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Mari
Two days later, my presence was requested in a meeting. While I wasn’t sure who’d called it, it was obvious the session was about O’Bannon’s untimely demise. We’d prepared for exactly this situation, but the real surprise was what waited for me when I got there.
They’d added a chair to my table.
A glance at where I normally sat showed Cash cozied up next to the other leaders as if he had every right to be there. In my seat. At my fucking table.
“Patience,” Nate whispered, squeezing my hand where no one could see.
“I hope you’re ready to be an only child,” Dominic said back. They joked behind me, but I didn’t let my expression change.
Cash wasn’t going to ruin my plans.
The atmosphere was tense, no one wanting to be in the powder keg with Cash and me when it blew. Yet, Ajilon smiled as I walked toward the only empty seat. Warily, I sat, waiting for them to turn on me. That’s what this whole meeting was, right?
Kieran nodded respectfully at me, waiting until I took the chair across the table from Cash to begin. “Thank you all for coming. I know it was last minute.”
“What is it, boy? We don’t have time for games.” Kosas grunted from where he leaned back, hands crossed over his belly. Next to him, Haru nodded, though he never took his eyes off Cash.
“No games,” Kieran promised, looking around the table. “I’m here to tell you that my father is dead.”
I took a sick amount of pleasure in the shock that crossed Cash’s face. He hadn’t been expecting that, and neither had I. I’d thought Kieran would call the other leaders the moment we left to tell them the bad news. Getting to watch it play out in front of me was better than I’d dreamed.
“What do you mean?” Cash’s suspicious eyes were trained on me, and I gave him a sweet grin.
“For someone so well acquainted with death, I’m shocked you don’t already know. He means Sean’s gone. Sleeping the eternal sleep. Hanging with the fishes. Never to return.”
Cash looked like he was about to have a coronary, and the petty part of me was entertained by that too.
“How did he die?” Ajilon finally asked.
Kieran glanced at me, and I nodded, a smug smirk trying to break free. “He was murdered at home.”
Another glance at me, and it was obvious what Kieran wasn’t saying. She did it.
Ajilon sat back in his seat, looking shocked. “I see.”
The tension in the room grew thick and heavy, but I was too busy watching Cash lose his fucking mind to care.
“I didn’t realize his neck would get so purple,” I whispered to Nate, who smothered a laugh.
“He gets it from Ace,” he whispered back, and I snorted.
“What reason did you have for killing him?”
“He was working with my enemy.”
“We are all working with your enemy,” Kosas said stiffly.
“I know.” I smiled, loving the flinch he tried to hide. I decided then and there that my favorite part of running my own crime outfit was watching grown men shit themselves in front of me.
Cash had finally shaken off the surprise and smiled with that affable ease he’d perfected. “I wasn’t aware that your current leader was so unstable.”
That drew a laugh out of me. “Any instability you find is instability you’ve caused. Besides, I’m not the one who slaughtered half a hospital on camera.” Like clockwork, Cash’s eyes darted to Nate’s, and the hate in them chilled me to the bone.
If Cash got ahold of him, Nate was dead.
“The others have already dealt with me for that.”
