover from something like that.”

Slender, feminine fingers graze my forearm, and I immediately step out of reach. “Five seconds,” I grunt, as I turn to face her. “Four, now.”

Luminous blue eyes retrace their path up my chest, to my neck, and then, finally, to my face. If she’s terrified, she doesn’t show it. Instead she only frames her hips with her hands. “I can’t go back to the way things were, which means I can’t work in a position with people who don’t understand me, what I’ve gone through, what I’ve survived. They report the news, but their lives are otherwise untouched. Pristine. Working here—knowing what The Bell & Hand stands for—is what I need to keep going.”

My molars grind together. “We don’t take on charity.”

“Trust me, I’m not looking for hand-outs. I’m only wanting to make a difference—to find a place where I belong.”

I almost laugh.

If only Isla Quinn knew that the queen was here, less than an hour ago. How’s that for belonging? I wear deception like a monk does his robes. And because I do, I only smile, slow, dangerous and—there we go.

The fear.

It widens her gaze. It straightens her spine. And though she tries hard to hide her visceral response, fear hastens her breathing too. Her own body has betrayed her.

“If you know what’s good for you,” I murmur, my voice pitched low, “you’ll leave, and you won’t come back.”

She audibly swallows. “I’m not scared of you.”

I meet her blue gaze. “You should be.”

“Mr. Priest—”

“We don’t have a position for you, and whatever your proposition is, I’d advise keeping it to yourself—unless you want your siblings to find themselves without their older sister, too.”

Her mouth falls open. “Are you threatening me?”

“Not even close.” I step back, lending much-needed space between us. “But I recognize a lost soul when I see one, and I can promise that you won’t find what you’re looking for here.”

“You don’t even know me.”

I tilt my chin toward where I left her CV on the table. “All I need to know is on that paper. A girl like you, quitting her job at a big news network to work in a well-known anti-loyalist pub? You’re clearly living off anger, nourishing it like it’s your only sustenance.” The Isla Quinns of the world only end up in one place: dead and buried. Too stubborn, too shortsighted, and too hell-bent on rectifying a wrong that can never be undone. Emotion will get you killed. Hate will get you killed. I shake my head. “You’ll be dead before the end of the year because you’re too damned blind to see when someone is doing you a favor.”

“I didn’t ask for a therapy session,” she snaps, the fear in her voice displaced by irritation.

“Brilliant,” I tell her, turning away, “then get the hell out of my pub.”

I don’t meet Jack’s gaze as I stalk past him. Instead, I duck under the bar and grab a tumbler and the bottle of Lagavulin off the oak shelf. The amber