Embrace the Darkness (The Maura Quinn Series Book 1) - Ashley N. Rostek Page 0,121

glanced over my shoulder at Stefan. He was sitting back in his seat like a stoic king, ignoring my uncle. He'd promised to trust me by not interfering. He was going to let me do my thing—to let me prove myself, and I wasn’t going to let him down.

I turned back to Mark. His smile was gone and in its place was a narrowed glare as he stared up at me.

“Get your gun out of my fucking face,” Mark demanded.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” His glare lessened as confusion took over. “Day before yesterday. Nasty ass strip club called Show 'n Tail. Do you remember a platinum blonde stripper gyrating her ass in Nicoli De Luca’s lap?” I watched the color drain from his face. “Yeah, that was me. Not that you would have noticed. I don’t think you looked past my tits. I can’t blame you, though. I do have a nice rack.”

“I’ve seen better,” he scoffed.

I chuckled at his attempt to take a jab at me. “I’ve never given a lap dance before, but I guess I did alright. You were none the wiser with how you just started yammering on, not even caring about what the women dancing in the room would overhear. That’s a big no no, by the way. What if I had been a cop?” I tsked. “Oh, the things I learned. For two years we’ve been selling our drugs to the De Lucas and what shocked me the most is we’ve been selling it at forty thousand a kilo all this time. My, my, you’ve been a bunch of naughty boys, haven’t you?”

Mark grit his teeth. “If you know everything, then why the fuck am I still alive?”

An evil smile pulled at my lips. “I wanted to see how they would react knowing that you were the one, the weak link in their master plan that got them caught. I wonder what they would do to you if I handed you over to them right now.”

The eye shift was so quick I would have missed it if I hadn't been watching him intently. In one fluid eye movement, Mark looked to Samuel, then to Dylan, and back to me. That was all the confirmation I needed from him. I pulled the trigger and Mark’s head jerked backwards, then his body leaned to the side and crumpled to the floor.

The room was silent like the dead. I slid off the table, careful not to trip on one of Mark’s legs, and turned to face the rest of the room. Most of them were shocked.

“Stefan,” Samuel said, voice low and calm. Stefan still refused to acknowledge him. The only other person who didn’t look shocked was Dylan. He was staring down at the table, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

CHAPTER 36

“Uncle Conor, can you please go stand by Rourke?” I asked. Conor stood, pushing his chair back in the process, and quietly made his way to the other side of the table, his enforcer following him. I glanced at Samuel’s enforcer standing behind him. He was staring at Mark’s body on the floor behind me, worry etched around his eyes. I glanced back at Dean. We exchanged a look and he moved across the room to be closer to me, but his eyes were fixed on the worried enforcer.

Using Conor’s chair as a step, I hopped back onto the table, sitting myself between Dylan and Samuel. Dylan had yet to look up as he stared at the table like a scared puppy. I sighed. “Oh, Dylan.” His cowardice further cemented my belief that he wasn’t the mastermind behind this betrayal. I felt bad for him. Sure, growing up he'd pissed me off by teasing the hell out of me, but he was my blood. My uncle was the one who had led him astray. As much as I wished I could put all the blame on Samuel, Dylan had sealed his fate by choosing to follow him.

This is our way of life.

“Let’s play a game,” I said, opening the cylinder on my revolver, and dumped the remaining bullets in the palm of my hand. I started tossing one bullet after another down onto the table where Dylan was staring. The first bullet loudly hitting the table startled him, the third finally drew his eyes up to mine. I continued tossing bullets, each obnoxiously loud as they bounced on the table until I was down to one, which I pointedly showed to Dylan as I reloaded