my vision was getting spotty.
How hard had that motherfucker just hit me?
Zane gave me no time to pull myself together either. His hand went around my throat, and he climbed on top of me for better leverage. The sheer hatred twisting his face was what scared me the most. His eyes were so similar to Archer's, but the fury and disgust spoke to years of instability.
"...fucking whore," he was snarling at me, but my ringing ears were only picking up fragments. "...like Deb... baby..."
If I wasn't being choked to death, I'd have had something to say about that. He clearly thought my mom had been cheating on him when she got pregnant, when in reality she'd been raped. Then again, Zane wasn't proving himself any more of a man than Samuel, so maybe it wouldn't have made a difference to him either.
A loud bang sounded somewhere close by, and Zane startled enough that his grip loosened. I greedily sucked gulps of air, refilling my aching lungs as I blinked the tears out of my eyes, but Zane just seemed more pissed off by whoever had interrupted.
"...something of mine?" Someone was asking him, and the Reaper leader scowled deeply.
"I'm just doing you a favor," Zane snarled at the newcomer. "You wanted her dead, right? Consider this a freebie."
Apparently my distant relative didn't like Zane's offer, because a moment later a gun was pressed to the older D'Ath's forehead.
"If you want to be paid, Zane, I suggest you hand over my property immediately," the man said in a cool, accented voice.
Zane scowled down at me again but slowly raised his hands up and climbed off me to back away.
I wasn't about to be shot lying down, though, so I rolled over and wriggled up to my knees to face my would-be killer head on. I wanted to look into the eyes of the man who’d murdered my mother and grandmother. The man who'd probably pushed his own wife down the stairs to paralyze her and take control of her estate.
"That's quite far enough, Madison Kate," the man told me in a bland tone before I could stand up fully. "You're one tough girl to catch, you know that?"
All the punches and choking on the ground had loosened my gag enough that I could spit it from my mouth and wet my lips.
"Maybe you just weren't trying hard enough," I retorted, my voice husky and edged with pain. My whole damn body hurt, and a sharp agony when I breathed hinted at a broken rib.
Karl Kruger just tossed his head back and laughed. His gun didn't waiver, though. A quick glance around the parking lot told me just how outmatched I was too. Zane had six guys with him, all decked out in the full gangster costume with bandanas and tattoos on display. Kruger had brought twice that with him.
Where were Kody and Steele? Had they found him, or was the whole thing just one big setup? Or, worse yet... had they walked into a trap and been killed?
No. No way. I refused to even consider that possibility. They were alive, they were all alive. There was no other option.
"I have to confess," Kruger told me with a smile, "I haven't had this much fun since I tracked your mother down."
My stomach rolled with disgust, and he just clicked his tongue.
"Silly me, I was so worked up from the excitement of it all, I never dug too deep. Maybe if I'd stuck around, I would have worked out what she did to cover you up. You... the one and only blood heir to Wittenberg."
"What about Selena?" I asked, glaring up at him and trying my very best to ignore the gun pointed at my head. "Your wife is a blood heir. Isn't that what this is all about?"
Kruger parted his lips to reply, then grinned and shook his head. "Nice try, girl. You won't trap me into confessing all my deep dark secrets here for one of these criminals to use later." He jerked his head toward the Reapers. They'd backed off a small way, but they hadn't left. Probably hanging around to get paid once I was dead.
"Anyway, that's enough banter," Kruger continued, giving me a banal smile. Fuck me, he looked like a mild-mannered accountant, not the man who'd murdered our family's entire household staff, then beaten my mother to death. Then again, what better way to disguise a monster than make them look normal. Boring. Unremarkable and totally forgettable.
The villain