The captive dropped his eyes to the floor. “My apologies if you think that’s not the right word for what you did. No matter whether he deserved it or not. But you slaughtered him; you let him suffer like an animal before you put him out of his misery.” Robert made a dismissive movement with his hand. “Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? And now you’re king. And guess what, you find it just as difficult to make the right decisions as any of your predecessors.”

The words hit him hard. Had he, Cain, really killed the previous king? No, that couldn’t be. He wasn’t an assassin. He was honorable man with ethics. Not a murderer, and for certain not a man who inflicted undue pain. He didn’t torture people.

“You’re mistaken.”

“Why deny it?” Robert asked, meeting his eyes. “Everybody suspects it, though only few know with certainty.”

“That’s enough!” Cain ground out between clenched teeth.

“See, you can’t even take the truth, but you expect me to accept being falsely accused. I’m innocent. Faye believes in me.”

Cain looked away and tried to clear his mind. He didn’t want to dwell on Robert’s revelation that he was a king slayer, because wouldn’t that mean that he, Cain, was evil?

“Faye says you’re her friend.”

“She needed a shoulder to cry on when she thought you were dead.”

“I thought Abel would have been that shoulder.”

Robert scoffed. “Abel? She was avoiding him as much as she could.”

The words only reinforced Cain’s suspicion that Abel had been trying to drive a wedge between him and Faye, even though it appeared that Cain had driven that wedge in himself now by not coming clean with her. It was something he needed to do, or he would lose her. But Faye had given him one other condition to fulfill: she wanted Robert’s freedom.

Cain looked back at his prisoner, staring long and hard at him. Could he take the risk to believe in Robert’s words and free him? Maybe it was time to take that leap.

“Guard!”

***

“Guard! Open the fucking door!” Cain yelled from behind the heavy cell door.

Abel felt like rubbing his hands together and only refrained from it because it was a childish gesture. However, it didn’t make him feel any less giddy. The timing was perfect. And even though this had not been his original plan, he couldn’t have planned it any better himself.

Cain was in the cell with Robert. This was the perfect occasion to pin Cain’s murder on Robert and thus still implicate the Mississippi clan. Everybody knew that Robert had been found with incriminating materials he’d wanted to send to the rival clan. Nobody believed his claim that the blueprints had been planted. Nobody but Abel, because Abel had been the one who had slipped the papers into Robert’s ledger and made sure one of Baltimore’s men would find them there and report it.

It had all worked like clockwork, though Abel had only done it to draw suspicion on the Mississippians, so that once Cain was found dead when the rival clan arrived for the festivities, it would be easy to point the finger.

But the solution that lay in front of him now was even easier. All he would have to do was kill Cain himself, pin it on Robert, then execute him and declare war on the Mississippians.

Abel made a motion to Simon, the guard who was stationed in the cellblock. He was loyal to Baltimore. Simon walked up to him and Abel bent closer, talking quietly into his ear and giving him instructions as to what to do.

Simon nodded obediently and walked to a cupboard. He unlocked it and took out a small-caliber handgun. He screwed the silencer onto its front end.

“Loaded?” Abel whispered.

“With silver bullets.”

Abel took it and cocked the gun. He loved the sound that echoed against the stone walls. “Do you have a stake?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Make sure it’s found in Robert’s cell once we’re done.” Even though Abel was going to shoot his brother with a silver bullet which would incinerate him from the inside out, the end result would be the same. Nobody finding Cain’s ashes would be able to tell whether he’d been staked or shot. All Abel had to do was to remove the bullet and the casing from the cell before he sounded the alarm. Nobody would hear the shot.

“Ready?” Abel asked.

Simon nodded and slipped the key into the lock, then turned it silently. At Abel’s nod, he pushed the door open.

Abel aimed into the dark, his trigger finger twitching.