Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I shake my head, take a step backward only to walk into one of his men who somehow got outside, got behind me and I didn’t notice.
Did I make a mistake coming to this man? Thinking him the lesser of two evils?
“I said come,” Antoine says, holding the giant ax and looking for all the world like the executioner himself, all he needs is a cloak.
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I—”
He gestures to the man behind me who grips my arm and marches me toward the dais, up onto it. I push against him but just like the Councilor’s man, I’m no match.
“Kneel,” Antoine says.
I look down at the block, then up at him and shake my head.
“Don’t make me make you. Kneel.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
He gestures to the man at my back who sets his hands on my shoulders. I struggle but he’s too strong. He forces me to my knees and keeps his hands on my shoulders as the other man reaches for my right arm, grips it and drags it across the block.
I scream. I scream as I feel the smooth wood, see the dark blotches that stain it. No heads, just hands, he’d said. It’s no comfort.
Antoine leans toward me. “Shh. Not yet. We don’t want the Councilor to come just yet. I want everything perfectly in place for my old friend.”
“I gave you what you wanted. I did what I said I’d do.”
He smiles a strange, almost unhinged sort of smile that makes me think of Ines’s laugh, how mad it had sounded.
“Do you feel what I felt? How fucking terrified I was. Do you understand now all that man stole from me?”
I look up at him, his eyes are narrowed, their shine not natural, not normal.
Unhinged.
There’s that word again. This man is unhinged. He’s barely keeping it together.
“Do you?” he barks.
I nod animatedly. I do. I understand his terror because right now, I am terrified. I’m terrified of him.
“We had an agreement. You promised.”
He leans toward me. “And you delivered. As such, you have nothing to fear from me.”
My chest hurts with the thudding of my heart. His words and face and the way he’s holding that ax don’t line up.
“Release her,” he says, straightening. The man who has my arm lets it go and I pull it back, cradling it.
“Sir,” Trae calls, making Girard turn. “You’re on.”
He smiles wide and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked happy. He gestures to the man at my back who hauls me to my feet.
Girard takes a deep breath in, raises the ax over his head with an immense strength considering he is one-armed, one-handed. He brings it down onto the block so hard, he lodges the blade in the wood, making me scream as I watch in horror.
He turns to me, wipes the sweat from his forehead.
“An eye for an eye. A hand for a hand. Come, Blue, I don’t want to miss a second!”
25
EZEKIEL
I should have had a notification by now.
Jericho is talking but I’m looking at my phone. I try Dex again, but again, the call goes right to voice mail as does Blue’s.
“Holy shit,” Jericho says, standing up from his desk, eyes glued on whatever he sees on his laptop.
“I can’t get hold of them,” I say, trying again.
“I think I may know why.”
I look to my brother. “What?”
He turns his laptop around and I see the email. Jericho is blind copied and a glance at the email app on my phone shows me I’ve received the same one.
“What the hell is it?”
“It’s a video.” He hits play and we’re redirected to YouTube. Antoine Girard appears standing on a dais wearing a long black robe.
“Hear ye, hear ye,” he says in a put-on old-world accent. “This public service announcement is brought to you by a concerned citizen,” this part he says in the quick way they read disclaimers on advertisements for medications. “Have you seen this man?” He holds up a photo of Councilor Augustus standing alongside Councilors Montrose and Hildebrand. The camera zooms in on Augustus’s face which has been circled with what looks to be a cartoon noose and modified with horns growing out of his head.
“He walks among you like a king, holding a position of tremendous power over each and every one of you. How many of you have fallen victim to his unchecked power? How many of your family members? And how many of you have tipped the scales of justice in your favor with the gold coins of Judas?”
“What the fuck? He’s fucking lost his mind,” I say.
“I bring to you a scroll of wrong doings.” He dramatically lets a scroll unfurl. It’s so long it rolls off the screen. I assume it’s a stage prop. “A list of names. Some victims, others criminals themselves. Will our great Tribunal be able to withstand such scandal?” He then switches again to that medication ad voice. “Just click the link below and if you’re enjoying this message, hit the thumbs up.” He holds his thumb up and smiles like a fucking clown.