Page 104 of The Obedient Lie
That was the moment I lost control.
Now, Vince’s voice echoed through the phone at my ear. Low. Measured.
“Where’s Bastion?”
I glanced over.
He was on the couch. One hand wrapped around a towel packed with ice, the other gently resting across Emilia’s hip. He hadn’t moved in ten minutes. Just sat there. Seething.
“Asleep,” I lied.
Vince paused—just long enough to make me wonder if he believed it.
“And Griffin?”
As if questioning was he still alive or if I had called after we had already reacted.
“I want him gone.”
“I know you do.” The flick of a lighter. A long drag of his cigarette. “But not yet.”
I pushed off the wall. “She wasdrugged, Vince. Repeatedly”
I mean not awake-still. Likestill still.
I dragged my hand over my face.
A pause. The sound of a lighter flicking. A soft inhale.
“You end him now, it’ll trace back. And you know what that means.”
I did. It meant retaliation. It meant war.
Another long drag, “Timing matters.”
“Fuck the timing.”
“No,” he said quietly. “You don’t get tofuck the timing, Luca. You get to play the long game. Because you’re smart. Because you’re a Crow. You put him on a list. You bury him over years. You ruin his credibility, his inheritance, his name.Thenyou end him.”
Silence. The same type that was normal with Vince. Not judging us, just forcing us to think.
“I know how to wait,” I said finally, my voice tight. “I just don’t know how to beokaywhile I do.”
“Then don’t be okay. Be precise. I didn’t raise boys. I raisedmen. Men who know how to do their revenge so clean, no one sees the blade until it’s already in.”
There was another pause. Longer.
“You’re doing good, Luca. Better than I did at your age.”
That hit harder than anything else could’ve.
“Get Bastion to call me. I just need to hear that he’s okay. Alright?”
“Yeah.”
“But if it ever gets too much, for you or for Bastion, you call me. I’ll handle it.”
My chest tightened.
