CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ZARA
My mother and I once saw a flower sprouting through a crack in the asphalt. We’d gone shopping, just the two of us, and it was nearing sunset when we trudged through the empty parking lot toward our car.
It doesn’t sound that astounding—a flower in the asphalt.
It might have been a weed—the pretty kind that are only labeled as such because of some scientific classification or their unfortunate location.
But to the untrained eye, it was a brilliant bloom, impressive whether in a garden or a parking lot.
It was alone though, surrounded by stark black and rough ground, industrial inventions and materialistic gluttony, which only made its beauty more prominent.
My mother and I spotted it at the same time—this spiky burst of green and purple, standing tall and tilted in defiance toward the sun.
Maybe it was aware that it could be chopped down at any minute. It didn’t belong there, and many weeds were invasive. I knew that because my mother loved flowers. And this one, no matter what others tagged it, had spirit.
“Resilience,” was all she said at first, but it caught in her throat.
I smiled, wondering what was going through her mind.
She wasn’t complicated, not like my father, who seemed to have another world inside his head.
My mother embraced her emotions, spoke what she felt, prioritized her family.
But there was a loneliness there, the kind most overlooked, but that was transparent enough to be gathered by the unfiltered perspective of a child.
And I realized she viewed herself like that gorgeous weed, which nearly broke my heart. Because she wasn’t alone. She was holding my hand. My brother and father were waiting at home. And we had friends and a church and a town that adored her. Our life wasn’t desolate.
But then she turned and brushed her fingers over my cheek, as if exploring the texture of my skin for the first time. “I’m not a fighter. But you are. No matter how boxed in you find yourself, Penn, you’ll still manage to grow. Promise me.”
I promised, though I had no idea what I was promising. No idea that she’d be dead within the month. No idea that her words would become a sort of prophecy that I recounted time and time again.
Today, I feel every bit of that beautiful, defiant, resilient weed that is certain someone is lurking around the corner, intent on chopping me down.
And yet still, even sensing that murky future looming in front of me, there is nothing like the sun on my face—or the king lighting my way in the shadows.
The last several days have been busy. Axel’s been preoccupied by the quickly approaching Prohibition Ball and by other work matters.
He hasn’t elaborated on what we are or what we can be, and I haven’t pressed the issue.
The fact that he hasn’t interrogated me or used this heightened connection between us to garner answers about my mission is unsettling because I can sense the questions lurking.
The thing is, I’m not sure I will share it because it would only further muddy the waters.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to enjoy this time with him and unspool myself from the tangled web with my father and the client.
I’d like to know who sent Shep and why I was deemed a failure so quickly.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that something isn’t adding up.
This was designed to be a long-term mission.
I was sent early because Tripp and I were trying to circumvent my father’s interference.
So, why, after only a month, would my inability to produce answers mean that I needed to be neutralized?
That often happens in short-term missions, but failure is obvious there.
I’m not certain how I’ve failed at La Lune Noire.
Other than Axel being suspicious. But I’m working for him and reporting on employees and members, so that shouldn’t matter now.
I’ve obviously used it to my advantage. I can’t even truly factor in Axel killing Keller because that occurred after Shep showed up.
It makes me curious if I stumbled upon something I wasn’t supposed to.
Uncovering what that could possibly be is an absurd challenge after over a month of files created on countless people here.
Regardless, maybe I’m not due to be neutralized because of what I didn’t find. Maybe it’s because of what I did.
If I ignore the anxiety building there, I can bask in all the ways that Axel dotes on me.
The morning after our first night together, he had me fill out a sheet, marking my sexual limits and interests.
He also provided me with his test results, showing that he was clean.
I am, too, but those are harder to obtain without creating a trail that could lead to my father, so I got tested in the La Lune Noire medical facility even though Axel said he believed me.
His Dom facade carries over far beyond the bedroom.
He texts me to check in multiple times a day, ensuring that I’ve drunk enough water (especially after I work out or run), eaten (something other than cherries), spent time socializing (with Mercy and Tessa), that I know I’m beautiful and brilliant (his words), and that I trust him to take care of my needs.
The latter generally arrives with a reminder not to touch myself or an order to bring myself to the brink and wait for him, even when I’m in my office.
It hasn’t been difficult to endure because he manages to sneak away and make me come several times a day.
Our evenings include phenomenal meals, time with his family, rigorous sex, and massages, baths, and reading together before he tucks me in his bed.
He wasn’t hyperbolizing when he claimed that his dominance was synonymous with servitude.
His altruistic command is even apparent when we sleep, when he cuddles or comforts me during a nightmare, or when I awake in his arms or to a thoughtful quote that he left for me. He’s always there.
But last night, after he thought I was asleep, he left his room. When he didn’t return after forty-five minutes, I went in search of him.
I wandered around the penthouse, which was still and void of the life that normally imbued it. But then I spotted a light filtering from a cracked-open door. It wasn’t my intention to eavesdrop, but the closer I crept, the more I realized it wasn’t a conversation I should interrupt.
“I’m not ready yet,” Axel said. His voice was brittle, inflamed with anguish. “We need time. I want—”
“You don’t have time. What’s your plan, to spring it on her next week?
” It was Ryker in there with him, and his intensity was not concealed in the least. “And what if she’s not on board?
Then you’ll really be out of time to figure out an alternative solution.
I can’t bear to think of you—” He broke off, clearing a wounded crackle from his throat.
“It’s not just you. We’re all attached, Axel. Everyone. Remy is attached.”
An ache spread through me. There was an alarm bell ringing in my mind, but somehow, that was faint and distant because Ryker’s affliction was louder.
His suggestion that there was something I didn’t know sent my pulse skyrocketing.
And his declaration that Remy was attached burrowed into my bones.
I haven’t been around kids much since I stopped being one, so the mention of my little Music Man struck me.
But it was their pain that had me most on edge.
I didn’t understand why Ryker was fighting for me, fighting against Axel.
After a few minutes, it was apparent he wasn’t fighting against Axel. Ryker was appealing to his brother’s inability to let others down because if it were only Axel hurting about whatever they were discussing, he would shoulder it.
“You think I don’t know that?” Axel barked, and glass slammed against wood.
“That I’m not sick about what this will do beyond the hell it will inflict on her and me?
One wrong step, and it’s Mom all over again.
Incinerated in the very place that was supposed to set her free while the rest of us rot in the ashes.
If I make a mistake here, I fail everyone. ”
Ryker began to soothe Axel, but I wanted to rush in and hold him, to crawl into his lap and remind him that he’d sworn I could stand by his side.
I realized that perhaps that was something he’d hoped for, knowing it couldn’t happen.
Certainly not concerning whatever this was because I suspected I was his mother in that analogy. Destined to burn.
For the first time in years, I cried myself to sleep.
I mourned my mother, my father and Tripp, my place in our assassin camp, my bond with the Noire family, and the relationship with Axel that would likely never be mine beneath blue skies and sunshine.
I accepted my fate like a disease eating away at me day after day.
And sure, I’ll fight like hell—I decided that too.
But the reality that fighting might not be enough seeped into my veins and poisoned the blood flowing to my heart.
Until I determined I’d enjoy all the minutes I had left.
Maybe all assassins are struck with that enlightenment.
That we sin in ways others couldn’t or wouldn’t.
No matter how noble the stone is, how many lives are saved, we still do the taking.
Evil destroying evil is still evil. I don’t regret what I’ve done, but there is no sense in lamenting the inevitable reparation.