Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,110
fact: Saxon Priest did not choose me. No, he chose the life that he’s always known, the life that lets him cling to the shadows forever.
And those shadows, they’ll swallow me whole.
“If you hurt Peter or Josie . . .” I open my eyes, letting him read the threat raging within me. “I will murder you, even if I have to claw myself out of this hellhole first.”
His troubled green eyes search my face. “Won’t you beg?”
“Like Barker has for days?” I ask, never severing eye contact. “No, I won’t make that mistake.”
He clutches the back of his neck, frustration engraved in the movement. “Just—”
“I won’t make this easy for you.” Planting my hands on the cool glass, I hold my ground. Hold myself from breaking down, again. Don’t you dare shed a tear. “You made your choice, same as I did. Holyrood or me. Your family or me. I don’t blame you. I can’t even fault you. But I’ll be damned if I roll over and fit neatly into your plans. If I’m to die, then you’ll do it.”
“Fuck!”
The curse explodes from his mouth like cannon fire, startling me, but not more than the shocking way he violently pummels a fist into the wall beside the door. I can’t see his knuckles, nor the unlikely damage he’s wrought on the stone itself, but there’s no mistaking the emotion that shatters his expression.
Good.
I hope he feels exactly as I do: hopeless, ruined, broken.
Coolly, I tilt my chin toward the tray that he left abandoned on the floor. “And take that with you,” I tell him, stepping away from the door, “I’m not hungry.”
Fury winds its way down his powerful limbs as he glowers at me. “You need to eat.”
“I would prefer to starve.”
And then I turn my back on the man who I once thought would be my destiny. Or maybe he still is—after all, his will be the last face I see before I die.
36
Saxon
“You’ve a death wish coming here, you know that?”
“When doesn’t he?” Hamish snorts derisively as he shuts the office door behind us.
I slide a hard look toward the Scot, then another to Marcus Guthram, the Metropolitan’s police commissioner. The only child to a former Holyrood agent, Guthram shouldn’t know anything about our world—per organizational guidelines—but Guthram Sr. was never one to follow the rules. In a twist of fate, having the commissioner in our back pocket has been an ace that’s benefited us more times than not. When he’s not fucking us over, that is.
Without prompting, I drop a stack of banknotes onto his cluttered desk.
“There’s nothing I can do about what happened at Queen Mary.” Tone laden with exaggerated pity, the look he throws the green is greedy. Utterly famished. He clears his throat. “There were witnesses.”
Setting a duffel bag down by our feet, Hamish rolls one bulky shoulder.
I nudge it to the side with my boot. “They haven’t released the survivor’s name, which means either you’re withholding information or—”
“I wouldn’t,” Guthram interjects swiftly. His dark eyes dart to the money again, reminding me, as if I’ve forgotten, that Marcus Guthram recognizes only one currency: financial gluttony. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“But you have.” Leaning forward, I rest my knuckles on the desk, effectively blocking his only escape route. “And now,” I murmur, my voice eerily pleasant, “we have Damien on house arrest.”
“That wasn’t—I mean, I didn’t plan for—”
Idly, I trace a finger over King John’s face on the banknote, waiting out Guthram’s panicked sputtering. When he finally dissolves into uncomfortable silence, I take the opportunity to skim my thumb over the money. Fifty-thousand quid. Guthram tracks the taunting caress like an addict.
He’s so transfixed, he notices too late that I’ve withdrawn a lighter from my trousers.
“Oi!” Hands up, palms facing me, he straightens in his chair. “Priest, let’s not be hasty now.”
I flick the spark and watch the flame flicker to life. It teases the crisp corner of the stack, turning the edges a murky brown.
“Jesus,” Guthram breathes, the flickering flame reflected in his pupils, “you’re absolutely mad.”
“You have two options.” Grabbing the chair beside me, I draw it backward. Its feet scrape the floor with a pained whine. The flame continues to dance, turning King John into bitter smoke. And when my ass hits the seat, it’s in sync with a squirming, desperate Guthram, whose frantic stare never leaves the burning money on his desk. On an apathetic murmur, I continue, “You’ll tell me everything you know or—”