Page 30 of Heresy
She is on the cot, the photography book resting open in her lap. She is perfectly still, her posture calm, her focus absolute. From this distance, through the distorted lens, I can see the way her fingers trace the edges of a photograph on the page, the slow, reverent movement of an artist communing with her faith. She is a portrait of quiet, contained defiance in the heart of my chaotic kingdom, a scholar in a tomb I built for her.
I have just set in motion a plan that will tear a rival's world apart, an act of brutal, psychological warfare that will burn my enemies' lives to the ground. It is the kind of move that defines a presidency, that cements a legacy in fear and blood.
And all I can think about is the silent, intricate war she is waging against me from a concrete cell twenty feet above my head.
They think this war is with the Santos. They think this war is with Cain. They see the map, the soldiers, the enemy on the horizon.
They're wrong.
The real war, the one that is costing me sleep, the one that is cracking the foundations of my control, is being fought right here. In the dark. Against a ghost on a screen.
THIRTEEN
THE MARK OF THE BEAST
VERA
The bite on my shoulder has scabbed over, a tight, pulling sensation that throbs in time with the dull ache between my legs—constant, physical reminders of his brutal lesson. But the raw humiliation, the memory of being publicly broken, is a sharper, more persistent pain. It fuels a cold, unwavering resolve that has become my new religion.
Something has shifted in the air of this place. The usual undercurrent of rough, testosterone-fueled camaraderie has been replaced by a taut, coiled tension. The men move with a clipped, angry urgency, their voices low and conspiratorial. Even the roar of the motorcycles leaving the garage this morning had a more aggressive edge, the sound of a wounded animal baring its teeth. Something has happened. The beast is wounded, and it’s getting ready to bite back. A distracted predator is a careless predator.
Since leaving the book—his silent declaration of a new kind of war—Hex has been a ghost. His absence is its own form of warfare, a deliberate act of dismissal that stings more than I care to admit. But the tension in the house, the scent of impending war that hangs heavy in the air, feels like an opportunity. A crack in the bars of my cage.
You want to play with ghosts, Hex?I can almost hear his low, mocking drawl in my head.Fine. We'll fight.The thought is a phantom whisper that only strengthens my resolve. Yes, I want to play. And ghosts are experts at slipping through walls.
My new purpose gives me focus. I stop pacing and start watching, listening with an intensity that borders on a trance. My opportunity, I realize, comes twice a day on a plastic tray. I focus on the prospect who brings my food. He's new, not the one they called Static. This one is younger, his face a mess of adolescent acne and pure, undiluted fear. He's a child playing dress-up in a monster's world, and he's jumpy, his movements hurried. He performs the delivery with a sloppy, distracted haste.
For two days, I just listen, learning the rhythm. The scrape of the main bolt being thrown. The screech of the food slot. His retreating footsteps. And then I notice what is missing. There should be a second sound. After the heavyTHUDof the bolt sliding home, there should be a smaller, sharper click. The sound of a key turning in the deadbolt. It was there the first few days, a final, definitive seal. But in the haze of his new fear, in the club's rush to war, the prospect has been forgetting. The door is bolted, but it is not locked.
A jolt of pure, electric hope, so potent it makes me dizzy, shoots through me.
A memory surfaces,sharp and clear. I’m sixteen, in the library of my father’s penthouse, watching one of his men, a quiet killer named Sasha, teach me how to play chess. He’d used a bent paperclip to jimmy the lock on a wooden box where he kept his cigarettes.“Every cage has a flaw, little princess,”hehad whispered, his voice smelling of cloves.“You just have to be patient enough to find it.”
Patience and a tool. I can be patient. Now I just need the tool.
My eyes scan my meager possessions. The cot, the thin blanket, the clothes on my back. My hand goes to the strap of my bra. Underneath the fabric is a thin, flexible piece of metal. An underwire.
It takes an hour of painful, meticulous work. I use the rough edge of the concrete floor where it meets the wall, sawing the wire back and forth against the rough aggregate. My fingers are raw and bleeding by the time I free it, a thin, curved piece of steel. It’s flimsy. I need a handle.
I take the piece of bread from my evening meal and begin to work it in my hands, compressing it, hardening it, molding the doughy substance around one end of the wire. The process is slow, maddening. I leave the crude tool on the floor in the corner, where it will harden overnight into something solid.
I lie on my cot in the darkness, my heart a steady, determined beat. The tool is made. The flaw has been found. Tomorrow, this little ghost is going to try and walk through a wall.
The next daypasses in a blur of forced calm and screaming nerves. My body goes through the routine—the push-ups, the pacing—but my mind is a coiled spring, waiting. Evening comes. I hear the heavy tread of the terrified prospect. My heart hammers. I sit on the cot, my face a mask of weary resignation. The bolt scrapes. The food slot screeches. The tray slides across the floor.
I don’t breathe. I just listen. The slot screeches shut. The heavy bolt thuds home. Then, the sound of his footsteps, hasty and uneven, retreating down the hall.
Nothing. No jingle of keys. No final, sharp click. He forgot again.
I wait for a full five minutes, every second an eternity. When only the familiar, distant rumble of the clubhouse remains, I move. My hands are slick with sweat as I retrieve my makeshift tool. It’s a pathetic thing, a bent wire with a lump of hardened bread for a handle. It feels like a prayer.
I kneel at the door, pressing my ear against the cold steel. I slip the thin, curved end of the wire into the crack near the bolt. My world narrows to this single, desperate task. The metal scrapes softly against metal, the sound a deafening roar in my own ears.
Patience, little princess. Don't force it.
I kneel at the door, pressing my ear against the cold steel. I slip the thin, curved end of the wire into the crack near the bolt. My world narrows to this single, desperate task. The metal scrapes softly against metal.
My fingers ache. I push. I wiggle. I feel the tip of the wire find the edge of the bolt. My breath catches. I apply slow, steady pressure, but my hand is slick with sweat and my fingers begin to spasm. The makeshift tool slips from my grasp, clattering against the steel door with a sharptinkbefore falling to the concrete floor.
