Chapter 12
TEMPEST
Every parting gives a foretaste of death. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Ilearned early that poison works best when it’s expected.
Sugar on the tongue. Warmth in the chest. Safety first.
I snorted, should a person ever really have to learn when the best time is to ingest it? Should that even be a freaking thing?
I scowled and stared down at the pink drink in my hand.
It could be poisoned and I’d never know, and the last thing I would have tasted would be watered down fruit punch—not even cold.
Where the hell are the ice cubes anyways?
And why did we plan our wedding so close to every other family event on the planet making this even more difficult?
People get pissed and suspicious if we don’t show up, and when we do we’re watched like hawks.
My nerves were shot. Two days in a row was painfully too much, even for me.
The backyard was strung with white lights and pastel balloons, the kind that bobbed gently in the breeze like nothing bad had ever happened here and nothing bad ever would. So safe. So cheerful. So taunting.
A folding table sagged under the weight of cupcakes, juice boxes, and a cake shaped like a cartoon dinosaur that probably cost more than the shoes I’m wearing.
Six years old, which automatically makes me feel ancient. I know I’m supposed to paste a smile on my face and be excited over what we were celebrating, but it just feels harder now. Things were easier when I was her age, when I had balloons like this, when I had cupcakes and laughter.
I watched my niece run past with frosting already smeared across her face, her laugh sharp and wild and completely unafraid.
Good.
This was what control looked like.
Normal. Harmless. Unquestioned.
She’d be a force later.
My sister brushed past me, lowering her voice. “You’re staring again.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s worse,” she muttered, then sighed. “You didn’t sleep after the reception yesterday?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, visions of us kissing, me shooting Louis, and kissing again filled my brain.
He kissed differently when he was drugged; it was less calculated, more real.
I liked those kisses the most, and I found myself wondering what sort of kisses he had given to my sister and why it mattered when he was mine now anyway.
Across the yard, men who had killed for this family stood around plastic tables pretending to argue about sports. Their jackets were light. Their weapons hidden. Their eyes never stopped moving.
Infiltration training starts like this.
You don’t test the poison in a lab.
You test it where the world looks safe.
I could test poison here, I wouldn’t.
What? So I was just going to keep testing it on my husband before you send him to the wolves?
He signed up for it.
He knew exactly what he was doing, just like I did.
I had to scream the words in my head so I believed them. “I’m going to go grab some cake.” I left her there with all my emotional baggage and blindly went to the cake.
Even it looked happier than me with its five billion green dinosaur and princess mixed balloons waving around in the air. I grabbed the knife, slammed it into the cake, and took a giant piece then walked away and stood by myself.
Why did I agree to come again? And where the hell was Louis? Shouldn’t he, at the very least, be suffering with me?
It was easier when I was a kid—when the rose-colored glasses were still firmly in place and the world felt loud instead of heavy.
Back then, smiles didn’t cost anything.
But little by little—like a small cut you pretend isn’t there, the kind that festers because you keep picking at it—I realized something was off.
It started with the adults.
The sudden meetings. The doors closing. The pauses in conversation when I entered the room.
No… it was the silence.
The looks they exchanged when they thought no one was watching. Eyes locking. Faces still. Smiles forced into place like armor.
That was when it hit me.
Everyone—and I mean everyone—had the capacity to betray you.
Even the ones you loved most. Especially the ones you trusted most.
Take my sister. She was the kindest person I knew. The purest heart in a world that devoured people like her. And it still happened to her. It always did.
And then there was the new De Lange boss and Bella.
He betrayed her to infiltrate. To become the very thing everyone feared most.
I still didn’t know where he stood—with us, against us, or somewhere in between. The lines blurred more the longer I stared at them. The thinking made my head ache.
The vial was burning a hole in my purse.
I could control Louis to a fault. Shape him. Use him. Turn him into a weapon.
But to what end?
Maybe because it was safer that way. Maybe because I’d rather hold a weapon than nurse a broken heart.
Maybe—if I was honest—using him made me feel like I’ve taken something back. Control. Power. Choice.
They didn’t marry me off.
I married myself off.
And I would decide where I stand in the future. Not them.
Not the family. Not the ghosts.
Stupidly, I realized something else too.
I shouldn’t have gotten distracted by how easy it was with him.
God—we’d almost kissed again, for real.
What had I been thinking?
Play a part too hard, play it too well, and the lines blurred. Roles bled into reality. Games started to feel real.
Tonight, I was going to remind him who I really was.
And what he was to me.
This was all just a game.
And he was nothing more than a pawn I personally chose.
I turned and ran straight into him.
Cassian.
I steadied myself instantly, posture smoothing into place like muscle memory. “You,” I said flatly.
His smirk bloomed, blue eyes lighting up like a damn Christmas tree. “I’ll be honest—I half expected you to be the one making kids cry.” His gaze flicked to my plate. “Not smiling through your teeth and eating—” He frowned. “Is that an ice-cream cake?”
He leaned closer, inspecting it like it personally offended him. “Wait. We have ice cream here? In this heat?” He rocked back on his heels and checked his watch. “Huh. Learn something new every day.”
I didn’t bite.
“Where’s the husband?” he asked casually.
My jaw tightened. “He has a name.”
Cassian shrugged. “Pawn. I know. I like the sound of it.” His smile sharpened. “You picked a good one, by the way. Once a little bitch, always a little bitch.”
Heat flared in my chest, but I stayed still.
“To think,” he continued lightly, “a bodyguard to the Abandonatos—someone who ran errands for the syndicate—thought he could pry his way into the five families?” Cassian laughed under his breath. “Adorable.”
He lifted his hand and pointed past me. “And yet… there he is.”
Playing house.
I followed his gaze before I could stop myself.
Louis was crouched near the picnic table, helping one of the kids scoop fallen ice cream back onto a plate, listening intently like it mattered. Like this moment counted for something.
My throat tightened.
“At least he’s good for something,” Cassian said pleasantly.
I forced my voice steady. “What?”
Cassian’s grin widened—slow, satisfied, like he’d been waiting for that exact question.
“Distraction,” he said. “People never see the knife when they’re watching the smile.”
His eyes slid back to me, pinning. “Tell me, Tempest—are you testing how much poison he can take… or how much softness you can afford?”
The vial burned hotter in my purse.
And for the first time all day, Cassian wasn’t smiling for fun.
He was smiling because he knew.
Louis chose that exact moment to walk up. “Oh look, cake.”
I shoved mine into his hands. “Let’s go inside.”
"Right.” He eyed Cassian and nodded his head. Funny how it was the little things that made you pause. And for Louis it was just that. It wasn’t in the way he barely acknowledged Cassian, it wasn’t even his bored expression.
It was the way he moved past him.
Completely unbothered that he was next to one of the most dangerous assassins the syndicate had to offer.
A man who played both sides.
And Louis didn’t as much as flinch.
No, he stepped into his space and grabbed my arm as if that space wasn’t being occupied.
And Cassian?
He made Cassian…
Step.
Back.