Chapter 9
Fracture
THE MAESTRO | Past
You’re getting married?”
The pain in her voice crushes me in ways I can’t explain. It’s more violent than any strike my Father has ever landed. I stand there, watching the light die out of her eyes.
I can’t tell her what I’m planning. I can’t tell her that the ink on the engagement papers is the blood of my own soul, shed to keep her breathing.
If I tell her the truth—that she is a distraction my Father is ready to execute—she’ll try to fight it.
She’ll try to be brave. And in our world, bravery for a woman like Selene is just a faster way to a shallow grave.
Crystella Novak is promised to be my bride. And if I want the title of Capo, I need the trust; I need to put a ring on her finger. But the variable in my constant is heartbroken.
I did not want her to know this way.
I can’t bring harm upon her. So my only option is to watch her from the shadows I’ve inhabited my entire life. She is my Dolcezza, my muse, my world, my sun and my moon. The only woman I can die for, and the only woman I have already killed for. The only woman I am planning to kill for again.
I’ve avoided her, terrified that the scent of gunpowder and iron would cling to my skin and tip her off to the monster I’m becoming.
But now, I can’t run.
She’s standing in front of me, her lips trembling, her eyes watery and wide.
I know she’s about to cry.
I know she wants me to deny it, to laugh and tell her it’s a sick joke, to pull her into my arms and kiss her sinful mouth until the world disappears.
I want that more than I want my next breath.
But if I touch her now, I won’t be able to let go. And if I don’t let go, she becomes a liability.
So, I break her heart. Even as my own chest caves in.
“Yes,” I say, stepping over the newspaper she threw at my face earlier.
Zagreus Vitale, the heir and notorious billionaire, is set to marry Crystella Novak, the supermodel and daughter of Ronan Novak.
She flinches as if I’d slapped her.
I expect shouting, demanding answers, and maybe even tears. Instead, she just stares at me. At first, I think she doesn’t understand. But then I realize she does. Every single word.
I am to marry Crystella.
She looks at the newspaper again.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?” That hope breaks me. “This doesn’t make sense. You hate interviews, you hate the mention of your name in headlines. You’d never give this statement. You can’t do this to me. You said you loved me, Zagreus, you loved me.”
“Yes, I loved you.” My heart stops. “But loving you won’t give me what I want.”
“What do you want now?” She takes a step toward me, standing on her toes and cupping my face. Her eyes are red and swollen. “Say you’re lying. Tell me this isn’t true. You loved me, you love me, you said you’d marry me. Tell me—”
“I said a lot of things, Selene.” I harden my gaze, forcing every ounce of warmth out of my expression until my eyes are the same dead, flat voids my Father uses.
Her hand falls from my face as I step back.
“Those were the dreams of a boy who didn’t understand the price of his own name.
I am a Vitale. I have a legacy to secure.
Crystella brings me power. You bring… nothing but a debt I can no longer afford to pay. ”
I want to scream.
I want to fall to my knees and beg her to understand that I am lying.
But the sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence.
My silence on the truth is the only shield she has. “Nothing?” she repeats, her voice breaking. “Is that all I am to you now? Nothing? A line on a balance sheet?”
“In this life, everything is a balance sheet,” I snap, the cruelty in my voice turning my stomach. “My Father was right about one thing: sentiment is a luxury. I’ve enjoyed our time together, but the game is over. The board is set.”
She looks at me, searching for the man who used to read poetry to her in the dark. She won’t find him. I’ve buried him under the floorboards of the Cosa Nostra.
“You’re a coward,” she breathes, her voice gaining a sharp, brittle edge. “You’re just like him. You’re becoming the very monster you told me you hated.”
“Maybe I was always the monster,” I counter, taking a step toward her. She doesn’t flinch, and for a second, the fire in her eyes makes me proud. She is so much stronger than this world deserves. “Maybe you just weren’t looking close enough.”
I reach out, my hand hovering near her face. I want to wipe away that tear.
I want to memorize the texture of her skin one last time before I hand myself over to a woman I despise. But I pull back, clenching my fist until my bruised knuckles ache.
“Go home, Selene,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. “Forget you ever knew my name. It’s the only way you survive what’s coming.”
“I’d rather have died with the man I loved than live in a world where you exist like this,” she spits.
The venom should be a relief. It should be the wall that finally keeps her on the other side of the fire. But instead of turning away, instead of fleeing the monster I’ve just finished unchaining, she lunges.
Her fingers catch the lapels of my coat, bunched in desperate, shaking fists. She yanks me downward, her face inches from mine, her breath jagged and hysterical.
She’s wearing pink lip-gloss today. I want to taste it. I want to kiss it.
“If you won’t become mine, Zagreus,” she wheezes, her eyes wild with grief, “then I will become someone else’s. Do you hear me? I’ll find a man who doesn’t care about power or legacies. I’ll give myself to someone who actually wants me.”
The sound that rips from my throat is animal.
My hands move before I can think, catching her by the waist and slamming her backward. The table groans as her spine hits the wood, the files scattering.
I crowd into her space, my thighs pinning hers, my hands framing her head. Her eyes widen, the pupils blowing out until they’re nothing but black ink.
She’s scared.
She should be scared.
She’s playing with a detonator.
“You think you’re going to belong to someone else?
” I hiss, my voice vibrating with a dark, tectonic rage.
I lean down, my nose brushing hers, my lips a hair’s breadth from the mouth that’s undoing me.
“You think another man is going to lay a finger on what’s mine?
I will burn this fucking city to ash before I let another soul even look at you. ”
She swallows, but she doesn’t back down.
She’s always been my bravest little martyr.
“I will,” she whispers, her voice unnervingly calm against the storm in her eyes.
“I’ll find a man. A stranger. I’ll make him my husband.
I’ll let him touch me where you won’t. I’ll let him kiss me…
fuck me… I’ll give him the heir you’re so desperate to secure for the Cosa Nostra with Crystella. I’ll be his, Zagreus. Every inch.”
Fuck.
The image of it hits me like a physical blow to the gut.
Another man’s hands on her skin. Another man hearing her breath hitch like that. Another man claiming the only piece of light left in this goddamn world.
The resistance I’ve been building for weeks dissolves.
It’s a chemical reaction, so fucking volatile and violent.
“You’re mine,” I growl, my hand sliding up to fist her hair, tilting her head back until she’s forced to look at the wreckage in my eyes. “In this life or the next, Selene. You are mine.”
She glares at me, and despite my grip in her hair, she leans in. “Then don’t do this to me, please. I’ve never known love besides you, and I’d never forgive you for this.”
I know the game she’s playing. She wants me to break. She wants me to get on my knees and beg for her love. I’d never forgive myself for this, my Selene.
But I will not back out of this and ruin everything.
“I don’t care. Do what you want, but I am ending things.”
The hope in her eyes dies. “Zagreus…” She cracks. “Tell me you’re joking.”
I bite back the urge to grab her wrists as she shoves against my chest. “Tell me!”
I don’t move, and neither does my expression. And she sees that I was not joking. She staggers back as if I’ve struck her. “No.”
“You said I was yours!” Her voice rises as she slams her tiny fists against my chest, hurting herself. I want to kiss her knuckles. “You just said I was yours! You promised me forever and now you’re marrying the other woman!”
“You are the other woman, Selene. Not her.”
I need her hurt. I need her to hate me. I need her to look at me and see a monster, and not her forever.
“What… did you just say?”
“Selene—”
“Do not touch me!” She shoves against my chest, harder this time. “You do not have a heart, you monster. And for the way you’ve used and discarded me, I hope and pray to the Lord every second of the hour, the person close to your heart is taken away from you!”
“Don’t say that.” I take a step toward her, and anger simmers in me until I hate her for saying it.
I fist her hair and pull her closer. “You do not know what you’re saying.”
“Then what am I supposed to be? Your mistress?”
For a second, I almost laugh. If she knew what I have sacrificed for her, she’d never utter those words again. My chest feels like someone drove a blade straight through it. Yet I neutralize my face. Because that’s what she needs. To hate me. To despise me. To survive me. To survive this.
“You’re not my mistress.”
“Then what?!” she yells. “Your whore? The woman you can choose because she was convenient to mess around with! I’ve loved you, you rascal! I loved you!”
I knew. God help me, I knew. I’ve known since we were children.
Known since she looked at me as though I hung the stars.
Since I realized I would burn the world before letting another man touch her.
And still, I say nothing. Because if I open my mouth now, everything ends.
The war I’ve spent years trying to prevent. Everything. Including her.
I loosen my hold on her hair, and I take her mouth with a brutality that should be a sin.
My tongue forces its way past her teeth, tasting the salt of her tears and the sweetness of her surrender. This is how we end this. I need to taste you one last fucking time.
I’m fisting her hair so tight my hand cramps, anchoring her to me as if she’s the only thing keeping me from spinning off the axis of the earth.
She moans into my mouth, a soft, broken sound that makes my blood boil.
She’s so fucking small.
In my arms, she feels like something made of glass and moonlight, yet she’s the only thing strong enough to break me.
My hand drops from her hair, sliding down the curve of her throat, my thumb pressing against the frantic beat of her pulse. Her pulse races out of control, and some traitorous part of her leans toward me instead of away.
I’ve spent weeks killing, bathing in the filth of this empire to keep her safe… but nothing—nothing—feels as dangerous as this. She is my ruin. And I kiss it anyway, claim it anyway, want more anyway.
I break the kiss just long enough to growl against her skin, my teeth grazing the sensitive cord of her neck.
“You won’t even look at another man, Selene.
If I ever find out you’ve let someone else so much as breathe your air, I’ll kill him slow.
And then I’ll lock you in a room where the only thing you ever see is me. Do you understand?”
She’s gasping, her chest heaving against mine, her hands now tangled in my hair, pulling me back down to her.
“Then stay,” she begs, her voice a ruin. “Don’t marry her. Stay.”
I shut my eyes, the agony of the lie returning, but the hunger is louder. For tonight, the monster in me can wait.
“I can’t,” I rasp, my mouth finding hers again, fiercer than before.
I lift her onto the table, her dress rucking up under my hands, and for the first time in my life, I don’t care if the world burns. As long as she’s the one holding the match.
I slide her down the length of the table.
I’m past the point of reason.
My head is spinning with the scent of her, that mix of jasmine and salt.
I drop to my knees between her legs, my hands sliding up the insides of her thighs, bunching the expensive silk of her dress until it’s a useless ruin around her waist.
My thumbs find that soft, lethal heat, rubbing slow circles that make her back arch off the table.
“You’re so fucking wet for a man you call a monster,” I growl, my voice raw against her skin. “Tell me, Selene. Does your body know you’re supposed to hate me?”
I lean in, my breath hot against the lace of her underwear. I want to tell her exactly how I’m going to claim her, how I’m going to mark every inch of her skin until no other man would dare look at the wreckage I leave behind.
“Zagreus… please,” she gasps, her fingers digging into my shoulders. It’s a plea, a final, desperate prayer for me to stop the clock, to choose her over the empire. “One last time. Tell me you’ll stay. Tell me you won’t go to her.”
I freeze.
I look up at her, my hands still cupping the center of her world, my pulse thundering in my ears. The lie is a bitter poison in my throat. I can’t say it. I can’t give her the hope that will get her killed.
“I can’t,” I rasp.
Her face transforms.
The heat in her eyes turns to ice.
She shoves at my chest, her movements frantic, her small hands hitting my shoulders with a strength born of betrayal.
“Don’t touch me,” she spits, her voice trembling. “Get off me. If you’re going to be his puppet, then keep your hands off what doesn’t belong to you.”
I don’t move. I can’t.
I am anchored to her by a chain of my own making.
My grip on her thighs tightens, my knuckles turning white. The obsession is a fever now, a sickness that overrides the flickering remains of my conscience.
“I can touch you,” I snarl, leaning back over her, pinning her wrists to the table above her head. My body is pressed against hers. “I can touch you because I bought your life with my soul. I can touch you because there isn’t a square inch of you that I haven’t already branded.”
She stares up at me, a single sob breaking from her throat. But she doesn’t stop fighting. She looks at me with a cold, terrifying clarity.
“So that’s it then?” she asks, her voice dropping to a whisper that cuts deeper than any blade. “You’ll just take me against my will now? Is that the kind of king you are, Zagreus? A rapist?”
The blood in my veins turns to sludge.
I look down at my hands pinning her delicate wrists, and for a second, I don’t see the man who loves her.
I see Elio.
I see the dead eyes of my Father reflecting back at me in the mirror of her terror. If I choose her, I’ll lose her forever. And if I don’t, I’ll have power enough to get her back.
I want to tell her I’d never hurt her. But looking at the way I’m holding her, the way I’m forcing my presence on her because I can’t bear the thought of her leaving, the line between protection and possession has blurred into nothingness.
I am the monster. And the monster just realized it has claws.