35. Lazarus
Ileave the villa, leave my brother alone with her. I don’t have any choice in the matter, but that doesn’t stop the fury from coiling in my gut all the same.
Every step away feels like a betrayal carved into my soul, a silent scream that no one hears.
I make sure my guards are on duty, make sure she is watched and protected because that is all I can do.
But the knowledge that her body, her breath, her very skin is trapped in a room with him while I stand in the cold halls of duty, and it’s enough to drive me mad.
Enough to make me do something I know I will regret.
I try not to think about what he will do, how he will hurt her, touch her, fuck her.
But the images come anyway, unwanted and obscene, painting themselves behind my eyes in shades of sweat and bruises and muffled whimpers.
I feel them like phantom caresses on my own flesh, a sickness that stirs something darker low in my belly; a hunger, a horror, twisted together until I can’t tell one from the other.
Meeting after meeting goes on, a slow torture of murmured liturgy and veiled threats.
I wear the mantle of the Grand Master with practiced ease now. The Brethren see what they expect to see; the strong jaw, the piercing gaze, the sacred marks inked into my skin.
They do not see me. They do not see Lazarus.
I nod at the right moments, offer a curt word of approval or dissent when required, but my thoughts are not here. They are in a locked room, tracing the curve of her throat, feeling the phantom weight of her trembling beneath me.
The voices around me fade into a dull hum, as I stare out the window at the city beyond. Paris glitters like a jewel beyond the dirty glass, but tonight it looks like a whore dressed in stolen light, beautiful but diseased.
“Grand Master?”
I look back, waving my hand dismissively for whoever is speaking to continue, and of course they do without daring to question my attention. The power I hold is intoxicating, but it’s borrowed, a paper crown slick with my brother’s blood and my own duplicity.
If I do not do something, Konstantine will regain his senses and when he does, this charade will end. The Brethren will return to their true leader, and I will return to the shadows, to the role I’ve always played; the protector, the enforcer, the second son. The one who hungers and never tastes.
I can’t have that.
I will not have that.
I know God is giving me a chance here, showing me a new path, but the path is paved with the wet gleam of viscera. I just have to do what is necessary to claim it. The thought feels like a prayer and a sin in the same breath.
I blink, and her face appears before me, a vision stitched from memory and desperate need.
In a way, it feels like she is haunting me the same way that bitch haunts my brother.
Only, my woman is an angel, and his is the very spawn of Satan.
The thought makes my hands clench until I feel my nails bite into my palms.
The meeting concludes with a series of nods and murmured affirmations.
The men rise, their chairs scraping against the polished floor like the rasp of bone on stone, and file out of the hall.
As the room grows quiet, the silence is broken only by the faint ticking of a clock on the far wall.
It’s a sound that seems to echo in my chest, a relentless heartbeat counting down the seconds she suffers, the moments I lose, the life leaking out of my chance to own her completely.
And it reminds me, too, that she is with him.
She is in his grasp, at his mercy. Every second that passes is another that he is touching her, violating that sacred flesh with his unworthy hands.
I let out a snarl, walking to the window, my footsteps muffled by the thick carpet that seems to swallow sound like the belly of a beast. The city below is alive with movement, but from this height it feels distant, almost unreal.
A diorama of tiny, writhing figures, their little sins invisible from all the way up here.
I have been to Paris many times. It holds a special symbolism to all Brethren.
It is the place that ultimately resulted in our doom, in our destruction all those centuries ago, and yet it is also a place of rebirth.
The place we returned to, we reclaimed, and we forced to bend to our will.
But tonight, even rebirth smells like old blood and incense, and the weight of history presses on my shoulders like a corpse.
I press my hand against the cool glass and let out a slow breath, closing my eyes and allowing myself a moment of vulnerability. A moment to feel the fear, the doubt, the exhaustion too.
But when I open my eyes, I see him reflected back at me.
He stands in the shadows at the edge of the room, his presence as subtle as a whisper, as foul as a secret breathed into a lover’s ear.
My hand instinctively moves to the hilt of the dagger concealed beneath my coat, but I force myself to remain still.
Instead I turn slowly, my expression neutral, my gaze steady.
It takes every ounce of my discipline not to draw the blade and open his throat right here.
Not because he’s my enemy, but because I know what he is. What he does. What he did to her.
I’ve been aware this particular phantom has been chasing me, chasing my family for years now.
How curious that he is the one to seek me out now.
Does he mean to kill me? I’ll admit a part of me wants him to try, wants to feel his blood, sticky and hot, anoint my hands as payment for every scream he wrung from Leandra’s lips.
“You’re very bold,” I say, my voice calm but edged with steel. Inside, my mind is a charnel house of images; her small wrists bound, her tear-streaked face, the sound of a zipper, the stench of his pleasure all over her. I swallow the bile that rises. “To appear here, like this. What do you want?”
He steps into the light, and I take a moment to look him over.
Ezekiel Sewell. He’s older than I imagined, with that fanatical look in his eyes, like any moment he’s going to become something unhinged.
His face is sharp, his eyes calculating and his smile is full of far too much fucking confidence for someone who has, as yet, failed to achieve their apparent life ambitions.
He’s dressed in dark clothes, his posture relaxed as if he belongs here, as if he owns the place.
“Grand Master,” he says, his tone mocking. “Or should I say Lazarus?”
The name hangs in the air between us like a challenge, a revelation. I don’t react. My mask remains intact, even as my mind wonders how he knows. Instead I let my silence fill the room, let him feel my contempt.
Ezekiel steps closer, his movements deliberate, his gaze never leaving mine. “I know who you are,” he continues. “You’re not Konstantine. You’re his brother. The shadow behind the throne. The protector, the pretender.”
I can almost smell the taint of her fear on him, a phantom scent, like stale sweat and rust and something shamefully intimate.
It takes everything I have not to imagine the exact weight of his body pressing hers into a mattress, not to picture the way her thighs might have shaken as he forced himself into her.
Ezekiel smiles, a knowing, almost pitying smile. “You don’t have to deny it. I’m not here to expose you. In fact, I’m here to make you an offer.”
“An offer?” I repeat, my voice cold. I want to laugh. “From you? The man who has spent years trying to destroy my family, trying to destroy what my bloodline has created?”
He chuckles, a low, humourless sound that crawls over my skin like insect legs. “Destroy? No, my fight was never with that, it was with Konstantine and Ines. Now that she’s dead, there’s no need for conflict. We can resolve this, we can work together. We can finally have peace.”
Peace. The word is an obscenity in his mouth.
I know it’s a lie. The Esau’s ambitions have always been clear; to dismantle my family’s legacy, to seize our power, to rewrite all the rules.
Ines’s death changes nothing. If anything, it makes them more dangerous, a predator with a fresh taste of triumph.
But I don’t say that. Instead I tilt my head, feigning curiosity, letting the hint of a mocking tone ring out.
“And what would that look like?” I ask.
Ezekiel spreads his hands, ever the showman, even when he doesn’t have an audience to witness it. “Unity. Strength. The Heseltine’s and the Esau, united under one banner once more. Think of what we could achieve. The power we could wield.”
I step closer to him, my gaze hard. I let the distance between us shrink until I can see the tiny, dilated vessels in his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on his brow.
I wonder if any of her tears dried on this skin, I wonder if he ever made her scream until her voice broke.
I wonder what it would feel like to peel the flesh from his bones in long, careful, deliberate strips.
“And what price would you ask for this unity?”
He hesitates just for a moment, just for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough.
I see the calculation in his eyes, the hunger.
Oh, he wants something. Something more than unity.
Something more than just power. Perhaps a new toy.
Perhaps he has no idea that I’ve already taken his broken bird into my keeping, that I’ve pressed my mouth to the very wounds he carved into her soul.
Before he can answer, the sound of something echoes in the corridor outside. Ezekiel’s smile falters.
“Think about it,” he says, his voice low. “You have everything to gain and nothing to lose, Lazarus.”
And then he’s gone, disappearing into the darkness as if he were never there, leaving only an aftertaste of rage. I turn to see Zayn approaching, his expression serious.
“Grand Master,” he says, bowing his head slightly. “I’ve just received a message from Antonio. There’s been an incident. His castle has been attacked. He is flying to the US as we speak, and he is bringing the boy with him.”
Ezra. Ezra was in danger, no, is in danger.
Did Ezekiel know this, was this part of his plan, attack Antonio while whispering pretty poison into my ear? No, he couldn’t have known Ezra was there. No one knows Ezra is there. No one but me, Konstantine, and Zayn. It’s a coincidence, a lucky one but a coincidence nonetheless.
“We need to leave.” I state. Thank God this meeting is done, and I can fly back without having any lingering issues to resolve.