Page 32 of Ambition

After I’ve completed my packing with what I have, done my makeup and brushed my teeth and ran product over my hair, I can’t resist the urge just to check. Just toseeif I’m wrong and he’s still here and maybe I can throw ice cold water on his face to wake him up.

I knock on the door and realize it’s slightly ajar.

There is no answer.

I glance over my shoulder and see the scraps of lace surrounded by underwire.

I poke my head in his door and see only the deep blue of his made bed, empty.

Fucker.

And yet, beyond the anger, there’s a little disappointment too. Despite what he may think, I am terrified about tonight. It would’ve been nice to talk it over with him. Have him reassure me…but he probably wouldn’t do that either.

I head into the kitchen, drum my fingers on the island and contemplate grabbing something to eat but my stomach is in knots and I know what I’m really doing.

Trying todelay.

Towaitfor him.

Fuck that.

It makes no sense for him to be gone this early, but I assume after his meltdown of ripping my things to shreds, he’s purposefully avoiding me.

Fine with me. Better that way, actually. I won’t have to deal with his overbearing jealousy, or, conversely, his cold, clipped words and I won’t have to fight with him and smack his face for shredding my stuff.

I grab the dusky red duffle bag from the foyer and clench the keys to my Jeep in one manicured hand before I turn to stare into the open plan condo one last time. For several seconds, I only look at the empty kitchen, the stainless steel fridge, the darkness pouring in from the Venetian blinds in the neutral-colored living room.

But there is nothing.

No one.

He isn’t here, and he left no messages, and he ruined my shit.No handwritten notes, either, like we sometimes put up on the fridge with the assortment of planetary magnets there. I would never tell him, but I have a whole collection of his handwritten notes in a tin box under my bed.

My cheeks flush with warmth and I spin around toward the door.

Fuck you, Von.

I wish you were here.

In my Jeep,I listen to Breaking Benjamin and try not to think of him. I try tofocus.Whatever Cain Bonavich tells me to do, I will do it, since I missed the meeting with Mads and he had nothing to offer me while he prepped for Solemn.

Briefly, I think of seeing Lucifer Malikov in the eerie basement.

Both me and Von have met the Unsaints before, but hastily, without interaction.

And Cain was right, he is above everything, really. If I can impress him, it won’t matter if Von tries to sabotage me again. I can climbup.

I try to focus on that. My goal, which is to walk into a room and have the same amount of power that someone like Cain does. Hell, someone like hisfatherdoes. I do not want to be the delicate girl at home in the kitchen. The woman meant for babies, for breeding. I’m grateful to my own mother for raising me, happy for women who choose that life, but I saw what happened to Mom too. Staying home to care formeput Shella Croft at a disadvantage. While Dad received assignment after assignment and became one of the most respected men of Writhe, Mom was relegated to dinner parties and polite conversation amongst the other wives. All because she raised her own child. All because Dad got her pregnant.

I lightly press the tips of my red nails into the steering wheel as I navigate Alexandria’s empty downtown, the sun still invisible this early in the morning.

And as much as I try not to think of him, I can’t stop.

But I know it doesn’t matter that he thinks he loves me more than anyone else in my life, including my parents. It doesn’t matter if he reallydoescare for me. Just like with that little fucking stunt with my lingerie, he will hold me back, Writhe will look at me as less than, and I won’t have a seat at the fucking table any longer. It’s already harder without the protection of white skin, walking into places like the Vipera compound; something Von couldn’t possibly understand. It’s difficult enough, being a fucking girl, and if I start to hide behind Von Bentzen, with all the murders he’s tallied at his age and I’ve only got the one, I will only slip further and further behind, into the shadows, relegated to a mistress, a wife, a nanny.

No.It doesn’t matter how much he obsesses over me. I will not think about him. Not today.

I hear the door unlock.

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