Page 19 of We Are the Match
To his credit, Marcus turns his head slightly to listen to Zarek, his only reaction to the harshness and fury bound up in Zarek’s voice. A lesser man would have flinched.
“Find my daughter,” Zarek commands. “See to her. I have no further need of either of you.”
Milos’s disappointment is evident in both the slump of his shoulders and the disappointment in his face as he and his brother turn to go.
“Do you trust them?” I ask Zarek as soon as they leave. “Because other than the three women downstairs, they are the only ones who might be foolish enough to challenge you.”
Zarek turns to me, eyebrow raised.
“Sit.”
I consider, just briefly, that I could comply by dropping into the spacious desk chair behind his mahogany desk and sitting inhisseat.
Instead, I sit in the chair he motions to, a guard dropping heavy hands on my shoulders as soon as I do.
Zarek pulls his chair forward and sits opposite me, his knees almost touching mine.
I taste ash and soot and bomb.
I bite down hard on my tongue.
“Tell me,” he says softly. “Tell me the truth.”
I meet his stare. I will not fear. I will not allow my hands to tremble.En morte libertas.
“The truth?”
I lean forward, and the guard jerks me backward, my shoulder blades slamming into the wooden back of the chair.
Zarek’s lips tip upward in a smile. “The explosive,” he says. “You knew. You knew before it went off. Tell me how.”
Because this is not the first time for me, because I am a survivor of his violence, because flame is as natural to me as breath. Because I crawled over girls who deserved to live, girls who burned in flames that did not manage to kill me.
I cannot lie, cannot hide that much. So instead I offer a manageable truth.
“Because I am shit from Troy,” I tell him, baring my teeth as I do. “And I remember the stink of your bombs.”
Surprise flashes in his face, and he leans back in his chair, satisfied.
“Your honesty is refreshing,” he says. “So tell me, Paris of Troy. Do you blame me for those bombs?”
I shrug one shoulder. “They didn’t killme,” I say.
This time, he smiles, and for the first time I can see his resemblance to his daughter. “You have the spirit required for the Family,” he says finally. “Very well, fixer. Why would the brothers challenge me? They are about tojoinme. Helen solidifies that alliance.”
He must have used her for just such a purpose many times over the years—because who has seen Helen of the gods and not tried to use her? There is war in the tilt of her jaw. There is power in the red of her lips. There is violence waiting in the hollow of her throat. “If they have Helen, is she really your asset anymore?” I ask him. “Or is she Milos’s bargaining chip? Is she the face ofhisendeavors? And what of his brother?”
It must twist in his chest, that this was exactly the case with Lena all those decades ago. The marriage was meant to be an alliance, an end to the squabbles. Lena’s Trojan family and Zarek’s family united, and more powerful for it.
Except Troy didn’t want Zarek, something he could never forgive.
Zarek stands, pushes his chair back to its proper place. I get a look around me for the first time as he does.
The office is as opulent and pristine as the rest of the house, with high vaulted ceilings and a hand-carved desk that probably cost over five years’ living expenses for the entire group home back on Troy. Zarek waves a hand to his guards, who step out of his office, their obedience silent and immediate.
The door swings shut with a heavythunk.
“Do you know why I brought you here?” he asks softly.
