“Why did you kill him?” I asked.
He shrugged again. “Luke helped Serena get rid of my black blades. Told her exactly where I had hidden them. He betrayed me for love, for her, and that’s why he had to die. I killed him first, so that she would suffer even more. I was going to kill her too, but she managed to leave town before I got the chance.”
By this point, Blake’s eyes were bulging, his mouth was hanging wide open, and he was staring at his dad as if he didn’t even recognize him anymore. Blake might be a cruel bully, but Victor was completely, utterly ruthless. The only thing that Victor cared about was how much power he had and how he could use it to bend others to his will. I wondered if Blake was finally starting to realize that—and that he was just as expendable to his dad as everyone else.
“You’ll never get away with this,” I said. “The other Families know what you’re up to now. They’ll find a way to stop you. Claudia will find a way to stop you.”
Victor let out a low, amused chuckle. “Claudia won’t be a problem for much longer. I’ve challenged her to a duel, and she’s already accepted.” He paused. “Then again, she had to, since I told her that I would order my guards to start killing anyone associated with any of the Families—guards, workers, and pixies—if she didn’t.”
I gasped and my heart clenched tight with fear. Victor had easily knocked out Claudia with his lightning magic at the restaurant and I had no doubt that he could kill her with it. With Claudia dead, the other Families would bow down to Victor and there would be no one left to stand against him. I couldn’t let that happen, but I didn’t know how to stop it either. Especially since my own future was so uncertain at the moment.
“Anyway, I’ve dallied here with you long enough,” he said. “Tell me, Lila, do you know how your father died?”
“Of course I know,” I snapped. “My mom told me all about it. How you sent him out to some building owned by the Draconis to deal with a copper crusher, only there was a whole nest of them inside. They attacked and killed him before he even knew what was happening.”
Victor actually smiled at me, his face creasing with happiness. “Excellent. I was hoping Serena had told you that story. It will make this so much more satisfying.”
My heart dropped and fear spread through my body. “What do you mean?”
He gestured out at the empty warehouse. “Because this is the building where your father died. This warehouse has been in the Draconi Family for years. We’ve housed various businesses in here, shipping and storage companies and the like. Even a butcher at one point. But none of them ever lasted long. Do you know why?”
I shook my head. I had no idea what he was getting at.
“Because of the copper crushers,” Victor said. “This is one of their favorite spots in all of Cloudburst Falls. It’s why the town founders named this area Copper Street. I’m not sure exactly why the crushers like it so much. Maybe because it’s close to the river. Anyway, every couple of months, I would have to send guards down here to clean them out. You know how vicious crushers can be, especially when there’s a whole nest of them. We lost more guards than it was worth to keep the businesses open, so finally, I just let the crushers have the warehouse. Every once in a while, though, I come back here and leave a meal for them. And tonight, Lila, that meal is going to be you.”
Panic shot through my body, and my head snapped from left to right and back again, wondering if the copper crushers were already creeping up on me. For a moment, I didn’t see anything, but slowly, glowing, ruby-red eyes began to appear, like lights winking on, one after another, in the darkest, blackest shadows of the warehouse. A second later, a faint rasp-rasp-rasp sounded, as though something large and heavy were sliding across the floor.
Victor laughed, the sound soft and sinister, chilling me to the bone. He was going to leave me tied up here in the middle of the warehouse. Once he and Blake were gone, the copper crushers would slither across the floor and make a meal out of me, just like he’d said. The oversize snakes would wrap their coils around me and slowly crush me to death—and that’s if they didn’t bite and poison me with their venom first.
Either way, I was dead. I’d thought that nothing could be worse than Victor cutting me up and ripping my magic out of me, but this . . . this was horrifying.
He smiled at me again, pleased by the fear filling my shocked face. Blake curled his hand around his sword and glanced around, as if he was afraid that the crushers would shoot out of the shadows and eat him too.