Kingmakers, Year One

26. Dean

26

DEAN

A nna screams for us to stop fighting, and Leo holds up his hands, signaling his willingness to stop.

He doesn’t get to decide when we stop.

This isn’t over until I say so.

Leo looks over at Anna, looks at my fucking Anna, after I just fucking warned him. I pull my fist back and sucker punch him from the side, the hardest punch of my life, with every ounce of my fury and bitterness behind it.

The lights go out as soon as I make contact. That was too much for him in one day. His knees buckle, and keels over. He would have crashed all the way down if not for Hedeon Gray catching him from the side, stumbling back under Leo’s dead weight.

I only have a second to enjoy it before Anna slaps me hard across the face. And I mean really fucking hard—it makes my ears ring and my eyes water. I have to blink to make her pale and furious face swim back into view.

“ You ASSHOLE,” she seethes.

Anna is burning with fury. I can almost see the sparks of outrage popping off her skin.

And I feel exactly the same. Why doesn’t she see that she and I are the same at our core? I know she has the same capacity for obsession, extremism, violence that lives inside of me. If we were to combine our strengths, we’d be unstoppable.

But she insists on turning back to Leo Gallo again and again.

What will it take to show her that I’m the better man . . .

“I am an asshole,” I tell her. “A brute. A killer. I do what it takes to win the fight. And I won’t ever stop fighting for you.”

I look at Leo, supported by Hedeon Gray.

“He’s soft,” I sneer. “And he has betrayal in his blood. You deserve better.”

I walk away from her, Bram and Valon in my wake.

Bram is chortling as we exit the stables. “That fucking idiot—didn’t see that coming!”

For me, the elation of hitting Leo was short-lived. Already I’m swirling with bitterness again, the image of Anna dancing with Leo burned in my brain. The way she looked up into his eyes. The expression on her face that I’ve never seen when she’s looking at me, not one time.

Leo got knocked out because he was distracted by her. Because he listened to her when she asked him to stop.

That’s how you make a fool of yourself. That’s how you make mistakes that can get you killed—by allowing a woman to twist your judgment. To make you weak.

I’ve already made a fool of myself over Anna. I know Bram and the Penose think so. It’s eroding my authority. They still answer to me, but they don’t respect my fixation on Anna.

They expect me to control my woman. Even if she is an Heir herself.

I certainly can’t lose her to another man.

Most of all not to Leo fucking Gallo.

What is it going to take to beat him?

He’s the thorn in my side. The arsenic that’s poisoning everything I want to taste.

The root of all evil in my life comes down to the Gallos.

If Sebastian Gallo didn’t murder my grandfather then I would have grown up in Chicago instead of Moscow.

If he hadn’t burned and mutilated my father, then my mother never would have left.

And if my aunt never betrayed our family and married the enemy, then Leo Gallo wouldn’t even exist.

It would be my father who was best friends and allies with Mikolaj Wilk. It would be Anna and me who grew up side by side. We might have had a marriage pact by the time we were teens. We would have come to Kingmakers already betrothed.

Anna and I were meant to be together. It was only a diversion of fate that split us apart.

I can see this clearly. Why can’t she?

Because of Leo, that’s why. He’s blinded her. Confused her. Seduced her away from me.

The only way to right the wrongs of the past is to set things back the way they should have been.

Leo Gallo shouldn’t exist.

Bram is ruminating on his own irritations. “Who the fuck does that Greek peasant think he is, taking a swing at me?”

It looks like Ares took more than a swing—Bram’s nose isn’t nearly as straight as it was before, and he’s got the start of a hell of a black eye. Valon doesn’t look any better.

“I guess I needed three of you to handle him,” I snarl.

“He’s a fuckin’ ogre,” Valon complains.

“And what are you? A debutante?”

Bram and Valon both glare at me.

I don’t give a fuck. They need a reminder of their own shortcomings. It infuriates me that Leo’s friends are better than mine at fighting. Why in the FUCK does he have everything, while all I have is shit?

“He’s not winning the last challenge,” Bram says, having apparently decided that his hatred of Leo and Ares outweighs his desire to be Freshman champions.

Quietly, I say, “He’s not surviving the last challenge.”

Now the look that Bram and Valon exchange is distinctly uncomfortable.

Valon says, “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m going to kill him.”

A long silence stretches out in which you can only hear our feet treading on the sodden grass and the rain still falling down all around us. The courtyard is dark and empty, the rain insulating us from the possibility of being overheard by anyone else. I wouldn’t even say this out loud, except to my two closest allies.

“You’re doing it here?” Bram says. “At Kingmakers?”

I answer with a nod.

“What about Sanctuary?” Valon asks. “What about the Rule of Recompense?”

He means that if we’re caught, we’ll be executed ourselves.

I say, “There’s no recompense unless we get caught.”

I can tell Valon doesn’t like this idea at all, but he’s no rebel. He may be an Heir by title, but he’s a soldier by nature. He’ll do whatever Bram and I tell him to do.

Bram considers the idea for a moment. I see him accept it, anticipate it even, chis mouth twisting up in a smirk.

He says, “Accidents happen all the time. Especially in the Quartum Bellum .”

“Exactly.” I nod. “That’s exactly right.”