Even if he had to hurt everyone he loved.
“You were sloppy,” Kit said. “You were in over your head and this—this is the result. There’s no reason for you to be here anymore, is there? You’ve said they were beneath you, there’s no reason why you should be upset that I’ve taken them on. Don’t be a sore loser, brother. It’s unbecoming.”
For a moment, Kit thought he could actually see the younger version of Uilleam standing there, staring up at him with wide eyes filled with hurt.
Kit didn’t gloat.
Yet, here he stood making a mockery of the only family that had ever truly loved him.
“I’m going to make you bleed,” Uilleam said, eyes never straying. “I’m going to cut the heart out of you.”
“Don’t threaten me unless you’re ready for war.”
“You must have forgotten,” Uilleam said as he backed away, “I excel at wars.”
They were acting weird.
From the minute Luna arrived in the building, service was sluggish. It almost felt as though they were purposely taking their time. But Luna didn’t have time to wonder about their behavior, not when she was going over her explanation to Belladonna.
She couldn’t imagine the woman would be pleased with what she had to say, especially considering the fees the Den charged for finding someone. Undoubtedly, she wouldn’t like that her target was dead before she could get whatever she wanted from him, and worse, Luna still didn’t know who was responsible.
As she stepped out of the elevator, she had to double-check to make sure she was on the correct floor. Unlike the last time she had been there, the walls had changed colors, the receptionist’s desk had been moved, and if she wasn’t mistaken, half of the people she was seeing inside the office were new.
What the hell?
“I trust you’re here because you have news?” Belladonna asked, heels clicking as she came around the corner. The white of her outfit was nearly blinding against her tan skin. She gestured to her office and said, “Shall we?”
Belladonna’s offie seemed to be under construction as well, plastic wrap covering majority of the surfaces in the room save her desk and the flat screen hanging on the wall. Though the TV was on and turned to one of those celebrity gossip shows, it was muted.
With everything going on with Kit, Luna didn’t want to waste any time with excuses and preambles. “Andrei is dead.”
Luna expected surprise, or annoyance maybe, but she got neither. In fact, Belladonna hardly reacted to the news that the man she was hunting had been killed.
“Before or after you found him?”
“After—I saw it happen,” Luna explained further.
“How?”
“Sniper.”
Belladonna’s red painted lips curled up. “You know two of those, correct? Red, I believe he’s called, and Fang.”
It wasn’t Red’s name that made Luna’s eyes widen in surprise—he was well known in their world for what he could do with a rifle in his hands—but Fang …
As far as she could tell, the Wild Bunch lived like ghosts. Even the mercenaries, with the exception of Skorpion, didn’t know about them.
More curious was that she hadn’t known Fang even was a sniper. She knew he handled knives well, was far beyond efficient at hand-to-hand, but he had always seemed like the one that would be right in the middle of the action.
It was strange that no one had ever bothered to mention that.
“Did you get a chance to speak with Mr. Kanekov?” Belladonna asked while Luna was still lost in her thoughts.
How was she meant to answer that question?
Belladonna had never mentioned what she wanted Luna to do once she did in fact find Andrei, only that she wanted him found. As far as her talk with the man went, she didn’t see how the gibberish Andrei had spoken would mean anything to her.
“No,” Luna settled on saying. It was the closest thing to the truth.
“That’s unfortunate,” Belladonna said with a sigh and a shake of her head.
In her movement, Luna’s gaze was drawn to the television behind her. It was still showing the same episode from the time she walked into the room, but now it grabbed and held her attention.
Because the man they had caught on camera was Kit.
Her husband was anything but a celebrity—rather a man that prided himself on his anonymity—yet there he sat, looking particularly cozy with a woman that had dark hair and …
Luna leaned forward so fast she was almost out of her chair, trying to make sure she was seeing clearly. Even as her brain tried to process what she was seeing, it still wasn’t making sense. It just wasn’t possible.
The girl who had been snapped with Kit wasn’t just anyone, it was Ariana.
Her sister.