Page 102 of The Masked King

“I have everything I need,” he says, and I can almost picture him sitting back on a couch with his feet up and a whiskey glass in his hand while Demi kneels at his feet, bound and gagged. The mental image makes me feel queasy. “Killing you will be a bonus. The icing on the cake as they say.”

“He didn’t do it.” Demi deliberately raises her voice so that I can follow the conversation. “It was Bianca.”

I must’ve always known this, but hearing Demi say the words out loud, rams it home like a hammer sealing a coffin lid. Is this why Bianca came back now, to finish what she started a year ago, and take herself one step closer to inheriting the family business? Or was it simply a case of bad timing on her part? It would explain why she vanished when she had the chance.

“I’m bored with your whining.” This is Malevsky. “You’re too late.”

“I’ll take full responsibility for the fire,” I call out directly underneath the hatch, head tilted back, so that he can hear me. “Forget Bianca. Forget Demi. Just me and you, Malevsky, if you think you can handle it.”

“No, Enzo!” Demi cries out. “I know you didn’t do it.”

A gunshot jolts every nerve ending in my body and my back teeth crack together. “Demi?” Please, God, I make a silent prayer. Please keep her alive. “Demi!”

I bang the hatch with my gun, yelling her name until I’m hoarse.

When I stop, there’s only silence from the utility room.

“Malevsky!” I bang again to get his attention. “I’m coming for you, asshole!”

The concussion has backed off, its fuzziness unnecessary and unwanted. The pain in my shoulder has dulled to a throb that I can tune out, and the bullet wound that I may or may not have in my leg has conceded defeat.

Two options. The hatch or the escape route. Malevsky will know either way when he hears the mini explosion, but I used up the surprise factor when I climbed through the upstairs window.

I hear the faint barrage of gunfire. Gio is still alive, holding off the Bratva goons, for now. Time to show Malevsky that I’m not the weakest link he thinks I am.

One explosive device left; I need to make it count.

A sound from the basement behind me raises my hackles. I turn around too fast, brain cells spinning as the flashlight on my burner phone creates a wavering orb of light that barely reaches the bottom step. I descend slowly, waving the glow left and right, staring into the shadows beyond for a glimpse of movement. All is still.

Maybe I imagined it. Malevsky wouldn’t send his thugs to finish me off; he’d get no entertainment from that, and besides, he has Demi for a reason.

I hold onto that conviction as I reach the bottom of the staircase and turn three-sixty, the flashlight moving with me like a spotlight patrolling a top-secret compound.

“Who’s there?” I keep moving, ears straining to hear above the thudding of my heartbeat.

“Stop dicking about, Enzo, and get over here.” The voice is as familiar as my own.

Bianca.

“Quickly! Unless you want to be late to the party.” She speaks in an urgent whisper, but the sarcasm still manages to override the fact that she came back to help me.

She’s waiting by the locked door.

The open locked door…

“How did you⁠—”

“No time for questions.” Her eyes are cold, almost black in the glare of the flashlight. “Follow me.”

I don’t need to be told twice.

I follow her through the secret tunnel, lit by weak overhead lamps that cast barely enough light to see where we’re going.

“Where does this come out?” I ask when it’s obvious that we’ve passed the residence.

“A barn on the boundary. You don’t have to worry about crossing the land. His men are all inside.”

Do I trust her word? I still have no idea how she got here in the first place, but my heart is telling me that she came back. She had the opportunity to save herself, and she came back.