Page 23 of Tide of Treason
A sharp pulse kicked up beneath my skin. We were both staring at each other like we’d just hit a wall neither of us wanted to climb. Feeling the burn of a question rising, I shoved it down. It was a road I couldn’t afford to go down—Kayla had already spilled too much of her darkness into my hands. Greed would only get me buried.
A quiet sigh. She finally let my wrist go, her long, elegant fingers releasing their bruising hold in an oddly reluctant fashion. Stepping back, I rubbed the reddened skin, still reeling from the sting of her rebuke and the sting of my wounded pride.
I needed a distraction. Cabinets. Fridge. A bullet to the brain. Whatever got the job done.
I flung open the first cupboard and found end-times cuisine: three shriveled ramen bricks, a carton of rice grown its own ecosystem, one suicidal egg wobbling on the lip of expiry. Kayla was right. My kitchen was as fucked as I was. I slammed it shut, tension riding my shoulders. “You’re different to the others.”
“How so?”
“More.” That was it. Not enough syllables to hold the weight, but it was all I could manage.
“More how?” she pushed.
“Everything.” The word slipped out on a breath I’d bitten in half as I reached up for the vodka bottle in the cupboard. It seemed like a solution—if you could call pouring accelerant on a lit fuse a solution—so I unscrewed the cap with a harsh twist that echoed across the kitchen. “Just . . . more. And I’m not even sure how much of that is a good thing.”
“None of me is a good thing, Lucius.”
Bottle in hand, I twisted.
She had this stillness to her. An intensity. It took me back to moments in dark shadows where I imagined feeling those nails break the skin. The way her touch flayed the soul,cut the marrow from bone. Her presence had a weight like no other. I’d wanted to shake Kayla Sforza, rattle the composure, and I’d somehow managed to do it. Now I was left reeling.
My knuckles burned, but I ignored it, upturning the vodka over the sink, pouring it straight down in a continuous stream without so much of a goodbye. No one to care about its absence, or mourn the loss. There would be no vigil for it. No one to miss the bastard. The bottle clunked against the metal, drained of both alcohol and my anger. A few droplets clung stubbornly to the underside of the sink, reluctant to be discarded. Bracing my hands on the edge, I watched it drip through a crack and then disappear into oblivion.
Silk whispered.
My gaze dragged up.
She’d crossed one lethal leg over the other, palms absently sliding up her thighs. My pulse faltered. I was losing it, that much was clear. Truthfully, I could never recall being this edgy while on my medication in my life, so it had to be her presence. The walls pressed closer, the silence a scream, until my phone buzzed and shattered it.
Snatching it off the counter, I dropped onto the battered couch and read the text with an icy calmness that belied the near-maniacal edge in my chest.
Rafael:Found him.
Two words I wanted to savour.
To drag out.
To chew.
Then swallow.
They played in my skull as I typed out a quick reply and tossed the phone aside, running a hand over my mouth in a mix of agitation and grim satisfaction. Something feral stirred in the medicated cavity of my chest, a beast rousing from restless slumber.
Me:Good. Tell him I said hello.
Present |Nova Ordem
5 | Lucius
23 years old
Present day
Two years.
A blink to some. A lifetime to men like me. Enough for empires to rise from ash, for loyalty to curdle into betrayal, or for a man’s sins to fossilise in his bones. Time didn’t heal, it corroded. Two years could hollow out a saint, poison a dynasty, or stretch a man’s patience thin as a razor over the whetstone of duty.
Two years since Viviana Sforza smiled through gritted teeth and slid a diamond collar on her finger.
