Page 93 of Jagged Souls
Because I didn’t know Mother was that fucking broken, and Itrustedmy brother to listen.
To put her first above everything else, including us.
I never should’ve trusted them.
Tears burn the back of my eyes as rage, grief, and guilt tear every atom of my soul apart. I want to give into it, to let it rip me into pieces without purpose, to abandon me in a pile of shattered glass, so fragile, so broken, so utterly and completely useless to anyone.
But I can’t.
Because Antonio still has my wife – and Rudy.
I can’t break until I get them back.
So I blink away my pain and grab hold of the control I’m well known for. I look away from Maddox. I force myself to forgive him for making the wrong choice.
But I’ll never trust him again.
Not when it comes to her.
I take a moment to collect myself, to bottle up my grief and rage and guilt, and I focus it into something usable.
Something useful.
“Let me go, Enoch,” I say, my voice calm and flat. The emotion gone, the ruthless Boss back in its place.
He looks at Khalid, but the reaper is holding Micha’s soul doll in his only hand, his dark eyes distant. He’s focused on whatever is happening to Micha and Rudy rather than on us. So Enoch starts to look at Mother instead.
“Enoch,” I say, and this time I am not asking as a brother.
His magic releases me, and for a second, the grief pounds down on my shoulders, wanting to shove me to the ground. Steeling myself, I walk over to Khalid.
“Show me,” I demand.
His eyes focus on me, searching to see if I’m ready to see and hear what’s happening to my wife. Pain flashes in his eyes and then he turns towards the house.
I walk past Mother as I follow him. “Bury Leno where he lies,” I say. Krypto isn’t ready to give him to the shadows.
And neither am I.
She nods, her sorrow dry and silent.
But there is a question in her eyes, one she can’t quite hide:how many more children will I lose?
Turning from her, I head into the house.
I meet Khalid outside the room of runes on the ground floor. It was first built by our ancestors hundreds of years ago, and every time we moved, it was packed up and carried with us by magic. The door is made out of solid black stone, but on this side of the hall, it’s been spelled to look like part of the wall. No seams mark its location; no handle is there to turn.
“Does he want Rudy alive?” I ask, my throat tight as Khalid steps up to the wall. Normally, my brothers place a hand on the area and push their magic into the square room hidden on the other side, but with Micha’s doll in his only hand, Khalid instead leans his head against it.
“Yes,” the reaper says before he murmurs an incantation in Drazic, a demonic language that most of our spells are rooted in.
I glance up as the tension in my shoulders loosen a little, then I swallow hard as I prepare myself for what I’m about to see. Ever since Micha was pulled out of the shadows, I’ve been wondering if Rudy only did that because he was dying. If he feared she would be lost in there forever, left to die in that fucking cage. Did he pull her out because he knew Antonio wants her alive and that her chance of her survival would be higher with him than alone in the dark?
But if Antonio wants him alive too, that means I’m not about to enter the room of runes and see my brother dead through Micha’s eyes.
A small victory.
It isn’t enough.
