Novels by Cicero

168The estate’s east wing still smelled like smoke. Adrian pulled Ciara into it by the wrist, away from the others, and she let him—right up until he opened his mouth.“Don’t,” she said.“Ciara—”She hit him again. Open palm this time, full weight behind it, and his head snapped sideways into the charred doorframe. He didn’t block it. He didn’t even raise his hands.“You don’t get to talk first.” Her voice was flat now, scraped clean of the rage from the arena. That was worse. “You get to listen. That’s all you get.”She held up her hands between them. He looked. Really looked.Every fingernail was gone. Not torn off in some accident—removed, deliberately, the beds underneath scarred over wrong, healed crooked, healed by something that didn’t care if it healed right. Ten small ruined places where something used to grow.“He started with these,” she said. “Said hands tell on people. Said he wanted to know how long it would take before I stopped using mine to fight and started using th

167. The tunnel was endless, and Ciara was obviously agitated. It seemed like every moment she spent in there made her angrier. Nobody spoke for a while, and it was mostly because everyone was tired. But it was also because nobody knew what to say after Ciara had casually admitted to spending three months planning Adrian's murder. Adrian was at the back of the group, far away from Ciara. As far away as he could be. Henry noticed. "You do know that she can still reach you, right?" Adrian sighed. "That's a problem." "I can hear both of you. This cave echoes." Adrian immediately shut up. "Ciara wouldn't try to kill you in here, we're running away and she's smarter than that." Selene said, trying to be patronising. She had no idea of what Ciara was like, but she wanted them to get as far from the trouble as they possibly could. "Smart woman." Ciara responded. They went a turn and then Ciara suddenly stopped walking. "What now? Why did you stop?" Selene asked.

166. The two women stared at each other with neither one even blinking or looking away. Adrian felt a headache coming, and he got irritated when he looked at Henry. The prince looked excited. "This won't go well, please." Adrian said, trying to quell the anger. Selene pointed at herself, and then at Ciara. "First of all, I look nothing like you. You have to be blind." Ciara raised an eyebrow at her. "You really think that you don't?" "No, I literally don't." Meanwhile, Selene's eye twitched in anger. She was tired, and her throat still hurt from nearly being strangled by that stupid clown. She had been kidnapped and forced into a death arena, and now this strange silver-haired woman had appeared out of nowhere and accused her of being a replacement wife. She wasn't even "officially" with Adrian! They just had feelings for each other. Her patience was completely gone. "Listen to me well." She pointed at Ciara. "I have heard a few stories and I'm nothing like you!

165.They could still hear the crowd screaming, but nothing startled them more than what Ciara said and how she had said them. "The king?" Adrian looked at the others before scrambling to his feet. “Wait… what do you know?” Ciara groaned. “I’m just asking because—” “NO!” She exclaimed, interrupting him. Adrian shut his mouth and Henry looked between them nervously. "Maybe we should all calm down and—" "Shut the fuck up, prince!” She exclaimed. Henry immediately shut up too. Mira raised an eyebrow. "She's quite intense." "Trust me…” Adrian muttered. "This isn't even close." Ciara looked back at him. The look alone made him regret speaking. Selene folded her arms. "Okay. Maybe let's not discuss murdering kings while we're still trapped inside a death arena. We need to figure out how to get out of here.” "Former death arena, that’s what I heard them say.” Henry corrected. “But Adrian killed people.” There was a distant-sounding explosion. The clown w

164. Selene hated that ugly, mocking smile on the clown’s face. Just then, inside her snapped. "You smiling piece of shit!" She launched herself off the platform and over to the clown. Mira barely had time to react before Selene was airborne. "SELENE!" The crowd gasped and then started to cheer. Selene flew through the air, with all the magic she could handle. She aimed straight for the clown's face. The clown didn't even act like they were being attacked. For one glorious second, Selene thought she had it. Suddenly, a hand shot out quickly. The clown grabbed her by the throat. Selene's eyes bulged and her attack force vanished instantly as the clown held her up effortlessly with one arm. The entire arena fell silent. "What?" Selene croaked. “H-how is th-this?” The clown sighed and squeezed her neck tightly. "Oh dear. Did you really think that that pathetic attack would work?" Mira's face turned pale as she saw Selene losing breath. She charged at the clown too.

163. Henry stood over the body of the poisoned guard he had just killed, chest heaving as blood dripped from the stolen bow in his hand. “Come on then!” He screamed at the guards. “Which one of you bastards wants to die next? You’re following orders of evil and expect to still be on top!” The crowd cheered. “YES!” “KILL THEM!” “MORE BLOOD!” Adrian looked around in disbelief. The guard had been dead for less than five seconds and thousands of people were cheering like they had just witnessed something beautiful. “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” He muttered. Suddenly, a horn was blasted. Immediately, several armoured guards rushed at Henry at once. Henry cursed at them and then fired another poisoned arrow. One guard took it through the eye and collapsed on the spot. The others kept coming. They didn’t care about their lives or whatever, this job was their lives. Henry barely dodged a spear thrust before a shield smashed into his ribs. “Henry!” Adria

Alisha’s hand hadn’t even left her cheek before the fury caught up with the shock.“You hit me.” She said, voice shaking, loud enough that the whole bar turned back toward them a second time in the same night. “Do you have any idea who my family is? I will have your badge for this. I will have your entire career.”Rachel reached into her coat without hurrying and flipped open a leather case, holding it steady under Alisha’s nose long enough for the gold shield to catch the light.“Detective Rachel Okoye.” She said. “Precinct seven. You’re welcome to file a complaint. I’ll make sure the report includes the part where you assaulted me with a cocktail first.”The color drained out of Alisha’s face in one smooth, visible wave. The room, still watching, seemed to lean in a little closer, sensing the shift before she’d even finished swallowing.“I didn’t — I mean, I wasn’t aiming for you, it was an accident, I—”“You were aiming for him.” Rachel nodded toward Rhys, unbothered. “Which doesn’

The bar was the same one from the champagne incident, which told Rhys exactly how limited Alisha’s imagination for venues really was. She’d texted him an address like it was an invitation to something, and curiosity, more than anything else, had put him in the cab.He found her already two drinks in, perched on a stool like she’d arranged the lighting around herself before he’d even arrived. She watched him cross the room with the particular satisfaction of a woman who’d already decided how this conversation would end.“I knew you’d come.” Alisha said, not bothering with hello. She slid a drink toward the empty seat beside her without asking if he wanted it. “Took you long enough to work up the nerve, though. Must be humbling, watching another man’s company burn down around you and realizing you still can’t stop thinking about me.”“That’s not why I’m here.”“Sure it isn’t.” She laughed, the sound pitched for an audience that wasn’t paying any attention to either of them. “You can adm

When Rhys got downstairs, it was Adam who had drove in.He didn’t look up right away. Instead, he stared at his own hands, like the words he was about to utter had to pass through them before it could reach his mouth.“I killed him. The man in the footage. But it wasn’t murder, Rhys. He came to that warehouse to kill me.”Rhys didn’t move.“It was six years ago.” Adam continued. “I’d gone to meet a supplier, alone, against my own security’s advice. The meeting was a setup. The man pulled a gun the moment the doors closed, and it was him or me. I still remember the sound the gun made when it hit the floor after I got it away from him. I still remember his face.”“So it was Self-defense.” Rhys said.He asked as Adam settled into a chair.“Legally, probably. I never reported it. I buriedthe body, paid the right people to make the warehouse disappear from every record, and told myself it was over. I thought it was over.”“Until someone found the footage.”“Until someone found the footage

Alisha had picked a bar.Anna arrived first, which annoyed her more than it should have, and by the time Alisha finally swept in fifteen minutes late, Anna had already decided this entire meeting was a mistake she intended to end quickly.“You’re late.” Anna said.“Traffic.” Alisha said breezily, sliding into the booth and immediately flagging down a server. “We’ll take a bottle of the Dom. And the caviar service, the good one, not whatever trash they’re trying to pass off as premium this month.”“I didn’t come here to feed you.” Anna protested.“Consider it a courtesy.” Alisha smiled, settling back against the velvet. “This is your tab, isn’t it? Longwater account. I’m sure you can handle a little champagne.”Anna’s jaw tightened, but she let it go, mostly because she wanted this finished fast.“You said you had a solution. So give it to me. I don’t have the patience for anything else tonight.”Alisha took her time, sipping the champagne the moment it arrived, savoring the pause wit

Alisha nearly dropped her wine glass laughing when the headline scrolled across her television screen.“Mom, look at this.” She called out, already pulling up the clip on her phone for a second viewing, delight spreading across her face like she’d just been handed a gift. “Longwater Holdings. Scandal of the year. And guess whose precious little heiress is caught right in the middle of it.”Fiona drifted in from the kitchen, reading glasses perched on her nose, peering at the screen with open satisfaction. “Oh, this is delicious. The Longwater girl? The one your ex-husband’s been parading around like some kind of trophy?”“That’s the one.” Alisha said, grinning. “I told you, Mom. Didn’t I tell you? Rhys doesn’t bring anything but ruin wherever he goes. Took him one month to drag an entire empire into the mud.”“Poor girl has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.” Fiona said, settling onto the couch, clearly enjoying herself. “Falling for a man straight out of prison. What did she exp

The mansion was chaos by the time Rhys arrived, staff clustered in corners whispering, phones pressed to ears, the air thick with a particular kind of panic that only came from watching something irreversible unfold in real time.He found the family in the main sitting room, a television mounted above the fireplace playing the same clip on a sickening loop.Grainy security footage. A dim warehouse. Adam Longwater, unmistakable even through the poor resolution, standing over a man slumped against a crate, motionless.The feed cut before anything more explicit played out, but the implication sat in the room like a physical weight.“It’s fake.” Adam said, for what was clearly not the first time, pacing in front of the television like he could will the footage into reversing itself. “I don’t know who manufactured this, or how, but I was nowhere near that warehouse. I’ve never seen that man in my life.”“Then explain the date stamp.” Sera’s voice cracked, raw with something that had clearl