Page 97 of Servitude to Serpents

Because I never deserved her.

Because she hurt me, scared me that day…and I couldn’t stomach it.

I couldn’t—

“Her death would have been a mercy compared to what that vile fucking woman will do if she gets her hands on her! You fuckingmonster! You sent her off to be tortured and fucking raped, you disgusting—"

“Warrick!” Stuart warns as I jerk my gun from my waistband.

To the woman’s credit, she doesn’t flinch as I put one in the chamber, my finger dancing over the trigger. “She’s safe, far from Bloom's reach.”

“Then you’re delusional too.”

That constant ache, the one that makes it hard to breathe, slams to the forefront as I push the barrel harder into her forehead. Her wide doe eyes halt my finger. Even now, the halls devoid of her humming and shoulders devoid of her tears, she refuses to release her hold on me.

“Tell me, Basilisk, head of theHouse of Serpents, was being loved by her really that terrible?”

“Lovingherwas,” I seethe.

It still is.

The absence of her only served to make that clearer.

It didn’t go away.

Oh, how I had deluded myself into thinking it would be that fucking easy.

“Warrick, put the gun down. It’s time for her to go,” Stuart offers, his hand gripping mine. She releases a heavy breath as he lowers my arm, but she doesn’t look away. She has no idea how close I am, how bad it truly is. I lost sight of why I was preserving anything months ago.

Mahari’s threats rattle the windows as she’s escorted out, my eyes throbbing and stinging as I climb the stairs, jerking my phone from my suit jacket as I call the owner of the small bathhouse. Each ring of the phone slips a blade deeper into my ribs until my breath is betraying me, coming in guttural, ragged heaves.

No answer.

I whirl on Stuart, always looming, oddly quiet these days. “When was the last time you verified contact with anyone who didn’t stand to gain something fromlying to me?” My voice is dark, seething.

“One week ago, as I reported to you, she was alive.”

“Alive,” I seethe. “Those are not the words you reported to me. She was settledwell, I recall.”

“She was settled, yes. Well is subjective, Sir.”

My eyes bore into his. “And for proof, pictures, videos, what do you have?”

“I have been working on that.”

He has nothing. Fucking nothing.

“Work faster,” I warn, my stomach swirling. “If they found her—"

“You’re spiraling,” he cuts me off.

The laugh that leaves me is a disgusting one, filled with so much malice and hate, it nearly chokes me, a man who was born and molded by both. “You’ve seennothingyet.”

****

One week and three days, and it has become disturbingly clear I’ve been betrayed. Anxiety raddles my chest as I pull every contact, every database, every favor. All of them but one comes in fruitless. Her collar is clamped in my fist as I sit at my desk, taking a long swig of my drink. I haven’t eaten in days; my suit is dirty and crumbled. It seems no matter how much alcohol I consume, it does nothing to balm the wounds I inflicted on myself. On us both. She’s gone, and for the life of me, I can’t find out for how long. That thought spurred such a gnawing wave of guilt, it turned out to be my undoing.

My eyes darken on the empty fireplace, picturing her laid out in front of it. She’d lounge there, so close to the licking flames that her pale flesh would redden, hot to the touch. I keep her there in my mind as I listen to the click of the revolver’s barrel as it spins, a flick of my wrist sending it back in place. The muzzle isn’t coldanymore. This is my fifth round, after all. My fifth time pressing the barrel under my chin, only to hear a deafeningclick.

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