Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

“It is not a hit but rather a warning.”

“Ethan. Breathe.”

“I am.”

She reached up and grabbed my face, bringing it toward hers. “This is what they want. You to be so focused on all the small rebellions that you miss the war.”

“They are betraying me!” I sneered, feeling a headache coming on. “Left and right, all of them.”

“We knew that was a risk.”

I shook her hands off my face, looking away, my hands clenched. “Over and over, they always asked how they could help me, how they could help this family. And I told them not to get involved, but they refused. And so, I fucking made space for them and told them to be patient. They refused. They never fucking listen. They never fucking think. They jump to action, only causing more of a fucking clusterfuck for me. How do they expect me to ever share my plans with them when at the first sign of trouble, they go running to join hands with someone else?”

“Darcy…excuse me, Killian, is grieving, and if you act now, the last strand will cut.”

I stared at the black and white painting of the lion, tearing into the lamb at the far-off corner wall of the gallery. That was the way of the world. The other paintings where the lamb slept along the side the lion never made sense to me. Lambs were food; you did not make friends with food.

“Maybe it’s best to have the last strand cut. Let us have it done and over with,” I replied, still not looking at her. “They want to betray me? Turn their backs on the family? Fine. I’ll turn mine, too. They never understood me anyway.”

“Ethan.”

I didn’t bother responding, but started to walk away from her toward the hall.

“Ethan.”

“I won’t do anything tonight. I have a speech to give.” But I made no promises about tomorrow.

CALLIOPE

He was on the edge.

There were too many knives in his back.

He stayed silent. That was his problem; he let stuff sit inside him. He stuffed all his emotions downs, and sometimes the pressure built and then set him off. His mind went to destroy everything. Typically his release was to take whatever was close to him and shatter it against the wall…or someone’s head.

But this was different.

From how Helen had been acting lately, and the look in her eyes this evening, I had a feeling she was behind that poison. After all, she was in charge of helping me run the charity auction. Melody wouldn’t use poison to kill me, not after our last fight. She’d want to feel my blood on her hands. She’d need to see me die herself. So Helen had a hand in it somewhere, and if she did, then so did Wyatt. That was two more against Ethan, plus his parents, now Killian.

He wouldn’t admit it, even after we talked about his family maybe hating us for a while, he still could not accept it. He understood why they were all acting as they were, but he could not stand that they did not blindly trust him. And in their view, how could they trust him when they kept getting hurt.

“Oh, what a clusterfuck.” I exhaled, following after him, adjusting the ring on my finger. Also, a little annoyed that he was not there to take me into the ballroom with him. However, when I entered the hall, he stood there, waiting with a smile spread across his lips. Even when he was on the edge, he still found a way to remember the little things. Walking up beside him, he stretched out his arm for me. “And here I thought you left me,” I whispered, linking my arm with his.

“It’s a little too late to leave you,” he replied, glancing back over to me, his green eyes looking over my dress. “You look nice.”

“I look stunning.”

“Then, you complain I do not compliment you enough,” he muttered as we walked inside.

I smiled at a few women from the foundation on my way to our table, where the mayor and the governor’s wife, as well as Fatimah Gupta, all smiled upon seeing us.

“Calliope, you came. Ethan told us you were feeling under the weather,” Fatimah said, kissing both sides of my cheeks.

“The worse has passed, so of course, I had to come; otherwise, one of you will try to steal my seat next to him.”

They laughed. “I think you’re safe, your seat has been protected.”

I looked over to the man they claimed was doing the protecting—Wyatt Callahan—whose face looked like a mixture of annoyance and disinterest as he got up, sliding his phone back into his pocket.