Page 59 of Dark Reunion

Fuck.

“Package delivered, as promised” Keene said, as if he were setting a crate of bananas on a dock. “Minimal loss, minimal mess. We got your problem off the board. Now…where is my payment?” Keene looked at him and Dean scoffed.

“Not my problem,” Dean growled as he watched Maeve forced up to his father.

Keene’s smile widened, looking past Dean to Carlos, not seeing the blade in the simple sentence. “Your son is such a charmer.”

Carlos ignored Keene’s preen. He was drunk on this sick reunion. He leaned his hip against the desk and folded his arms, looking overjoyed. “You’ll get your money Keene, now that the girl is home we can celebrate,” he said, savoring the moment.

“Let’s not pretend or beat around the bush. You mean breed me,” Maeve stated, exaggerating the word.

The temperature in the room dropped.

“We will not have that conversation in front of other guests,” Carlos murmured. “Besides, there are so many gentler words. Destiny. Alliance. Blood.”

Dean stepped closer and eyed up the knife strapped to the back of the soldier on Maeve’s left.

“Walk out of this room, Carlos,” Dean ordered.

The two Righteous members looked at Dean and he could feel their uncertainty. He prayed that everyone working for Keene either didn’t know what they were getting into or were so deep in it that they couldn’t see a way out, even if they wanted to.

Keene chuckled.

Carlos turned his head toward Dean, his expression lethal. “You dare try to order me around in my home? I have waited fourteen years to teach you what you were always meant to be,” he hissed. “Don’t make me discipline you in front of strangers, hijo. It’s vulgar.”

“You mean like how you behaved toward my wife in the courtyard the other day,” Dean said. “You’ve always been vulgar. You just wear strong cologne to cover the stench.”

Maeve looked up at Dean, but he didn’t dare look away form his father, that would be a sign of weakness.

Matteo’s weight shifted as the room went quiet. He wasn’t moving to block Dean. He wasn’t moving to help Carlos. He was doing what smart men did and waited.

Carlos let the silence stretch, elastic and dangerous. Then, with a bright, almost childlike clap, he broke it.

“Enough of all this postering. We celebrate. We drink to new beginnings.” He gestured with his bandaged hand. “Matteo, take her downstairs. The good room, not the one for dogs. Get a couple of the servants to feed her, wash her, and dress her.”

Matteo nodded and snapped his fingers. Two guards that had been standing quietly around the edge of the room since Carlos arrived, walked over to take Maeve from the soldiers.

“You want her treated as a guest or a hostile?” Matteo asked.

“I want her to remember she is valuable,” Carlos said without looking at him. “Not comfortable. Valuable. There’s a difference.”

Maeve’s gaze turned to Dean. He tried to convey that he was sorry for all of this with his eyes. “You going to watch them lock me up?” she asked, the fury still in her voice, though less so than when she first arrived. “Is that who you are?”

Dean shook his head. He let her see everything—his guilt, his resolve, the escape he planned. “I’m going to make sure you live to walk back out,” he said.

“Promises,” she uttered, mouth tight.

“I do love the color mauve,” he replied, and she blinked once. A flinch of recognition he wasn’t sure she meant to give him.

Carlos clucked his tongue. “You two will have time to talk later,” he said brightly. He tilted his head toward the door. “Move her.”

Matteo and the guards turned and marched Maeve out the door. Dean’s hand twitched as he pictured grabbing the gun from the soldier on his right, killing the two of them and Mr. Keene, before putting a bullet between his father’s eyes.

But if Dean missed, if the guards loyal to Carlos moved in quickly and overtook him, he’d be locked up or worse. He had to pull this off with precision and control.

Carlos walked over to the painting on the wall that hid a safe hidden behind it. He punched in a series of numbers that Dean had already memorized, and then used his right thumb to open it. As soon as the door swung open, Carlos placed six bars of gold on the table.

“There is your money as promised,” Carlos said, relocking the safe.