“Ikilled him,” I replied, voice level. “I’ll take you down, piece by piece, Max. That’s a promise.” My arm stung where his fingers dug into the skin. “Let go of me.”
“No.”
“Fine, look down.” His eyes flicked down and then widened when they saw my blade—Ryuji’s blade—ready to plunge into his stomach. “You stab me, I stab you. We’ll kill each other and this twisted game will finally come to an end.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Ryuji growled in my ear.
Cas, Wynn, and Obi’s voices overlapped in disagreement until Ciel cut them off and demanded they stay quiet.
“What the fuck do you want? Why are you here?”
“You know why I’m here,” I snapped at Max. “I want my place on the board.”
He jostled my arm. Our blades threatened to dig into one another, but they kept us both locked together. “Why, Leona? Why are you doing this?”
“Why amIdoing this?” I said through gritted teeth. “You! You made me do this!”
How dare he askmewhy, after everything he’d done, everything we’d been through. I had a list a thousand miles long. I dug the point of the knife closer to his stomach. I could kill him right now. He might get the blade deep into my ribs too, but there was also a chance he’d hit the bone. Was it worth the risk? Could the guys stop the bleeding in time?
“Don’t,” he murmured, glancing over my shoulder, back to where Chiara waited as a hostage. Cas stood beside her, both of them staring at us like we were a spectacle. They whispered to each other, unmoving, and without looking away from us. Cas’s hand death-gripped the counter, but the other was already inside his jacket, gripping his gun. “You don’t want to hurt Chiara.”
“Fight your own damn battles and leave mybest friendout of it.” I pulled back from him. “Fucking asshole. Why are you doing this? Why her?”
“I’m fighting more battles than you could count, Leona.” His eyes glinted, and with the tilt of his head, I caught the shadow of dark circles under his eyes. Sleepless Max, aw, my heart broke at the sight.“I need allies. You have no idea what this world is really like. What your father was trying to shield you from.”
“Oh, please,” I snapped, rolling my eyes. “I’m so tired of that excuse. You know what I could have done if my father would have let me? Run this company. Bring us into the future. You asked what I’m doing, Max? Why I’m doing it? Because motherfuckers like you and my father taint the world and make it worse. I’m fixing it.Thatis what I’m doing.”
His grip loosened on my arm. “You took out Lucia, and you removed our only defense from the Albanians.”
The Albanians? What was he talking about?
My eyes narrowed. “What?”
He stepped backward, running a hand through his hair. “You have no fucking clue. Walk away and leave this to me. Stop playing a game you know nothing about. I’ll even let you and yourmenleave the city. Unharmed.”
Whatever he was talking about was a ruse to get me to back off. No fucking way.
We’d taken out his little hacker, his only way to get the upper hand on us. And nowhewas afraid. It was about time.
He flinched when my hand reached up to brush my fingers across his jawline. I lowered my voice. “My men and I will grow our empire from your rotting corpse, Max. And there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”
He closed his eyes, only for a moment, before they blazed into me. “Leave. Before this gets messy. Before you get yourself and Chiara hurt. You don’t want her blood on your hands, do you?”
“Max, sweetheart, I want your blood on my hands. But I’m not leaving. You brought your own insurance? Well, I brought mine.” I straightened my shirt and carefully slid the knife back inside my pocket. “You do anything to me, and emails go out to every member of the board, including one copy to the police, and one copy to every major news station, informing them how I feared for my life after you threatened me at this meeting.” I glanced up and over his shoulder. “And this footage is exactly what I need to prove my point.”
He stepped back like I’d burned him, but his glare only intensified.
“I will never forget what you did to Cas, Max,” I added. “We’ll repay the pain back on you tenfold. By the way, how’s your thigh? My knife didn’t cause any long-term damage, did it?”
“No,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Shame. Next time, I’ll be sure to aim a little better. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have a meeting to attend.”
“You have no idea what you’re getting into, Leona. What we all tried to protect you from. What’s at stake.”
I rolled my eyes. He was full of shit. “I guess I’ll find out.”
I returned to the table, blowing a kiss to Cas as I passed, a giant smile on my face as I sat down in front of the board members of Vero Construction, Inc.
