Page 6 of Tide of Treason
Her eyes slid down. Back up through thick lashes. “And what brings it on?”
“Life.” I smiled, all charm and teeth. “And you. You being alive provokes me a great deal, doctor.”
I let that comment linger for a few seconds. Long enough to remind her that she was only safe in this fancy office because I allowed it.
That was the secret. I could say whatever I wanted to anybody in this room, to their faces. And there was nothing they could do to punish or even reproach me for my behavior. For all intents and purposes, I was a patient here. A patient undergoing psychiatric evaluation, and that afforded me an insane amount of privileges.
“You really haven’t been taking your medication, have you?” Elara asked after a brief pause. A mixture of mood stabilisers and SSRIs carefully put together to deaden the devil, drown the itch that made my knuckles crack and my mind blaze red. Instead, I’d let the capsules fossilise, and the darkness inside me had begun to bloom, hungry and phosphorescent.
“You’d be correct.”
“It’s not healthy to avoid such deep-seated issues.”
I stayed silent, turning my attention to a passing groupof orderlies wheeling a screaming patient down the hall in a straightjacketed, half-naked state. That would be me soon enough.
“Lucius . . .” She exhaled my name on a tense breeze. “Your father has asked me to continue the sessions. I must insist that you start cooperating fully—”
“I don’t have a father.”
Silence fell upon the room. After a second, she rearranged her features into something more neutral. Neutral with a trace of irritation, of course, because it pissed her off that I would disregard her authority and question her methods.
“Sergius,” she amended.
I hated his name off her lips.
“He’d be very concerned if your symptoms continued and we did nothing to treat it.”
Dark amusement spread through me. Concern? Concern was a luxury he’d never afforded me. This same man had watched me crumble through years of late-night binges and rage-fueled blackout drives, never once lifting a finger. No. He only sat up when it suited him, when the boardrooms buzzed with talk of an alliance, when my volatility threatened to blow the whole thing sky-high in front of the Italians. Then—only then—he summoned the shrink.
“Your symptoms are getting worse,” Elara pressed, pen rat-tat-tatting across her notepad. “Neglect will manifest in other ways. You’ve already blacked out once.”
“I imagine he hopes you’ll stitch me together before the big day.”
She lifted her shoulders, a rigid little shrug that told me she was more involved than she cared to admit. “I’ve been speaking to your bride-to-be. Viviana is young. And very nervous. Her condition is . . . not the best.”
A small twitch of annoyance had me adjusting my position in the chair. Elara Fujikawa: therapist, psychiatrist, and now, self-appointed marriage counsellor. Quite the résumé.
Viviana wasn’t my concern. Shit, I couldn’t even remember the last time she’d crossed my mind except for when the name was shoved in my face.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” I let the accusation hang in the stale office air.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “What makes you say that?”
“You make this sound a lot more complicated than it needs to be.” I tilted my head. “The poor girl is a fucking basket case. What else is there?”
Pen halted. She inhaled, lips flattening into a grim line. “It’s rumored that Viviana was a lesbian. That she was in a relationship with someone outside the family. It was only recently discovered, and her parents were”—a slip of hesitation—“disappointed. They believe this alliance will steer her toward duty.”
Leaning back, the leather chair groaned, and I pictured the shattered pills in my drawer, the shards of my better self. That Viviana was a lesbian didn’t shock me. What did, however, was how long they thought they could beat it out of her with rehearsal dinners and bridal fittings.
I almost felt bad for the girl.
Forty minutes later,Elara scribbled her signature at the bottom of the page to certify our session. I remained sat across from her, idly skimming through her latest ‘findings’. When the ink on the page dried, she snapped the file closed and shoved it out of my reach.
“That’s enough for today, Lucius.”
I gave a sarcastic smile, not looking up from the doodle I’d drawn in the margin. It was a small sketch I’d whipped up, a stick figure with a knife decapitating the head of a unicorn. Something about the innocent creature stabbed in a puddle of its own blood had my psychiatrist clearing her throat, her expression slightly pinched. I reckoned I had about five minutes before some pompous bigwig tried to haul me off somewhere quieter.
“You’re a sadist,” she declared flatly, right as a door down the corridor swung open, and a pair of expensive heels started clacking against the floor.
