Killer Queen

Chapter Six

“What kind of problem?” I asked, wondering just how much could have possibly happened during my brief incarceration.

William didn’t answer, the firelight dancing across his dark skin. Just looking up at him was starting my make my craned neck ache.

“It’s gotta be something serious if you’ve left your dungeon.”

His full lips pursed as he stepped further into the room.

“I’ll take it from here,” Billy announced, his sudden presence immediately filling the room.

Nobody moved, aside from Ryan, who sidled in behind him, a cream mug in his hands. He passed it to me and I took it gratefully, inhaling it’s rich aroma. God, I’d missed coffee. Even the instant stuff.

“While you were…taking out your tag,” Billy started, dark eyes on mine, his carefully picked choice of words obvious by his slight pause. “Ryan was taking out his own tag.”

“And?”

Billy inhaled deeply, expression unreadable. That wasn’t a good sign. I frowned, gripping the mug tighter and savouring the heat that escaped it.

“And he failed.”

I snapped my head in my brother’s direction, but it was Drew who spoke first, fully turning away from the fire, ocean blue eyes, wide. “What do you mean, ‘failed’?”

Ryan refused to meet my gaze, his jaw repeatedly clenching and unclenching.

“It means that our friend, Margie, has some explaining to do,” William interrupted, his deep voice rumbling and seeming to echo in my very bones. “When one of my bullets hit the heart and fails to slow a tag down, I’d wager there’s something the stuck-up bitch isn’t telling us.”

Ryan finally raised his light green eyes to mine, their hard edge telling me that he’d explain later. He brushed his blonde hair back, breaking the gaze.

“Anna, Emily, you’ll both come with Ryan and myself to pay a visit to Margie,” Billy commanded and I turned back to him, nodding once, before taking a long sip of my coffee, sighing in pleasure.

“What about--” Emily started, only to be cut off.

“Drew can tidy William’s workshop, considering he was the one who smashed it up in the first place.” He gave Drew a pointed look, and he nodded silently, before turning back to the crackling fire.

William was the final member of our family, and our weapons master. As a kid, he’d been fascinated by weapons. Despite his genius IQ level, he’d dropped out of school and began making knives, before moving on to guns.

Nobody knew how he and Billy had met, but they’d established a working relationship long before Ryan and I joined the family.

William made each weapon as one of a kind. In an attempt to scupper any chances of two assassinations being linked, we never used the same weapon twice. William would either melt them down afterwards for recycling, or alter them until they were unrecognisable, before they’d be used again.

　

We’d been sitting in the small waiting area outside Margie’s office for 25 minutes. Occasionally, her voice would drift out and we’d catch snippets of her phone meeting.

I liked Margie’s office. I’d only ever seen it once before, but it was full of antique furniture. While I might have liked her choice in décor, I didn’t much care for her opinion on how to spend tax-payer’s money.

Her personal assistant floated past us every few minutes, carrying various pieces of paperwork. He looked odd with his baby face; like some kid playing dress up with his dad’s work suit, dirty blonde hair swept back professionally.