“Someone who preferred to keep his balls where they dangled,” Bennett said, taking a step. “So why don’t you tell your jailhouse special to leave because the sooner we talk, the sooner I can do the same.”

“And what in the hell do we need to talk about?”

“Tell him to leave, Napoleon. This is just between you and me.”

Napoleon glowered at Bennett for a long moment before whacking the man on his ass. “Get up and go somewhere else until I can get this bitch out of here, and no one fills you tonight other than me. You come back used, and I’ll take your head.”

Naked as the day he was born, the lanky man pushed himself off the desk and pranced from the room without saying a word.

“Fine,” Napoleon said, tugging the ties on his robe tighter. “He’s gone. Now, why the fuck are you here?”

“I’m here because after that last stunt you pulled, I realized I’m spitting into the wind.”

The tightness in Napoleon’s expression loosened, and he scratched his head. “I have no idea what you’re babbling on about, Archer. What stunt?”

Bennett looked toward the ceiling for a moment. “I knew you wouldn’t admit to it, but I know it was you, Napoleon, and a lot of innocent people could have been hurt because of your goddamn, stupid payback mentality.”

Napoleon threw his hands up. “What in the world are you fucking talking—”

The sound of the door opening caught their attention. Napoleon leaned to look past Bennett at the same time she turned around, and when Bennett saw Ruby stepping into the room, she paled.

“Ruby, what in the hell are you doing? I told you to wait—” The rest of Bennett’s words died in her throat.

With her eyes firing blue, Ruby walked around Bennett and glared at the man gaping back at her.

“Flanna?” Napoleon said in a whisper.

“Hello, baby brother. Long time, no see.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

There’s something to be said for having been the elephant in the room once before. Even though Bennett was raging, and even though she wanted answers to the hundreds of questions filling her head, Bennett didn’t move, and Bennett didn’t speak. She turned in slow motion, her eyes shifting between the two Durant siblings as she waited for one of them to say something.

Ruby painted on a syrupy smile as she stared at her brother. “I bet you’re surprised to see me—huh?”

“I-I…I thought you were dead,” Napoleon said, taking a step. “I’m so glad—”

“Oh, cut the crap, Napoleon. We both know you were behind the murder of our family.”

“I didn’t kill them, Flanna. How could you think that?”

“I haven’t used Flanna since I watched your paid assassins hack our family into pieces, but I picked a similar one. It’s Ruby now. Ruby Miller.”