Twenty-Two
Six Years Ago
“ I hope your meal was satisfactory.”
The voice was familiar, too familiar.
We were enjoying ourselves, Adam and I. We’d gotten into a new club, still mostly empty for the evening. No one looking at us, staring, recognizing me. No one to possibly tell Mother or Lucas. Except—
With six words, my blood ran cold.
No. No.
It couldn’t be.
How did he know ?
How was he here?
I froze as a man slid into the booth next to me. He still wore his jacket—he didn’t intend on staying—and the side of his body bumped mine, his elbow nearly causing me to drop my fork against the china.
Lucas cleared his throat, straightening his sleeves, before leaning back in his seat.
Adam watched. His eyes were steel, but he did not appear panicked like I felt; he was cool, collected. He had never met Lucas before—at least, not to my knowledge. But he hardly reacted to the intrusion of our dinner with anything other than lips pressed into a silent line, hazel eyes narrowed.
Like he had expected this.
My heart pounded. Suddenly, it became difficult to breathe.
I sucked air in through my nose, exhaling in shaky breaths.
“More than, thank you,” Adam said. He glanced at me, already hardened against what was to come.
But he didn’t know—couldn’t know—what Lucas would do.
Who he was.
Run , I tried to tell him with my eyes.
Bile rose in my throat.
Please .
I was ready to get on my knees, to beg my brother to leave. I knew what would be waiting for me at home. I had worn those bruises before. But— please, not him .
Words escaped me. Refused to come out. Like they were on his side.
Lucas slung an arm around my shoulder. “Good,” he said, so casually I flinched. He reached up and adjusted his collar, loosening his tie before his wrist fell back to the table. “I told them to treat my guests like royalty.”
My breath caught in my throat.
We were alone in the room, the other tables set but empty. No other diners had been seated here.
It hadn’t been luck. It had been Lucas’ making.
I shut my eyes against the realization, feeling the burn of my fear at the corners of my eyes, mingling with my lashes. But the tears wouldn’t fall, only blurring my vision, blurring Adam’s face.
I never—I would have never—If I had known—
“You are royalty, right?” Lucas smiled, his hand on my shoulder tight, fingers digging into my flesh.
I wanted to separate myself from the limb, burn off the skin he touched.
Adam didn’t respond.
A chuckle rumbled in Lucas’ chest. “Because it would be quite odd for my sister to be entertaining anyone who wasn’t.” He looked at me for the first time, and my lungs froze, stealing my breath. He wore his mask well, creases of laughter at his eyes, a boyish countenance.
But I saw the rage; saw every promise spelled out.
“Especially unattended ,” Lucas added. He jostled me like a friend, though as he spoke, his words turned more to a hiss. “What are you doing out with him? I thought you were with Flora?”
I could only stare at Adam, memorizing the lines of his face, the angle of his cheeks, the little indentation where his dimple would appear. The slightly chapped texture to his lips, the way his auburn hair curled behind his ears with that cheap pomade. The shadow on his jaw at the end of the day. The way it felt against my lips, the slightly salty taste of his skin, the hardness of his muscles, the strength of his arms around me .
“Well, if you’re looking for a match, dearest sister , let’s list all the qualities of this fine bachelor, shall we?”
The spark I felt the first time he kissed me. The ease with which we fell into each other. The unruly way his hair fell in his eyes within an hour of his combing it back. The smell of ink on his skin after a day of work. The black stains on his fingers, the stains he’d leave on me.
“ Not royalty,” Lucas started, and he looked to me conspiratorially, feigning a lightheartedness he wasn’t truly capable of.
This was a joke to him. This was all a big joke to him. An opportunity for him to flaunt how he was different, better , than Adam.
How my lover wasn’t good enough for me.
He gestured to Adam. “Well? Go on, then.”
“I’m a man, who—”
Lucas burst out in a single laugh. “Well, that’s a relief! What else?”
“I love her.”
A chuckle, rumbling in Lucas’ chest as he removed his arm from around me. My breaths caught in my throat, lodging there, never making it to my lungs. Shallow, rapid.
Lightheadedness overtook me. I gripped the seat beneath my legs.
“You think that’s good enough?” Lucas crooned. “That’s rich .”
“It’s enough,” Adam said, with no humor. The clench of his jaw was the only sign of his anger. A lock of hair falling on his forehead.
“Because she says so?”
Lucas spoke like I wasn’t even in the room .
He shook his head, then leaned forward. “Women, they don’t know what they want,” he said, his voice low, the humor slowly slipping away. “Especially not her . You think she knows what is good enough?” Letting the cruelty simmering underneath seep through. “Evidently, she has no idea, if she’s been running around with you.”
Adam’s throat slid. If he spoke, he’d only make Lucas’ wrath worse. If he was silent, he let Lucas win.
“So, here’s what we’re going to do.”
There was a click, and suddenly, Lucas was brandishing a handgun at Adam, pointed straight at his heart. Lucas didn’t feel the need to lift his arm—No, the barrel of the gun barely peeked over the rim of the table.
Father’s old pistol .
A gasp flew out of me, and finally my limbs moved.
Before I could think, I was grabbing his wrists. “Lucas!”
No, no, no, no!
Those irises of fire flew to me, and the cool sharpness of metal pressed against my forehead.
“I should just kill you,” he snarled, pushing the barrel against my skull. Right against my temple. “All you ever do is cause trouble.”
A sob caught in my throat. The dam broke, the tears burning. “ Please .”
The fact was, I had no idea if he could do it. If he could shoot me, kill me, point-blank. Death had never stared back at me before. Lucas slung threats around, used his fists, his words to intimidate, to shape me into whatever he wanted .
The not knowing was what terrified me. If he was all talk, or if he truly meant to pull the trigger.
“Is that what you want? Hmm?” The metal jabbed against the thin bone above my ear, sharp and steely cold. “A double murder? Then I’d go off to jail, and you’d be satisfied, wouldn’t you? Finally getting rid of me.”
I wanted to scream. It only ever felt like he wanted to be rid of me .
“Quintrell.” Adam hadn’t moved from his seat. “What do you want?”
My heart was thumping, pounding against my ribcage, wanting out.
I couldn’t breathe. I need air .
Lucas pulled the gun away from my head, and I sucked in air like I was surfacing from water. I pushed myself all the way in the corner of the booth, as far as I could get from him, panic seizing my limbs, my hands shaking viciously.
Slamming shut my eyes, I pretended I was anywhere else. I was home, wrapped up under my blankets. I was a child again, and Lucas and I were playing with the dollies Mother had gotten us that day. We were running around the garden, him a soldier and me a fairy. Letting our imaginations run wild while we waited for dinner. And Father would read us to sleep, before the fire, from our favorite book of adventures. When we were safe , comfortable, innocent.
“What I want ,” Lucas spat, “is to solve this problem.”
That gun was pointed once more, right for Adam’s heart. I knew it without looking. Lucas was itching to do it.
“Alright.” Adam stood. “I’ll leave. You won’t see me again. ”
Though he said them to my brother, I knew they were for me. I won’t see you again . The thought made my heart shatter into pieces. But I couldn’t let Lucas kill him. I sobbed, rivers staining my cheeks. “ Please .”
They ignored my cries.
Lucas laughed again. “You’re right, I won’t. Because here’s the thing.” The upholstery of the bench shifted as he stood, the gun inching ever closer to Adam’s chest. “There’s this little thing going on overseas.”
My blood froze in my veins, every drop turning to poison. I wanted to vomit.
“You know what I did today?” Lucas’ voice was low, venomous. “I just so happened to be walking past the recruitment office. They said they’re in dire need of men.”
Adam glared. At his sides, his hands were in fists. But he didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“You said you’re a man, right?” Lucas grinned, pure malice in his eyes.
No. No .
“Lucas—” I had to get his attention on me, had to give Adam time to run. To get out of here . “You’re mad at me, not him—”
“No, I’ve been betrayed by you.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I couldn’t care less what happens to your little lover. But how dare you .”
I willed Adam to look at me, to understand— get out of here!
But his eyes avoided mine, staring at the man who held a gun up to his heart.
“How dare you sneak around,” Lucas sneered. “I’ve always given you the benefit of the doubt. But I was right—you were just waiting, dying to whore around, to ruin yourself with the first man that gives you attention.”
I shook my head through the tears. “I—”
“What would Mother think, huh? Father ? He must be rolling in his grave.”
His cruelty knew no bounds. I shattered, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces, the only thing pumping through my veins the misery Lucas promised me, the tears that flowed out of me.
“I’ll go,” Adam said again.
“Then go ,” Lucas hissed, “before I unload these bullets into you.”
I couldn’t see Adam through my tears, my face ruined as I wept. Just another thing to embarrass Lucas—my makeup running down my face, my skin red and blotchy with my hysteria.
“You leave in two days. I suggest saying goodbye to your family.”
Two days. Until an ocean would separate us.
One moment, Adam was there, and the next, he was gone.
Lucas opened the chamber and let the bullet fall into his palm before pocketing the weapon. He sniffed, grabbing a glass from the table—a finger of whiskey—and downed the shot, throwing his head back, roughly setting it back down on the table spread.
His face twisted with disgust when he looked at me.
“Get up.”
Adam—
He was gone.
Off to war .
Lucas gripped my arm, pulling me from the booth. I stumbled to my feet, but he didn’t care .
“Sir—” The maitre d’ stood in the doorway. He must have seen Adam leave.
“Shut those doors,” Lucas demanded.
The man’s eyes widened when he saw the state I was in, but he nodded once, and shut the doors behind him as he exited.
Lucas pushed me further into the room. “You’re lucky there’s a rear entrance,” he seethed. There was a door against the back wall of this dining room, and suddenly he was pulling me down a dark hall, servers glancing at us nervously, an opening to a bright kitchen with clattering sounds, and then I was outside, and a car was waiting, idling a few steps away. Lucas shoved me in, then shouted something at the driver.
I felt his glare like a dagger, like the gun against my head, lethal and on the cusp of the point of no return. My heart had yet to calm, my fingers numb, every touch like electricity running through my limbs.
He said nothing else, but he showed me just how displeased he was when we returned home.
He told Mother nothing, sequestered me upstairs, and after he struck me enough to satisfy his anger, I was locked in my room for three days.
I ate nothing. Sleep evaded me. And when the door was unlocked, Adam was fighting a war he didn’t care for, all because I was foolish enough to think I could have something for myself.
I never saw him again.
Four months later, Adam Vering’s name was listed in the paper’s obituary, with only the date of his death, nothing else.
Nothing else for the poor printer’s apprentice sent off to war.