Eclipse of the Crown (Villains & Virtues, #3)

by A.K. Caggiano

one of the chamber’s paintings, a man with a rope about his ankle, dangling over a chasm, Chthonic words scrawled at its bottom to read, Hang in there, baddy.

If anything happened to Amma, if just one golden hair on her head were displaced, he would be crushing skulls and dropping bodies into piranha ponds and—

“Amma, I would sooner be cleaved in two than allow anyone to take you from me.”