Page 4 of Ambition

At first, I think she means the man on the floor. I want to say it doesn’t matter because he’s lying on his bowels and if he managed to get up at all, he’d probably trip over them.

But when I slowly turn my head to face her, she’s searching my eyes through the holes of the mask.

“It’s you he wants. But he can’t have you.” Her gaze narrows. “You are mine.”

* * *

PRESENT

I see the man’s intestines inside my mind when the door creaks open. Seven years ago and it’s the brightest memory I have; organs threaded amongst the darkness seemed like proof of love to me then.

But as Isadora Croft slips inside the gym and I clench my fists, feeling my split knuckles because I didn’t wrap my hands this morning before bag work, I wonder if maybe it was only proof of Isa’s messy little brain.

The door slowly closes with a soft thud and being here like this reminds me ofthen.The darkened building, soft rain against the blacked-out windows—we both got soaked when I carried her out of the burning warehouse—and her returning once again to me like that night I found her.

But today is so wickedly different.

I knew it would play out this way and I have for years. Yet foreknowledge isn’t enough to stop my sulking. Common occurrence, unfortunately. Ask fortune tellers, people working in cartomancy. You can tell everyone the warning signs; it doesn’t mean the stock market won’t collapse.

It doesn’t mean your best friend won’t rip your heart from your chest like she yanked on that man’s intestines. Even all these years later, I’m not so sure who was the victim that night.

“You fucked him.” I can’t force myself to phrase it as a question. Hearing the fucking nightmare come true… I don’t want her confirmation and I’d love her denial, but I know it isn’t coming. She was sent to Theo Sancte with a job to do and she never leaves anything half-finished.

My stomach tightens and I wonder if this is what it felt like for the guard she disemboweled.

She says nothing, her arms crossed as she keeps her back against the wall inside Nox, the private gym we’re both allowed to use at specified times and dates, thanks to our connection to the Unsaints, a criminal organization far bigger than our own.

Right now, I want to take that connection and fucking break it. Instead, I run a hand through my curly red hair, turning away from the girl I once thought I would marry. That delusion disappeared well before tonight—probably after she lost her virginity to someone else when we were teenagers and I held onto mine for her—but it doesn’t make anything better.

“If I’m to keep my in with Vipera, I have to do what it takes.” She breaks the silence without a greeting and recites each word as if she’s rehearsed it in front of a mirror for a week straight, planning for this moment when she would discuss it with me.

Knowing her, she probably has.

“And if what it takes includes fucking Theo, then I will do it again, and again—”

“Stop.”I whisper the word and hate the way it’s a plea. I twist my fingers sharply in my damp hair, split knuckles grazing my scalp as I stare at the black wall of the gym. Tinted windows keep out the damp April heat, spring more like a sweltering summer in Alexandria, North Carolina. But everything inside Nox is dreary and doomed and dark. Even the A/C feels somber in a way, snaking up my bare arms, twisting along my collarbone, trailing icily over my abs. The sweat I conjured from punching the bag beside the elevated boxing ring before Isa’s arrival has all but vanished.

Every muscle in my body is exhausted. Every limb fatigued. I’ve been here all this fucking time waiting for Isadora’s return at our designated meeting place. We always have one, after each job, and it’s never our place, because it could be compromised.

And Iknewwhen she didn’t text me last night. When she didn’t come home to the condo we’ve shared since we were eighteen and fully inducted members of Writhe. Just months after I saved her, or she saved me. Six years we’ve lived together, worked together, fought together. Our parents are as close as family.

We never had a chance to be strangers.

But my dad warned me.

“You lovea girl in the organization, one you grew up alongside like Isadora Croft… Well, you’ll be damned to watch her turn into someone you don’t recognize. And Isadora is ambitious. Leave your heart out of it. I promise you, Von,she will.”

“And if I love her now? If it’s too late?” I was sixteen and hopelessly obsessed.

My dad’s eyes softened then and he smiled a little sadly. “One day she’ll do something love won’t cover. Then you’ll know it’s time to let go.”

Isadora keeps talking,her articulate, polished voice chinking through my armor. I long for the music from that fucked-up Halloween morning, if only to drown out her words.

“If we don’t ruin Vipera, Vipera will ruinus.And so will the Unsaints and their fucked-up parents, for that matter.”Because the Unsaints and the 6—their parents’ cult—gave us this job.“Vipera is importing too much weaponry, too many lethal drugs. Keeping the higher-ups coked up is one thing, but leaving guns to scatter about the streets of Alexandria is another. You heard the debriefing. Mads wants their supplier and he needs me to get it since you aren’t Theo’s type. Do I need to remind you, Mads is yourfather?You think I want to say no tohim?”

As she lectures me, I can see her face inside my head, even without looking at her. Brown skin, wide cheekbones, pale red lips. Long, curly black hair. Eyes so dark they’re nearly obsidian. A foot smaller than me but with tight muscle, triceps earned from a million dips and push-ups and fists to the punching bags. Taut thighs from lunges and deadlifts and kicking my ass on the mat. She’s been trained as well as me. She’s earned her place in Writhe with as much blood and sweat as I have.

Now she’s climbing through the ranks with other bodily fluids for the first time, and I can’t fucking stand it. I thought when we started being indoctrinated as teenagers I would grow to accept women can be used in ways men oftentimes can’t within the organization. Many wives have done so, ones who came before both Isadora and me. I thought I respected it, even. The 6 don’t bother with women at all, but despite the fact they oversee Writhe, this newer, less-demonic organization I’m a part of decided to make use of everyone, regardless of gender.Progress,they called it.

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