Page 80 of The Silent War
“Enforcement,” I muttered. “Southside.”
Her mouth tightened, then softened again. She kissed the mark, right there. My throat burned. Her hand left me, slid across to Luca. She traced the tattoos across his chest, his throat. Only to stop on the pale line that ran over his ribs, jagged and deep.
The one that caused a night of madness. It still made my blood rush hot. Luca wasn’t just my brother. One soul, two bodies. The bastards died slowly for it.
“This one?” she asked him.
Luca caught her hand mid-trace, pressed her palm flat over it. “Doesn’t matter. I survived it.”
She shook her head. “It matters to me.”
Christ. I couldn’t breathe.
Her touch lingered, moving between us, mapping everything we’d carved and everything that had carved us.
“I don’t…” Her voice dropped. “I don’t like people hurting you.”
“We don’t take hurt, angel. We give it.” I gently traced her back, trying to ease the concern from her face.
That earned a small smile from her. “And that’s what I never liked about your dynasty.”
My brows pulled. “What part?”
She looked between us. “Most heirs… they inherit. Money. Status. Titles. But you…” Her thumb traced another scar, gentler this time. “…you inherit the violence as well.”
Her hand stayed there. On Luca’s chest. Then it drifted back to me, sliding over the lines of black ink that covered my ribs, pausing on another scar.
“You carry it everywhere,” she whispered.
She wasn’t wrong, but still, I hated seeing it in her eyes. As if our pain hurt her.
“It’s only fair,” I said.
Her brows knit. “What is?”
“Our turn.”
I trailed my hand down her spine, fingers spreading wide. I mapped her the way she had mapped us.
Luca mirrored me. His fingertips brushed the other side of her back, moving lower, deliberate, until she was caught between us.
“I don’t…” she breathed, barely above water. “I don’t have tattoos. Or scars.”
“Not yet,” Luca said.
She turned her face to him, startled, lips parting.
My hand flattened against the small of her back. His did too. Both of us tracing the same path, meeting in the middle.
Her breath caught. Her eyes flicked between us.
We both knew what we were thinking. The same picture. The same vow.
Ink across her back. Our names tattooed into her skin. Crow Dynasty law, a bond that never breaks.
She didn’t wear it yet. But we saw it already.
She closed her eyes slightly, as if enjoying our touch. “The party’s almost over.”
