Chapter 31 #2
I don’t look at him, though, situated at the head of the table as if he owns this space. The darkened room with heavy drapes pulled closed and glittering black marble floors, the chandelier in the center of the room reflecting over the ground.
I stare at Sanford Rule.
Karia is on my other side, farthest from Sanford and Cosmo both, and I keep my elbows on the table to ensure if she tries to get closer, she cannot.
I ignore her drinking and lack of eating. For now.
And I wait for Sanford to lift his deep brown gaze to mine as he adjusts the cloth napkin tucked into the collar of his stark white dress shirt. I imagine it is one of Stein’s and my skin crawls envisioning that man’s room.
I have never been inside of it.
I never plan to go.
Sanford slowly sets down his fork and knife, his own plate mostly empty save for bacon grease and a smear of ketchup. He, too, has worked up quite an appetite from living underground. Or perhaps simply living a fucking lie.
“You look as if you want to leap across this table and finish what you started yesterday,” he says, his voice thin and husky both as his arms disappear below the table and he sits up even straighter, his posture an arrow.
Karia picks up her goblet again.
I hear her swallow.
Cosmo mixed her drink and I wanted to burn him all over again, melt his skin from his bones, but I try to focus on one thing at a time.
Karia told me as Cosmo finished cooking that Sanford was lying, maybe about everything.
But before she could elaborate, the man walked in.
Aside from bruises around his throat from my grip yesterday when I wanted to murder him for assuming he knew just how many guards were crawling this compound—when I wanted vengeance for watching a man assault Karia before I stabbed him to death after I finished off another guard—he looks completely unruffled. Unperturbed.
I really want to fucking perturb him.
I glance at Karia and see she is avoiding his gaze altogether. That is unlike her. She is tough, smart, mouthy; but despite her hurried claims that he’s a liar, she does not seem to be in the mood to confront him.
That’s fine with me. It’s why I exist. To fight her battles for her, when she chooses to let me.
Cosmo continues to eat but I feel him staring at me.
He said nothing about Karia’s claims. In fact, he pretended she wasn’t speaking to me at all as he cleaned up the kitchen before calling everyone to the dining room.
“Why are you here?” I ask Sanford, although I suppose I could’ve said the same to Cosmo. Maybe Karia believes it is for friendship; I know better. Friends mean nothing. He wants something more from her.
Sanford’s brows pull together, lines forming in his face as he stares at me. “Do you expect me to choose Stein’s side, after all he has done to me?”
“You’ve lived with it this long.” I shrug one shoulder, refusing to think of the man we have in common. The link between us neither of us ever wanted; particularly not me. “Why defy him now?”
Sanford glances at Cosmo.
This surprises me, but I do not show it when his eyes find mine again.
“The same reason you do. You saw a chance, when he left. Then you let her get her pretty little claws in you.” He nods toward Karia but doesn’t look at her.
“And now, you know there is no going back. All these years you could’ve tried to get to her, but when you made contact, when you fell into her embrace, you found someone willing to fight for you, and so now… you have hope.”
A brittle, cruel thing.
He isn’t wrong about any of this.
But… “And why would you expect what she and I share would be of any benefit to you? Who said we would deal you in?” I ask him, keeping my tone quiet and cold. Who said I would be on your side?
“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have escaped the hotel. We discussed this in Dreary. I thought we were in agreement.”
“Then you sedated my…” I trail off, feeling heat come to my face. My girl, is what I was going to say, but I bite it back. “Karia. Without asking me.”
Karia clears her throat, sits up straighter, and says, “I don’t think you were the one who should’ve been asked.
” She is speaking to me, but her next words are for Sanford.
“You drugged me,” she says plainly. “I don’t care what you did to help us escape.
You drugged me, you left your own grandson with Stein Rule’s guards, and you vanished like a coward.
So what is it you really want? You said before you weren’t on anyone’s side.
That you just didn’t want to die buried.
Why do you think we’d ever save you from that? ”
“You know, she’s right,” Cosmo says conversationally, his tone pleasant.
I flick my gaze to his and see a glass of orange juice in his hand, his elbow propped on the table as he smiles at Sanford.
“Maybe I should’ve let Sullen strangle you yesterday.” He shrugs one shoulder but doesn’t look away from Sanford. “But I could slit your throat here at the table. Throw you on the grill after I filet you.”
Karia makes a funny noise in the back of her throat beside me, but she says nothing. Neither do I.
“We’ll have to go into town for food—a lot of stuff is spoiled in your fridge, Scully,” he says, glancing at me, using the nickname Maude called me from my time in internet forums. “But your bones would probably feed us for a few days at least. I agreed to your bullshit about the flights to Florida because it was smart, because you seem to know far more than you should. What was it you said when you called me from her dad’s phone?
” He lifts one finger lazily and points to Karia, beside me.
“You saw how much I wanted to fuck her? How hard I was for her in Septem? How I couldn’t wait to wrap my fingers around her pretty little throat and squeeze?
” He blows out a breath and shakes his head.
“You’re a horny, sick man, Gramps. You kinda got me with all that, because I like a good freakshow as much as the next person.
” He glances at me, and at that moment, Karia’s hand wraps around my covered wrist, dragging my arm away from the table so she can hold onto me.
“Don’t, Cosmo,” she snarls, and I let her hold me, and I let her stand up for me, because before her, no one ever had.
Besides, if she wasn’t gripping me so tightly, I might lunge across the table and break Cosmo’s neck, instead.
“All I was going to say was no offense.” He shakes his head and focuses on Sanford again.
“Anyway. Now that we’re all here and Karia is safe, I don’t really need you anymore, and I didn’t get to kill him,” he points to me with his index finger, hand still wrapped around his orange juice.
“So I’m kind of itching to try it with you.
” Something shifts in Cosmo’s words. He went from light mockery to real anger in his last sentence.
It’s a thing I understand.
But I remain quiet.
“What harm could I do?” Sanford asks instead of defending himself in any way whatsoever, which makes me loathe him more. “My son will come, and he will have an army.” He is looking at me now, and I at him.
But it’s Cosmo who responds with a flippant snort. “Good thing we already have one ourselves,” he says.
Then there is the sound of footsteps, and all at once, I am straightening, ready to stand, to use the steak knife at my plate to harm someone for the princess at my side. But the four people who trail through the open double doors behind Sanford that lead to the kitchen are not any worth killing.
At least, not yet.
Maude, Alivia, Fleet, Elliot.
The four from the Emporium with circles under their eyes and mistrust etched into their faces, each with a bag in their hands, they look to me, then Karia, then Maude turns to Cosmo and says, “We’re starving.”
Karia’s fingers tighten around my wrist as she asks, very coldly, “Why are they here?”
Maude’s gaze snaps to Karia after jumping over me. “You’re welcome,” she says, arching a dark brow.
I turn to Karia and see her eyes darken.
“Is this all?” she asks, still staring down Maude but I think she’s addressing Cosmo.
He laughs, a brash sound that matches her own sometimes. “Where are your manners? I thought I taught you better than that.”
An unpleasant sensation of jealousy and irritation claws in my stomach, but I focus on the Sun. She wanted Von and Isadora here, but either Cosmo didn’t contact them, or he couldn’t convince them. That’s what she means.
Cosmo sighs heavily, loudly, and he answers her true question. “For now, this is all.”