Page 326 of Vicious Temptation

“Hey!”

So much for a clean exit.

He starts to raise his rifle just as I move in, but he isn’t fast enough. I drive my blade into the side of his neck. His hand clamps over the wound as I wrench the rifle from his grasp before he can recover. He collapses beside me, and the first scream tears through the restaurant. Every head turns our way, and Bianchi’s men immediately go for their weapons.

So do I.

Gunfire fills the dining room as patrons abandon their tables and rush for the exits, obstructing my view of Bianchi’s men.

“Get out of the way,” I shout, bringing the automatic rifle to my shoulder and holding down the trigger. The weapon unleashes a vicious burst against the advancing men. Four of them drop before they make it halfway across the room, and another crumples beside the bar. One dives behind an overturned table while a second manages to fire back, sending bullets tearing through the wall beside my head.

More rounds whip past me, forcing me behind a stone column.

The screams grow louder as people crawl beneath tables, sprint through the kitchen, and shove past one another toward any door they can find.

I lean out and fire again, hitting one asshole while someone else charges me from the side. But I pivot before he can get close and slam the rifle into his face. Blood bursts from his nose as he staggers back, giving me the opening to put him down.

A bullet grazes my upper arm, leaving a hot line of pain across my bare skin. I glance at the red already trailing toward my elbow.

“That’s fucking rude.”

Shots drive me deeper into the hallway near the kitchen. I fire once more before turning and dashing through the narrow corridor, footsteps pounding behind me as Bianchi’s remaining men follow, but I already know where the rear exit is.

I always know my exits.

The door crashes open, and cool night air hits my face as I step outside. Another round cracks behind me, but I keep moving, my heels striking the pavement in a steady rhythm as I cross the alley toward the waiting car.

Only when I’ve put enough distance between myself and the building do I slip a hand into the neckline of my dress and retrieve the small device tucked securely between my breasts. My thumb settles on the button as I look back toward the restaurant windows, where shadows move frantically behind broken glass.

I smile, then I press it.

The explosion roars through the night, heat surging across the alley as the blast rips into the building, shattering what remains of the windows and igniting the interior. Flames climb toward the roof while thick black smoke rolls into the sky.

“I’d call that effective.”

The wig itches against my scalp, so I peel it off and toss it onto the passenger seat, shaking out my platinum hair around my shoulders.

I pull away from the curb just as the first sirens wail from somewhere behind me.

The city fades from view as I head home, the streetlights thinning until the road narrows and winds through the hills. Eventually, the trees part to reveal my family’s estate in the distance.

Warm light glows from dozens of windows across the sprawling stone mansion, illuminating columns, balconies, and the manicured grounds surrounding it. The iron gates at the end of the drive are already opening when I approach, the Drakos family crest splitting down the middle to let me through. It’s beautiful and imposing. And mine, whether I want it to be or not.

People look at places like this and see only wealth, power, and legacy, but I see a gilded cage.

Every generation of my family has added to this property, another wing, another garden, another piece of themselves meant to outlast them. One day, all of it will belong to me, along with every obligation attached to the Drakos name, from alliances to enemies. The throne my father has spent my entire life preparing me to inherit has always been my future, decided before I ever took my first breath.

When I pull into the courtyard and cut the engine, the silence that follows is almost jarring. I step out, closing the door behind me, but only make it a few feet before something rustles in the darkness.

My hand goes to the knife strapped beneath my dress when another noise comes from the trees. I turn toward it, lowering my center of gravity as I scan the shadows. A dark shape sweeps across the night, and I draw the blade just as a familiar raven glides beneath the courtyard lights and lands on the stone railing a few feet away.

“Moira,” I say, shoulders relaxing.

She ruffles her black feathers and fixes me with a stare.

“You could announce yourself instead of creeping around in the dark.”

Moira lets out a sharp croak.

I slide the knife away. “Don’t give me that. You know exactly what you’re doing”

She hops along the railing before spreading her wings and taking flight again, circling once above me. I watch her disappear toward the dark horizon beyond the estate walls.

My father keeps talking about a war that’s coming as though it hasn’t been taking lives for generations, men and women buried on both sides. Tonight only added more bodies to a graveyard already overflowing. They can call it a feud and pretend there’s still some line left to cross before it becomes something worse, but there isn’t.

War was never coming.

It’s already here.