Page 21 of Love Is A Draw
“Now, my stuff.” Victor’s demand cut sharply through the air, no longer soft, his patience clearly thinning.
Gail noticed the way his posture shifted, taut as a bowstring yet calm. His hands hung loose at his sides, but something unyielding danced behind his eyes.
The boy knelt, rummaging through Victor’s satchel with a casual irreverence. Grimy, calloused fingers brushed hastily through the contents until he froze, pulling out one of Victor’s notebooks. He flipped it open with careless hands, scanning the pages covered in Victor’s unmistakable scrawl.
His lips curled downward in disdain. “Books?” he sneered, holding the pages aloft for all in the alley to see. “Just scribbles.”
Victor flinched, subtle but not unnoticed by Gail, as the boy flung the notebook onto the filthy alley ground. “All of them just scribbles?” The boy yanked out another ledger and tossed it atop the first. He barked a laugh toward his sister. “He’s a madman for running after you for this nonsense.”
Victor’s long legs carried him forward, bending swiftly to retrieve the ledgers from the dirt. No hesitation. No complaint. Only urgency, something fierce in his movements. When he straightened, dusting off the covers with a slow intensity, her heart flipped against her ribs. These were no idle books; they were lifeblood to him.
Light caught on a glint of metal.
A knife.
It hovered precariously close to Victor’s chest, trembling ever so slightly in the boy’s grip. Gail’s breath seized in her throat, her eyes locked on the wicked, curved blade that glistened in the shadows around them. The knife was crude, the type one might find discarded at the docks, lovingly sharpened to lethal potential. But Victor barely flinched. He stood rooted, steady, his expression almost bemused as he stared down the boy holding it.
“If you have no use for this,” Victor said, his tone deceptively calm, almost casual, “then let us go.”
Gail marveled at his composure. She stood frozen, her fingers clutching the useless reticule, while her pulse roared in her ears. But Victor acted as if time itself bent to his control, as if his response were only a matter of strategy, another move to calculate. And she, absurdly, trusted him to win.
The boy’s grip on the knife shifted, sweat glistening against his knuckles. The books no longer seemed to matter to him—he’d already cast them aside. What he wanted now was coin, a chance to escape from whatever corner of London had driven him to this.
“You’re causing yourself more trouble than you can handle.” Victor held a piercing stare, despite the steady neutrality of his tone.
“I can handle plenty of trouble.” The boy’s voice cracked, defiant yet laced with fear. “But money’s what I don’t have.”His hand tightened on the knife’s wooden hilt, trembling harder now. He took an uncertain step forward.
Victor didn’t retreat. “You don’t need money.” He reached into his coat pocket. “What you need is to learn how to think. The rest will follow.”
With a flick of his wrist, Victor produced a folded sheet of paper and held it up for the boy to grab. Disbelief cracked across the boy’s face before he snatched the paper, lowering the knife an inch in confusion.
Victor lunged forward. He wrenched the knife free of the boy’s grip with frightening ease and hurled it behind him into the shadows. It clattered to the stones.
The boy recoiled. “Hey!” His growl broke with indignation as he cracked open the paper, eyes widening to its blank surface. “There’s nothing on this!”
Victor’s lips curled into a faint smirk. “Exactly. Just like your future. It’s up to you to keep it clean… or sully it further with mischief like this. Think about it.”
The boy scanned the paper and looked back at Victor, no words forming on his slack jaw. Reluctantly, his sister tugged at his arm, pulling him a step back.
Victor didn’t linger. He shrugged the satchel onto his shoulder, his features softening as he turned to Gail. “We’re finished here.” His expression carried a weight only she could see.
He extended a hand toward her, and Gail hesitated only a moment before slipping her fingers into his. Together, they left the alley behind, with only the faintest echo of “madman” drifting behind them.
It was, perhaps, not wrong. Only… brave.
Victor cherishedthe warmth of Gail’s hand slipped into the crook of his arm, and despite the turmoil of the last quarter-hour, a faint sense of calm settled over him. The tension in his shoulders eased as they walked side by side, their pace slow and deliberate, as though neither had the heart to rush away from the charged silence hanging between them. The edge of the park had fallen quieter now. Lanterns swung gently in the breeze, casting long shadows across the gravel paths as the sun made its descent. Above them, the first threads of twilight softened the edges of the tree line, the air cool but not biting.
Gail broke the silence first. “That was daring.”
Victor tilted his head to glance at her, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “I’m not afraid of children. I’ve faced far worse.” The words were light, but even he could hear the shadow that trailed behind them.
Her light chuckle warmed him, rising and falling like a ripple in still water. But when her laughter quieted, the weight of her words settled between them.
“I’m sorry they took your money,” he added.
She shook her head and, with a small flourish, flicked open her reticule as they walked. “Not too much.” He saw the slight crease between her brows. “They need it more than I.”
Victor frowned, his gaze lingering on the pale curves of her profile. “I’m so sorry about both parts of that.” He meant this in ways he didn’t fully understand himself—ways that extended beyond stolen coins and misplaced heirlooms.
