Page 41 of Orion Ruined

“Maybe I’ll show you one day.” A beat passes and before she can say anything, I add, “If you’re a good girl for me.”

She locks eyes with me, looking a little embarrassed, and nods faintly. At this very moment, something becomes as clear as day to me. I want to dive into Maisy’s abyss, search for her in the black void, then pull her up from the depths and take her back down again. Until she can’t take it any longer, and she doesn’t know if she’s lost or found. Until I save her. Or she saves me.

I lift her up into my arms. She’s so soft, small, and fragile, and she smells so good. This must be the feeling that got the other two hooked, looking after someone in a world where nobody knows about them and for that reason, they can never be destroyed.

In our world, women are tokens that we play with.

That’s the curse of the Cartes, the Delgados, and the Vitalis. We can never have a normal life. We were brought up in this world to rule over the weak, extort, kill, torture, and hold the power no matter what.

That’s how I met Kai and Logan. When I was fifteen, my father took me to a deserted factory and told me I was to make my first kill there. Who was I supposed to kill? He’d heard that Mickey Delgado was going to take his son Kai there, who was thirteen at the time. Lorenzo Vitali had heard the same thing; Logan was fourteen. So they pitted us all against each other. We found out later they’d laid bets on us.

We were just boys who wanted to have fun, to play. Not kill each other. It was then when our brotherhood started. We did make our first kills, though. Had to be done. We found the closest man on the lookout for each one of our families, and we killed them. My father never questioned me after that day. I told him, You wanted me to kill someone, and I did. Be specific next time about who you want dead. I felt so proud of how I’d screwed him over, which is maybe partly the reason I chose to study law. The devil is in the details.

Maisy’s smiling at me as I carry her down the stairs to the second floor, where her room is. “I can walk from here,” she purrs.

“You’re not heavy,” I say, and take the last few steps before I lay her down on her bed and prop her pillow up. “Comfortable?”

She nods, but scrunches up her nose as she touches her cheek and cringes in pain. I think the door slammed her good–well, I did. She’s lucky she’s alive. I was only going for incapacitating the enemy, not for the kill. That’s the definition of lucky.

“Let me bring you an ice pack.”

I head downstairs to the kitchen and, after carefully maneuvering through the shards and the sticky mess on the floor, I reach the freezer and grab the ice pack. Then I head back up to her.

I help her secure it in the right place. “Here, hold it.”

“Ouch–it’s cold!” she protests.

“Ice is usually cold. Didn’t they teach you that in school?” I scoff, knowing perfectly well how smart she is.

“O-ryon,” she mutters in a small voice, “you’re always out at night. What do you do during the day?”

“I’m here, having meetings, or in the courtroom if there’s a case on.” The moment my guard’s down, she does something like this. What am I to think now? Why’s she questioning me? I pick up the remote and point it at the TV. “Let’s see what’s on.”

I search through Netflix and steal a glance at her. I would’ve thought she’d be tired at nearly five in the morning, but her eyes are following mine and there’s still a wicked spark in them.

“How about a drink? Do you want to drink something?”

“You mean alcohol?”

“Yes. What’s your go-to drink?” I ask.

“I love champagne.”

“Oh, you do, huh?”

“I know it’s extravagant, but I can’t drink any other alcoholic drink. It’s the only one that doesn’t give me headaches. But trust me, I haven’t had it a lot. It’s expensive.”

“When was the last time you had a glass of champagne?”

“Can’t remember. A couple years ago.”

“I have champagne in the fridge, as a matter of fact. Do you want me to bring it up?”

She just gave me the fucking of the century, so I’ll do anything to make sure she’s relaxed and sleeping for a while. There’s too much on her mind, always thinking, calculating something. She needs a break.

“I don’t know, it’s way too early. We should go to bed, Orion.”

I hear one thing but I see another; there are fireworks in the black pools of her eyes. Dark, dirty thoughts that only a man under her spell can see.

---