Page 49 of Ambition

Absentmindedly, I stroke the red curls, a soft mass between my fingers.

A horror movie’s opening credits play, informing us this isbased on a true story.

“How are you feeling?” I ask quietly in the dark of our living room, my phone clutched in my free hand, blanket over my lap, another over Von’s. I glance down at his pale skin in the dimness, tracing the curve of his lips with my eyes as he relaxes into me for the first time in a long time.

“Like I got the shit beat out of me,” he says quietly, and my gaze snags on his stitches.

I continue massaging his scalp, grudgingly grateful I am not at Vipera’s compound tonight. Not that I would tell him that. “Well, whose fault is that?” I ask instead, but I’m smiling a little too as I glance at my phone screen, lighting up in my hand.

Mads: I heard about this morning. Text Cosmo.

I bite the inside of my cheek, my screen up close to my chest so Von can’t see.

Von sighs, one hand squeezing my knee as he does. “Shut up and say thank you, Isa.” His voice is raspy, and I know he’s likely feeling like hell. He showered when we got back, took some Tylenol, made us food, and we haven’t really talked much throughout the day.

But of course, we gravitate toward one another at night. Now.

Me: Why?

I send the text off, but I have a feeling I know why. I had a feeling when Cosmo was here with Karia yesterday too. A hunch, maybe.

“How about I sayfuck youinstead?”

Von pinches my knee, bare beneath my shorts, then he twists his head to look up at me, gray eyes sleepy and calm in the dark.

I press my phone over my heart, not wanting him to see his dad’s text come through to me. I haven’t spoken to my parents yet—I know Mom will be grateful to Von and Dad too, so complaining to either of them is useless—but I’m hoping after Mads’s culty shit last night with Solemn, he’s in a good mood and willing to let me try again soon.

Von reaches up a hand, covering my cheek gently, his touch soft despite his callouses. “I could fuck you,” he agrees with a slow smile. “But what you did for me this morning…” He bites his bottom lip, but the smile disappears. Then he says, holding my face, “You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met in my life, Isadora Croft.”

A blush rises in my cheeks, and I don’t know why I’m getting so hot and bothered over a compliment fromVon,but maybe because we don’t usually speak to each other like this. Maybe because it’s harder to feel detached from what we did together at Nox when our eyes meet in the dark and he’s whispering sweet words that might mean something, coming from him. “Yeah?” I ask, trying to stay coy.

He glides his thumb over my bottom lip and doesn’t look away from me. “Yes,” he says, a whisper. “One day, we’re going to make this work. Fuck the threats, the ransom, the liability we are together. Fuck the jobs, too. There is no world where we don’t belong to one another. And what you did for me…” He trails off, and I know he’s thinking of Halloween.

And I’m suddenly thinking of us under the chandelier at Hotel No. 7 and my chest tightens and for a second, I imagine it, working alongside one another instead of at each other’s throats.

“I only wanted to pay you back, okay?”

I lift my hand from his hair and capture his wrist in my fingers, holding on tight to him as I nuzzle my face against his palm. “You never needed to do that. I will always save you.”

He stares at me as haunting music plays from the movie in the background, his gray eyes gorgeous in the night.

I watch his throat work as he swallows, then he smiles and says, “And I, you.”

When we’re both focused on the movie again, my phone screen lights up in my hand. I glance at it, seeing Cosmo has textedmeafter I ignored Mads’s reply about the performance artist having something I may be interested in.

And I can’t hide my grin as I read the words.

Cosmo: Meet me at the hospital tomorrow morning. There’s a certain patient here who needs a pillow. The leader is off limits but the guard…

Lenox Mars.

Still under care for what Von did to him, and soon to be a dead man.

MADS

Why do we murder,I wonder as I stab the man again, and again, the morning sun likely rising soon after a night of Solemn.

In the basement of my home, surrounded by my brotherhood, I think of the pamphlet Isadora Croft put together for Writhe, detailed information on syndicates and societies on this side of the Atlantic.

---