Chapter 22 #2
“Touching.” Her tone was dry, but something in her expression softened fractionally. “I’ll consider your alliance proposal. If you survive tonight’s stupidity, we’ll talk terms.”
She stood, moving toward the door. “I’ll try to get additional shipments to the Boundary in the meantime. Food, medical supplies, water. But I can’t promise anything.”
Jameson rose, checking his watch. six hours until the extraction. Until he either had Shadera back or died trying.
“Kes.” She paused at his voice. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. If you die tonight, I’ll have to work with Rook, and neither of us wants that.
” She pulled the door open as Jameson smiled at the comment.
The two of them had never seemed to get along, even when they were running the streets together decades ago.
“Be careful. The Heart is changing. Becoming more unpredictable.”
“Dying beasts often are,” he replied, then slipped past her out of the room.
The rooftop gardens of Serel Tower existed in defiance of the ugliness they grew above.
Greyson sat on a bench between their perfectly maintained rows, watching the surveillance drones above circle in predictable patterns.
He counted them out of habit—seventeen visible from this vantage point, another thirty hidden between buildings.
His eyes fell to his boots where blood was still splattered from the morning’s duties.
He flexed his hands, feeling the phantom weight of his gun, hearing the echo of his voice pronouncing the sentences.
Three more families shattered. Three more reasons the rings would celebrate his death.
His uniform chafed against his injured shoulder, the fabric stiff and unforgiving.
He should have changed, but after the platform, after watching the light leave those men’s eyes—he needed air. Needed distance from his world.
This was the farthest he could get.
Greyson closed his eyes, trying to push away the image of the young man barely out of his teens, executed for “association with dissident elements.” No evidence presented. No defense permitted. Just another body falling to the platform floor as he pulled the trigger.
Slowly he pushed his eyes back open, focusing on the gardens instead of his thoughts. Like him, they existed in an artificial environment, sustained by resources stolen from others.
He hadn’t spoken to Shadera since she’d cleaned his wound, since her fingers had traced the Executioner’s mark on his back, since she’d seen the evidence of his father’s lessons mapped across his skin.
The memory of her touch lingered, unwanted but persistent.
The gentleness in those hands that had tried to kill him.
‘You deserve a better father.’
The words burrowed beneath his skin, finding purchase in places he’d thought long dead.
She’d spoken then with such conviction, as if she could see some version of him that didn’t exist. He’d spent the night in his study alone, confronting what that moment had revealed to him.
His weakness, his desperate hunger for someone to see him as something other than the Executioner.
A drone flew closer than usual, its camera focusing on him for a moment before continuing its patrol. A reminder that privacy was an illusion, even for a Serel.
Especially for a Serel.
The moon had fully risen when Greyson finally pushed himself to his feet.
He couldn’t avoid her forever. There were things that needed to be said.
Truths that would shatter whatever fragile understanding had formed between them.
The thought of it—of watching her face when she learned what the Vow ceremony truly entailed—made something in his chest constrict.
He dragged a hand through his hair, taking in one last deep breath of the garden air before he forced himself toward the elevator. If he were lucky, she’d put him out of his misery the moment she found out what came next.
The descent from the rooftop to his apartment took exactly three minutes and forty-five seconds.
He counted each one in an effort to calm the nerves flaring through his system.
Count the seconds, focus on the numbers, push everything else away.
By the time he reached his apartment, a familiar dread had settled into his bones.
The lock clicked open, and he stepped inside to find the apartment silent. He lifted his mask from his face, setting it on the table quietly as he listened for any sign of her. A soft metallic scraping sound reached his ears from the hallway.
Greyson moved silently, following the noise to the door of his weapons room. Shadera knelt before it, the tip of her tongue visible through her lips in concentration, a makeshift lockpick fashioned from what appeared to be a broken hair pin working at the electronic mechanism.
“Are you going to try and break into something new every time I leave you alone?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral despite the twinge of amusement at her persistence.
Shadera’s body went still, but she didn’t startle or show surprise as she looked up at him, unrepentant. “Yes.”
Greyson found himself fighting an urge to smile at her candor. “That particular door requires both biometric authentication and a twelve-digit code that changes every six hours.”
“I would’ve gotten it eventually,” she said, rising to her feet and squaring her shoulders.
“I actually believe that.” He stepped back, creating space between them. “We need to talk.”
She didn’t answer as her eyes took in the blood on his boots, the uniform. For the first time she didn’t send a jab his way about his duty, about carrying it out and, somehow, that was worse.
“The living room.” He gestured his head as he turned away from her, listening as she followed him at a small distance.
The apartment had been restored to order in his absence—the furniture replaced, broken glass removed, debris cleared away. Chapman worked quickly. No evidence remained of his violent outburst except the additional layer of unease that now stretched between them.
They settled on opposite ends of the couch as Greyson freed himself from his jacket, folding it carefully and placing it across the coffee table, then rolled up his sleeves.
“The Vow ceremony is in three days,” he began, forcing himself to meet her eyes. “You need to understand what will happen.”
“I understand perfectly. I’ll be paraded before the Heart elite, before all of New Found Haven, a trophy to show how even Boundary filth can be tamed.” Her voice carried her usual mocking tone, but her fingers worked against each other, betraying her tension.
“It’s more complicated than that.” Greyson leaned forward, elbows on his knees, searching for words that wouldn’t come. How did one explain a horror built on generations of tradition, a ritual designed to dehumanize and control?
“Just fucking say it, Serel,” she snapped after a minute of waiting.
“The ceremony will be public and held on the execution platform,” he said finally, watching her face carefully. “It will be broadcast throughout the Heart and both rings.”
Shadera’s expression remained unchanged, but he could see the muscle in her jaw fluttering.
“We’ll stand before a veiled altar. You’ll wear white—tradition dictates the bride must appear pure.
” The irony of that particular tradition didn’t escape him.
“We’ll recite the vows. There’s a brief unmasking.
We see each other’s faces, then replace the masks before lifting the veil and turning to face the crowd.
” Greyson’s hand moved unconsciously to his face, even with his mask already removed.
“It symbolizes an act of binding, the intimacy of seeing each other’s faces. ”
“Why are we even doing this ceremony? We’ve already seen each other’s faces. We are already trapped here together, why doesn’t your sister just put out a release that you have taken the Vow privately?” Her words were frustrated and slightly erratic as she folded her arms over her chest.
“He wants the symbolism. You mean something to the rings and he wants everyone watching to understand that you can be brought to heel.”
“And if I refuse? If I don’t speak the vows?”
“Then he makes good on the things he promised us in his office. He hurts the people we love.” The thought made his stomach churn. “Lira. Callum. Your friend in the Boundary—Jameson. They will pay the price and we will watch.”
He saw her flinch at the name, saw something flicker across her face that might have been pain or longing or both. Greyson had the sudden urge to reach for her, to offer some comfort, but he knew his touch would not be welcome. Not now. Not with what he still had to tell her.
“There’s more,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “After the public ceremony, there’s . . . a tradition.”
Something in his tone must have warned her, because Shadera went perfectly still, like prey sensing a predator’s approach.
Greyson couldn’t meet her eyes as he continued. “The marriage must be consummated, in a ritual.”
He paused for her to say something, anything, but she stayed quiet.
“It’s not private. It’s—” He stopped, started again, the words like glass in his throat. “There’s a chamber. Viewing platforms above. The governing men of the Heart, they watch. They witness. They ensure the marriage is . . . properly sealed.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Greyson watched the color drain from her face, watched her hands curl into fists so tight her knuckles went white.
“You’re going to force yourself on me.” Her voice was flat, dead. “In front of an audience. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“No.” The word tore from him. “No, I would never—”
“But you will.” She stood abruptly, fury radiating from every line of her body. “You’ll do it because Daddy commands it. You’ll do it because you’re a good soldier, a good son. You’ll force yourself on a Boundary whore while the Heart’s elite watch and applaud—”