King for a Day (27 page)

I knew that wasn’t the entire story, but the pieces fit. And it explained why Justin lied to me. He loved her and wanted to bring her back.

I stood and looked at his notes. He’d laid out, in detail, every attempt made to use the Artifact. He’d done everything I might have attempted, including praying, holding it, and laying it on the person or a photo of them.

So how did it work? Or was the Artifact nothing more than a rock?

I didn’t know, but I had to help him end this gruesome experiment. Besides, King had been dead for a long time, although I didn’t know exactly how long, but it was a while. So if that damned stone actually worked, I had to believe that one didn’t need a rotting corpse to make it function.

Lord, I hope.

Suddenly, there was knock at the door. Justin’s eyes widened with horror.

“Justin, we know you are in there.”

Vaughn? No! No!
“Justin, run!” I screamed, but he couldn’t hear me.

Justin’s head swiveled as he looked around the empty apartment. “Shit.” He looked at the rock in his hands and blinked several times.

“Run! Fucking run! Run!” I wailed.

Justin took the stone and popped it into his mouth. I watched as he struggled to swallow. But the moment the door burst open and Vaughn entered with a sharp knife in hand, Justin found the will to choke it down.

“Where is it?” Vaughn asked.

Justin’s body shook. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Vaughn looked down at the dead body on the floor. Rage filled his hazy brown eyes. “You little fucker. I was going to kill you for lying to me about the Artifact. Then your bitch of a sister robbed me of my fun, so I thought to skin you alive. But now,” he roared, “now I find you here! With her! Dead! I’m not gonna kill you; I’m gonna torture the living hell out of you!”

Justin held up his hands. “I didn’t kill her. Some tracker woman you hired shot her in Edinburgh.”

Oh no
. It was Jamie who’d been shot in that warehouse in Edinburgh. King and I showed up moments after, looking for Justin, who’d been spotted earlier. We found the tracker’s body, but I knew someone else had died there, too. There was a pool of red light spread over the floor. But someone had taken that second body, and I couldn’t figure out why.

Now I knew. Justin had, in fact, been there. Justin had taken her.

“Do you think I give a
fuck
?” Vaughn screamed. “You think you can steal from me? You think you can lie to me, you little piece of shit. Where is that fucking rock?” he yelled.

“The Artifact is a joke. I traded it away.”

Vaughn shook his head. “Really, now? To whom?”

Justin didn’t answer.

“I’ll give you one chance, Justin. Tell the truth, and I’ll let you live. I’ll even let you keep the rotting bitch, too. But if you’re lying, I’ll burn you both.”

“Don’t believe him, Justin! He’ll kill you either way. Just run! Please,” I sobbed.

“All you need to know,” said Justin, “is that I traded it away for a potion that will resurrect her. I’m just waiting for it to work now,” he lied. “But you’ll never see the Artifact again. Not that the damned thing works. It’s just a fucking roc—”

Vaughn lunged at Justin, and I screamed. There was nothing I could do as the knife plunged into my brother’s stomach.

Justin screamed, but Vaughn held tight and twisted.

“No! Justin!” I yelled.

Vaughn tossed Justin to the floor and spit on his body. “May you fucking rest in peace with that fucking whore.”

I crumpled to the floor.
God no…

“Mia! Mia!”

My eyes snapped open, and I found myself panting, yet unable to truly breathe.

“Mia!” Mack shook me hard.

“Mack?” I sat up and threw myself forward. “Vaughn killed my brother. He killed him,” I sobbed.

Mack stroked the back of my head. “Shhh…It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. Oh my God. It wasn’t. My brother was dead.

“No,” I hiccupped. “He killed him.”

“It was a dream,” Mack said.

I shook my head and looked into his wide blue eyes. “It was real. But I couldn’t do anything because I was a ghost. That’s what happened when I died.”

Mack grabbed my face and stared into my eyes. He didn’t speak. There was nothing to say.

Justin is dead. Dead. Vaughn killed him…

“Mia? Can you hear me?” Mack gently slapped my cheek.

I blinked and looked at the people standing around the room. Spiros.

I wiped my eyes with my arm and stood, staring each and every one of them in the eyes. Hate and sorrow filled every ounce of my soul.

“Mia? Are you all right?” Mack said quietly.

I looked at the people around me. “No. I’m not fucking all right. And you fucking Spiros have twenty-four hours to find my brother’s body, or I will curse each and every one of you. Do. You. Understand? Do you hear me?”

Mack grabbed my arm and shook me hard. “Mia, Stop! You’re in shock. Don’t—”

“No!” I snapped my arm away. “I mean every goddamned word, and now there is nothing they, or anyone, can do to me.” I held up my hand to show them the ring on my finger. “And that includes killing me. So you better find my brother or start running. Because I’m done. Do hear me? I’m done playing nice with you fucking people.”

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

After my verbal rampage ended, the physical one commenced. I’d never been so enraged and devastated in my life. And I seriously doubted I ever would be.

The question I’d had earlier about being able to hurt another person simply to save my brother? Well, that had been answered. I was willing to hurt anyone just to feel better. Because Justin was gone, and that wasn’t right.

How he’d ended up being Jamie Henshaw’s lover or possibly the father of her baby, I didn’t give a fuck. They were all dead, and the person who’d taken Justin’s life wasn’t worth the dirt stuck to the bottom of Justin’s shoes.

I started in King’s room, breaking anything I could get my hands on. I threw chairs into mirrors, I slammed vases into walls, I broke anything within arm’s reach.

When I was done trashing that room, I yanked open the doors to the hallway, ready to destroy his precious fucking palace and burn it to the ground.

“Mia!” Mack yelled, trying to get me to stop, ducking and hiding behind doorways. I’m sure he hoped I’d get it all out and return to the nice girl I once was, but that was impossible. She was gone. Dead. Reborn. Angry.

Not even the valiant Spiros dared to get in my way. Perhaps they were smarter than they looked.

I marched into the hallway and spotted those fucking stupid Minoan artifacts. “Do you love these, King?” I yelled. “Well, you can’t have them!”

I swung hard, determined to knock a beige vase to its death, but a hand reached out and caught my arm. I glanced up at the stupid a-hole with a death wish and froze.

“Ju-Ju-Justin?” I whispered, unable to believe what I saw.

His big green eyes were filled with conflict, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he stared at me, his face filled with agony.

“Oh my God. Is it really you?”

He stared with an ominous expression, his eyes scanning the surroundings as if he was just as confused as I.

He dropped my hand and gazed blankly into my eyes.

“Can you hear me?” I snapped my fingers. “Justin?”

His eyes sharpened, and he suddenly appeared to be acutely lucid. “Mia?”

“Yes. It’s me.” I nodded, the tears trickling from my eyes.

“How did I get here?”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know.”

“I think…I think…I’m dead.” His voice was filled with regret and pain.

I nodded, but couldn’t speak.

“I lost her, Mia. I tried, but I couldn’t bring her back. King was right. It only works for him.”

The Artifact only worked for King? King had told him that?

“She’s dead, Mia. That tracker shot her in Edinburgh. She’s dead.”

“I know, Justin,” I sobbed. “I know. But what happen—”

“Why am I here?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, but half of me was overjoyed to see him one more time. The other half wondered why his soul wasn’t at peace. Was it because he’d swallowed that damned rock?

“Can you bring me back?” His voiced quivered. “I have to keep trying. The baby—the baby…” His words trailed off, and I winced. I suddenly wondered if this was real. Or was my mind trying to reconcile the truth with what I wanted to believe?

No headaches. You don’t have a headache.

It had to be real, then, didn’t it? Maybe I was seeing him because of my gift. Maybe our connection, our blood, allowed it. I didn’t know. I didn’t care about the “how.”

I ran my hands through my hair. “Justin, where were you?”

Panic filled his eyes, and then he glanced over his shoulder. “They’re coming, Mia.” He turned back to me. “They’re coming for me. And they are coming for you.”

“Who, Justin?”

“The 10 Club.”

Justin continued looking over his shoulder into King’s bedroom, but there was nothing there except for the mess I’d left behind. Was he reliving some horrible memory?

“Justin!” I barked. “You have to tell me where you were when Vaughn found you.”

He looked at me again. “You can’t be here. They are coming. It’s not safe. Run, Mia. Run!”

And just like that, Justin faded to nothing. “No! Justin, no!”

“Mia!” I felt a sharp slap across my face.

My consciousness sparked back to life, and I found myself pressed against the wall, just outside of King’s bedroom. Mack held me firmly with two hands by my shoulders.

“Mack?” I whispered. Was he a ghost, too? Was I?

Oh Lord, I’m losing my mind.

“Are you real?” I asked.

Mack nodded with a slightly horrified frown. “Yeah. I’m real,” he replied with a forced calm. “Who were you talking to? Was it King?”

“No, my brother.” I moved my head vigorously from side to side. “At least, I think it was him.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me to bring him back.”

Mack sighed, but I didn’t know what his sigh meant.

“Justin said that King is the only one who can get the Artifact to work. Do you know anything about it?”

“No, Mia, I don’t.”

“We have to get him back. We have to.”

“But—”

“No!” I dug my nails into Mack’s arm. “You will call Vaughn and tell him I know where the Artifact is. You will tell him that I want to make a trade.”

“Mia, no—”

“No. You listen to me,” I seethed. “I’m tired of everyone telling me what to do when it’s my ass, my life, and my family on the line. You will call him, Mack. And you will make the trade.”

Mack’s tired eyes narrowed. “And if he asks how I know?”

“Know what?”

“Where the Artifact is?”

“Who the hell cares?—tell him that!”

“King will care. He doesn’t want to leave Vaughn’s yet; it’s not part of the plan,” Mack argued.

Mack’s words stuck inside my ears as if my own brain resisted letting them in. “Wha-wha-what did you say?”

Mack’s blue eyes lit up. “I—I—”

“Did you say that King wants to be there?”

Mack stilled and turned a ghostly shade of white. “Fuck. You weren’t supposed to know.”

“Know what?” Mack didn’t have to answer. No, not really. Because the ugly, deformed, and evil pieces slid into place, penetrating my heart like a poison of the soul.

No. No, please, Lord. Tell me it isn’t what I think.

I could scarcely breathe. My insides twisted with rage and horror. “K-K-King isn’t really a prisoner there, is he?” I whispered. “That’s why he told the Spiros not to intervene.”

Mack’s jaw flapped a bit and then, “He-he-he’ll kill me if I knows I told you.”

Oh my God.
King had been able to come and go the entire time. Had he been faking those blackouts, too?

“But why?” I asked. “Why would King want to be there? Why would King allow himself to be held captive? Why would he allow
me
to be held captive?”

Mack didn’t reply, but the look of shame on his face told me that the reason would be painful.

The word “why” repeated over and over in my head. Only one answer kept coming up for air, and it was the one thing I knew King would do almost anything for. I just never realized he might want it so badly that he would hurt even me and my family to get it.

“Does it have something to do with that goddamned Artifact?” I asked.

Mack looked away.

Motherfucker
!

My fists clenched into tight balls. “He thought he could just let the Artifact come to him. Didn’t he? He thought Vaughn had it.”

Mack’s blue eyes lit up. “Mia, King would never have let anything—”