Vengeance (The Prince's Games Book 1) by Rebecca Grey (electric book reader TXT) 📕

won't get us anywhere. Oh, Saints. Marcello I swear I won't let you die today."

I reach a hand forward, hovering just over the chest of the first clown-faced Marcello. "Yeah, you whining is going to help." I look to the guards. "May we touch them?" They nod in unison, their faces covered by large maroon helmets. "Perfect."

I flatten my palm against the first clown. A heartbeat pulses under my hand, strong and steady. A powerful acrid scent perfumes the air around them. "Who broke your heart first?" I whisper.

"Lily" The first whispers back.

I step to the next one. Looking into the large masked eyes. Who's behind it, if not Marcello? "My father." The second replies, his pounding heartbeat moving in time with my own. The voice is a rasp of an answer without the want of admittance.

With a long inhale meant to calm my own thrashing heart, I touch the last option for Marcello. I draw a finger up his torso from his bellybutton to the center of his pecs. Nothing except the strong wall of muscle and the heat of a living body meets my touch. "My dad."

My hand falls back against my leg, slapping against my thighs. I look at Juilliard. "Well they all have some sort of Marcello's knowledge. Which isn't good. But it's not the first. It's either number two or number three."

The Elf’s chin dips. Sloane and Finnegan cross their arms across their chest, looking from me to him. "You've been friends a long time?" Finnegan raises a brow.

"Yes. Years." Juilliard looks from the second to the third. He opens his mouth, a choking sound coming from his throat before his mouth snaps shut. His fingers inch to his neck and he clears his throat. "What did we eat in the evenings when your brother ruined dinner and we left without eating?"

What a simple question. Why not something more personal? Why not something more helpful?

"Blueberry pie, with extra blueberries. Always stains our fingertips." The first answers.

"Eat? You mean drink. Rum. Lots of it." The second says, but you can hear the smile in his voice.

"Anna's special homemade peach jam on toast. Simple but delicious." The third shrugs.

We all turn to look at Juilliard. The stain in his ears is gone, along with most of the color in his face. "Oh Saints," he whispers.

"What? Which is true? Which?" I demand. The music picks up pace the chime of something percussion sounding far too much like the staccato ticking of a clock.

"All of it." His throat bobs. "Mainly the last two, but all of it."

"Ask him something else." I can feel my stress rising with the crescendo of music. It crashes like a wave against the building anxiety inside of me.

"I don't know. I don't know. I can't."

"Damn it. Juilliard. I've only known Marcello for a couple short weeks. Don't make me pick the wrong one!" I shout over the drone of a camera and music that only gets louder. "Don't make me kill Marcello. You have to. Why can't you? Why? I..." I cut myself off before saying anything else.

I can't kill Marcello. That's what I was about to say. I can't kill him. I don't want to. I refuse to. Oh Saints, how far have I fallen? Genovese can kiss that first job goodbye because I'll never have the heart to do it now.

Sloane slips up behind me, setting her hands gently on my shoulders. Her stained red lips move next to my ear, hushed under breath. "Stay calm. Any questions will help. Just carry on a conversation."

"Why me?"

"You and Juilliard are the closest to him." The warmth of her delicate hands leave me as she steps back to her place at her partner’s side.

"Players, you have ten minutes left!"

Ten minutes is all? How had time moved so fast?

"Can you uncuff them?" Juilliard urges. "Can we see his hands?" The guards shake their heads. Juilliard's bites down on his lip, staring between the three options. "I'm sorry. I.." The words get caught in his throat again, an emotion he can't bring himself to portray.

Carry a conversation with him... I can do that. I glance at Juilliard. "If your fucking genius brain can come up with something useful to say, please by all means jump in and help out. The whole lot of you are useless, I swear." I sigh, more mad at myself than all of them.

Juilliard nods and the rest of the team stays quiet. But the Marcello's, they chuckle. All of them. In a jarring noise that doesn't match any laugh I've ever heard before, like the wrong chord struck at the wrong time during a song.

"Do you hate me?" I say quietly. I don't bother to touch the first, I don't believe that's him. I just stare at the lifeless eyes that look back at me. Marcello can't see me, or any of us.

"Sometimes." The first replies with a shrug.

The second and third stand perfectly still. I curl my finger under the mask, running it along the underside of a sharp jawline. I watch as the next inhale is a shuddering breath that travels through his body. "I could never hate you, Nils. Not for long enough for it to matter."

I laugh. "I want it to be this version of you if that's the case," I whisper mostly to myself, moving to the next clown face.

Cold, smooth plastic settles against my hand as I cup the cheek of the mask. "And you?" The figure leans into the touch. "I hate you every day. But I love you again by the time I fall asleep at night."

Maybe I want it to be this one... Maybe I want Marcello's love. I pull my hand away. Marcello couldn't love me. Not yet, not this quickly.

"Yesterday, what was the last thing I