Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Rome

“Rome. Sire? Are you listening?” Medan is losing patience, as he so often does.

Picking my teeth with a skewer and leaning back in my chair, I casually glance across the aged oak table surrounded by my Collective. “I am.”

“Then you need to prepare us.” He points at the table as he speaks. “What the hell happened with Darwin? Where did you go during the carnival? There will be questions.”

“I executed him,” I state plainly.

“Y-you, what?” Medan grips the bridge of his nose, shaking his head and breathing. It’s a mild panic attack, one that he’ll hide beneath concerns for Darwin and The Cradle, when really, he is fucking shit scared that his king is so quick to remove members of his Collective. Darwin isn’t the first. “I have known him my entire life…” He trails off, then clears his throat looking at me again.

Turin Two, my half-brother, stares at me, not intimidated as he knows that even I have my limits—executing my brother is one of them. “Why?”

The words “because I can” are on my tongue when Cairo saunters in answering him in the fashion Cairo is best known for, “For the good of The Trade,” with irrevocable reasoning.

He grips the edge of his seat and nods to each member of my Collective in acknowledgment. He is very good at pretending he respects them. Perhaps he does, in a way. “He is in coalition with rogues. We had to put a stop to it. Rome actioned it while everyone enjoyed the festivities, and no one is the wiser.”

Interesting…

I smirk. “For The Trade.”

Bled shakes his head, chuckling softly, as Turin Two continues, “And what of the Half-tower? They won’t like this at all. They may come to The Estate.”

“They do harbour most of our warships,” Bled states, smoothing his hands out on the table, his fingers admiring the grain and organic motions of authentic, ancient wood. Yes, I know this about him. He is a tactile man. “I just acquired a massive Ice Breaker for them to hunt the sharks. They can venture far and attack us directly from the south.”

Being The Cradle’s Lord of Procurement, with his manners and likability, he was always the right choice for the position, and he knows exactly what tower has what.

And what each need.

I frown at Bled. “And why didn’t you acquire an Ice Breaker for me to keep in The Estate?”

His lips lift in one corner because he knows I’m using the casual conversation to further stir my apathy through Medan’s concerns. “Are you taking up whale and shark fishing as a pastime, Sire?” Bled asks.

“Not today.” I drop the toothpick and lean forward. “I wasn’t going to risk the Silk Girls’ safety, now, was I?” I say, looking straight at Medan. “Are we really going to let him enter The Circle and have free access to their doors? To our legacies.” I lean back again. “I think not.”

Bled, who knows all too well what happened and suspects why, agrees, “A reason is all I needed. For The Trade. For the protection of the Silk Girls. Fine. What to do with the Half-tower?”

“You want it?”

“Fuck no.”

Cairo looks at Bled. “It will get out of control now that Darwin is missing, and we cannot have his chosen Collective speculating. So, we will have the Shadows enter and finish twenty-one Xin De Trade men and Darwin’s Collective. We will kill them in the Common way—with poison from the La Mu root. Xin De will turn on Common, and we will send the Martial Blues in to keep the peace. We will put the entire tower under heavy restrictions and organise a new management team from the ashes of this?—”

“Civil unrest,” I finish.

“ Yes. ” The Trade Master smiles, but it does not meet his sharp gaze. “And we are their hope for peace and Meaningful Purpose.”

Impressive.

I slash a man’s throat open for touching a silly, little girl, and Cairo somehow redirects the entire event to suit his damn agenda. Most of the time, I hate the man— No, I despise him all of the time. I would reach in and pull out his beating heart most days, but I must admit he is a narcissistic mastermind.

“Do you have a lord in mind for the task, Sire?” Turin Two asks, probing to get to the guts of this topic. He might want it. A tower far away from me, but because he wants it, I desperately do not desire to give it to him.

“Not as yet,” I answer.

“All settled then.” Bled looks at Medan. “Execute Darwin’s Collective. Stoke the civil disputes over who is to blame, then save the day. Happy, Lord Medan?”

Medan nods stiffly.

Cairo clasps his hands on the large oak table, entwining his fingers, his many rings glinting under the lights. “It may seem less than authentic, but it’s necessary to keep the peace. For the citizens of The Cradle, we needed to remove Lord Darwin, and I assure you, Lord Medan, we will move in before there are too many casualties.”

I rub the rough, hard surface of my jaw. My mind is now tickled with the memory of a little creature gagging on my cock while Darwin choked on blood... And her sweet questions after, her warm thighs and pussy on my lap, her big violet eyes full of arousal, her interest in my genetics and?—

“Are you smiling?”

I glare across at Turin Two, cocky fucker. “I was thinking about Darwin’s sliced arteries.” It’s not completely a lie. My eyes narrow on him. “For such a small Xin De, he sure had a lot of blood inside him.” I stand, ending the meeting. “I have hunting to do. Bled, join me.”

He stands, smooths his leathers down his chest and walks to open the door for me. “Aquilla Cats?”

“Pests. And the beasts used to be extinct.” I walk through the door, and he trails me. “But I do enjoy culling the fuckers. To think our ancestors thousands of years before The Cradle used to sit around and watch a screen all day.”

Bled hums. “Well, bored people are boring.”