“I’m telling you to stop, now, Astra,” Sandra warns in a calm tone.
I push past the nausea rocking my stomach and the blackness taking over my thoughts.
A crackle of surprise breaks through the darkness, followed by a spark of fear. I can barely feel them long enough to recognize them, forget trying to hold onto them.
My head is dizzy. My vision is becoming blurry. I blink, trying to hold it together. This feels… different than before. I can’t explain it. It’s like my energy has been drained in an instant.
“Fabien,” I whisper as I rise to my feet. I’m not up long before the world spins around me, giving me a strange sense like I’m falling.
Strong arms catch me, and I blink a few times in an attempt to see who my savior is. It’s too blurry. I feel like I have no choice but to close my eyes and give in to whatever is happening.
“Char? Can you hear me? Astra?” Andre asks. He’s very close, and I can only assume he’s the one who caught me, and he’s now also the one lightly slapping my cheek.
“Something’s wrong,” I tell him, but it sounds mumbled and unintelligible to my ears, leaving me to wonder if he even understood me at all.
“What did you do?” I hear Andre ask in his deep voice. He’s not scared. No, there’s an edge to his tone that sounds as if he’s seconds away from killing. He’s pissed.
“I didn’t have to do anything,” Sandra replies. I hear the scrape of chair legs and force my lids open. Sandra is looking down at me with an unreadable expression. I almost think I see worry there in her eyes. “Your death will behisgreatest victory. As soon as you and Donovan Falco are dead, your father will own this city. Nothing will stop him after that.”
“Stop him from what?” I croak.
“From turning it into his empire.” There isn’t a single emotion on her face as she looks down at me. “From destroying it.”
“Lady, if you can fix her, you need to do it now,” Andre says, no room for games in his tone.
“You need to get her back to Mr. Falco,” Sandra says. “And some advice,” she leans closer and lowers her voice, “I wouldn’t use your magic against someone who has had years on you to prepare for this moment.”
She straightens and walks away as if nothing happened. I glance around, hoping no one has seen what just went down. It seems everyone around is intently not looking this way.
My body sags as I lose feeling in all of my extremities. Luckily, Andre is still holding me up.
“I can’t move,” I tell him in a whisper.
“I got you,” he assures me as he lifts me up in his arms.
I close my eyes and let the world slip away.
TWENTY-FOUR
Donovan
Disgust taints my face as I stare down at Paulie. He looks so pathetic, all slumped over and tied to the chair. I almost want to cut him loose. This feels too easy.
I grunt as I take a step forward. Paulie cuts his eyes up at me, and it’s easy to see that he knows what’s coming.
My lips twist up in a smile at the huge bandage awkwardly taped to the side of his head, but then I remember how I had this fucker in my grasp and let him go. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known he’d been the one to poison Sonny at the time, I should have killed him then.
The warning of having the mayor’s protection rings in my mind.
I am going to kill Paulie, for that I am sure, but it wouldn’t hurt to drag some more information out of him? If I could just get him to connect Aubert to all of this, I’ll have the fuel to go after him. I won’t be able to turn away from what he’s done any longer.
I’m going to cleanse my city before I die, even if I don’t have long left to do it.
I reach into my pocket as I stare down at Paulie. Slipping my fingers through the brass knuckles feels like home.
“I’m done giving your ass a chance. I should have killed you the first time I had trouble with you.” I shake my head withdisgust. “You’re a piece of shit, Paulie. A fucking cockroach in my city.”
“Listen, it wasn’t my idea,” he squirms frantically, pulling against his restraints to no avail. “It was all theirs. They want you out of their city. You’ve been gettin’ in their way for years.”
