Page 31 of Ambition

I follow his gaze, mesmerized into silence for a moment by the way the lights curl into a blue tint with the indigo glass. But when I blink, I imagine someone shooting it down, the entire structure collapsing in a spray of shards and light and pain on top of our heads.

I swallow tightly before I speak, but I force myself not to move even with the macabre thought inside my head. “Karia is here,” I say. “She has been staring at you all night. Didn’t even glance at Cosmo when he came by with the weed.”

Von slides his hands into his pockets, but he’s still staring upward. “After all these years, you’d think I would be used to you deflecting with shit that doesn’t matter, like that.” There is a bite to his words.

I clench my teeth and we keep staring up.

It feels like hours pass that way, us alone in the back exit, stolen moments of time together like we took growing up, too. But it’s as if I always danced just out of his reach, and when I tried to twirl into him, he would flinch.

I love him. I would kill for him. You need an ally in this life, someone who will be there when the bullets start flying, and he is it for me.

But we are too young and too threatened and when it comes down to it, my ambition is to rule Writhe and to get there, I will have to lie, steal, kill, fuck for it, and Von won’t hold my hand through any of that.

“It might be nice if this thing fell on our heads right now, don’t you think?” he asks, turning to look at me before I can speak.

I narrow my gaze on his, our eyes locked, only inches between us. “I don’t want to die.”

“Watching you with him, that’s what it feels like, you know? Or you, with anyone.”

I frown, surprised he is saying all of this out loud right now. It’s not as if I haven’t noticed how overprotective he was before but he usually doesn’t implicate his own feelings in it. “Von.” That’s all I say. I don’t have words for anything else.

He shakes his head once, like he doesn’t want to hear them even if I find something more. “He better respect you.”

I arch a brow, feeling more comfortable in this territory. “I like the disrespect.”

He sighs, loudly. “Yep,” he says, glancing upward. “Would be nice if that came crashing down on me right about now.”

* * *

When I wakeafter a fitful night of stolen moments of sleep, Von is not here. I can tell before I even get out of my queen bed, the way silence rips through the condo. Maybe it’s because we’re inextricably linked, or perhaps I know the scent and feel and sound of his body resting in our home, but he is certainly gone.

And the sun hasn’t even risen yet.

After dressing in black sweats, a white tank, and pushing on white sneakers, throwing my makeup, hair products, and silk pajamas in my burgundy duffle bag, I twist open my bedroom door. I can’t find the lingerie I bought yesterday, and I remember Von picked it up and took the bag down the hall. I didn’t look for it after that, but perhaps it’s on the kitchen island.

Yet as I take a step outside of my room, I feel the bottom of my shoe slide against something that is certainly not marble.

And there,right there,is hundreds of dollars of lingerie cut into tidy little strips. Even the underwire has been clipped, pulled through, and it surrounds the material like an unholy little circle.

Red, green, black lace, neat and sending a message.

For a moment, I do not react.

I take a breath in, inhaling the cool air of our condo. Out, trying to expel the rage inside of me.

In again.

I snap my head up, my gaze locked on Von’s bedroom door, pulled closed.

I have vivid, visceral images of me starting a fire inside that room of dark blue and black tones, burning everything down so when he steps inside, he’s walking into ash.

But I know that’s not really how fire works, and yet…it feels good, thinking of it.

I don’t have time to do that though. I’m supposed to meet Cain Bonavich at Nox, learn about this inside contact, then I have to get myself ready to walk into Vipera’s compound once more.

I close my eyes tight, hand still on the knob of my door, and force myself tolet this fucking go for now.

When I’ve done my job, I will deal with Von’s immaturity.

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