50. Lazarus
The mansion is quiet when I leave her.
Dawn is still an hour away, the sky outside the windows a deep, bruised purple that reminds me of the marks I left on her throat.
I stand in the doorway of the bedroom for a moment, watching Leandra sleep.
She’s tangled in the sheets, her hair a dark spill across the pillow, one arm stretched out toward the empty space where I lay.
The bite mark on her shoulder is already darkening, a brand that says mine in a language older than words.
I want to crawl back into that bed. I want to pull her against my chest and forget the world outside these walls exists.
Instead, I close the door.
The hallway stretches before me, lined with portraits of people who have been dead for centuries.
People who betrayed the Brethren, people who played with fire and got burnt, or so the story goes.
I’ve never bothered to verify. This place is full of lies dressed up as history, and I’ve learned that some truths are better left buried.
My footsteps echo on the wood as I descend the staircase. The chandelier above me is dark, but I don’t need light. I’ve walked these halls enough times in the dark to know every creaking floorboard, every shadow that doesn’t belong.
Tonight, the shadows are still.
Waiting. Watching.
He’s already in the foyer when I reach the bottom of the stairs.
Devin Blake stands with his back to me, making a play of examining a painting on the wall, a mediocre depiction of Icarus falling from the sky, wings in flames. He doesn’t turn when I approach, but I see his shoulders tense, the slight tilt of his head that tells me he’s listening.
“You called,” he says. “Sounded urgent.”
“It is.”
Now he turns. Devin is not a small man; he’s built in a way that would make you believe giants truly existed. But despite his size, he moves like a blade being drawn from a sheath; smooth, deliberate, utterly deadly.
His hair is cropped short, military-precise, and his eyes are the colour of winter slate. He’s wearing civilian clothes, dark jeans and a leather jacket, clothes meant to make him blend in but they do anything but.
I trust Devin. It’s not a word I use lightly. Trust is a currency in our world, and I’ve seen too many men bankrupt themselves on it, but Devin is different. Devin has something to lose.
Or rather, someone.
“How is Paitlyn?” I ask.
Devin’s expression doesn’t change, he’s too well-trained for that, but something flickers in his eyes. A shadow. A wound that hasn’t fully healed despite the years.
“Fine,” he says.
“Konstantine still doesn’t suspect anything?”
“No.” The word is flat, final.
I nod. This is why Devin is here. This is why I trust him. For two years now he has kept this secret, kept his mouth shut, proven himself loyal to me and all the while controlled enough to not seek vengeance on the man ultimately responsible for his and his wife’s suffering.
“If Konstantine finds out…” Devin starts.
“He won’t.” I cut him off. “Not from me. Not from anyone, but right now, I need you here. I need you to protect someone for me.”
Devin’s gaze sharpens. “The woman upstairs?”
“Her name is Leandra.” I don’t know why I tell him that. Names are dangerous things but Devin is about to put his life on the line for her, and he deserves to know what he’s protecting. “She’s mine, and Konstantine is looking for her.”
“Does he know she’s here?”
“No, and he won’t find out. But I have to leave, and I need someone I trust to guard this place while I’m gone.” I step closer, close enough that I can see the faint scar on his jaw, the one I know Paitlyn gave him years ago. “Can I trust you, Devin?”
“You know you can.”
“I need to hear you say it.”
He holds my gaze. “I’ll protect her with my life. No one gets in. No one gets near her. You have my word.”
The word of a man who defied the Brethren to save the woman he loved. It’s worth more than gold. More than blood.
I clasp his shoulder. “There’s a room prepared for you. Third door on the left, upstairs. The security system is armed, and there are enough of my men here to fight an army. If anything, anything, feels wrong, you call me.”
“And if I can’t reach you?”
“Then you kill first and ask questions never.”
Devin’s lips twitch, almost a smile. “My favourite kind of orders.”
I leave him there in the foyer with Icarus burning on the wall, and step out into the cold morning air. The sky is starting to lighten, grey bleeding into the edges of the darkness.
As I slide into the driver’s seat of my car, I let out a breath.
Leandra is safe.
Devin will guard her with his life, and I believe him. I have to believe him. The alternative is unthinkable.
I start the engine and pull away from the mansion, watching it shrink in the rearview mirror until it’s just another shadow on the horizon.
The drive to Zayn’s estate takes two hours.
I spend most of it thinking about my brother. About next steps, because there has to be next steps. Even if Ezekiel acts today, the result will not be instant. I need weeks, three at the most for all of this to truly work.
But I do not have weeks. I do not have days.
I run my hand over my face, trying to see another option, but there is none. I cannot kill him outright without consequences. I need Antonio to do this, I need him to play his part.
This has to be done right.
And to do it right, requires time.
Zayn’s house appears at the end of a long, winding drive lined with ancient oaks.
It’s a Tudor revival mansion, all half-timbering and steeply pitched roofs, the kind of place that looks like it’s been standing for five hundred years even though it was built in the 1920s.
The grounds are immaculate, the gardens manicured, and there are guards everywhere.
I count six as I drive up. Two at the gate, two patrolling the perimeter, two stationed at the front door. They’re all armed, all alert, all wearing the subtle insignia of Zayn’s personal security detail. When they see my car, they wave me through without hesitation.
They know who I am. They know better than to stop me.
I park in front of the main entrance and kill the engine.
The house looms above me, its windows dark and watchful.
I’ve always found Zayn’s home unsettling, though I’ve never been able to articulate why.
Maybe it’s the way the shadows pool in the corners.
Maybe it’s the silence that seems to press against your eardrums like a held breath.
Or maybe it’s the knowledge that Zayn himself is one of the most dangerous men I’ve ever met, wheelchair or no wheelchair.
I let myself in through the front door. The foyer is cavernous, a two-story space with a grand staircase and a chandelier that probably costs more than most people’s houses. The security detail inside nods at me as I pass and I nod back, already scanning, already listening.
For the sound of a child.
I move through the house, checking rooms. A formal dining room with a table that seats twenty. A sitting room with furniture that looks like it’s never been sat on. A study filled with leather-bound books and the faint smell of cigar smoke. No Ezra.
I’m starting down a hallway lined with closed doors when I hear it.
A voice. Low, rumbling, unmistakable.
“Looking for something?”
I turn. Zayn is at the end of the hallway, his wheelchair gliding silently across the hardwood floor. He’s a massive man even seated, broad shoulders, thick arms, chest like a barrel.
“You won’t find the boy there,” Zayn says. “Follow me.”
He turns his chair and wheels away without waiting for a response. I follow.
He leads me through the house, past more closed doors and more silent guards, until we reach the library.
It’s a vast room, two stories tall, with shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling and a fireplace big enough to roast a boar.
The windows are tall and arched, letting in the pale morning light.
And there, in the window seat, is Ezra.
He’s curled up with a book, his small body dwarfed by the cushions. His dark hair falls over his forehead, and his lips move slightly as he reads, though no sound comes out. He hasn’t noticed us. He’s somewhere else entirely, lost in whatever world the words are building for him.
“He reads a lot,” Zayn says quietly. “Perhaps he’s looking for all the words he cannot speak, hidden in the books.”
I wince, hearing the awful truth in those words.
I touch Zayn’s arm and gesture toward the hallway. He follows, and we leave Ezra to his book, to his silence, to the words he can’t say out loud.
“Something is happening,” I say. “A disturbance, if you will. I need you to keep Ezra safe, to continue to keep him hidden here.”
Zayn’s eyes narrow. “How long for?”
“You’ll know when everything is done, when everything is sorted.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Zayn studies me for a long moment. His fingers drum against the armrest of his wheelchair, a rhythmic tap-tap-tap that echoes in the quiet hallway. “You’re being very cryptic,” he says finally. “Even for you.”
“You’ll be grateful for it. To not be pulled into secrets, into conspiracies and lies.”
He shakes his head, a humourless smile crossing his scarred face. “To be Brethren is to live with conspiracies. That’s what our world is, Lazarus. Secrets upon secrets, lies upon lies. You think keeping me in the dark protects me? It doesn’t. It just means I’m blind when the knife comes.”
I sigh. He’s not wrong. He’s never wrong, damn him.
“Just keep the boy safe,” I say. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“It’s already done.” Zayn’s voice is steady, certain. “Ezra is under my protection. No one gets to him. No one.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, a gesture of comradeship, of gratitude, of all the things I don’t have words for. He covers my hand with his own, his grip surprisingly strong.
“Be careful,” he says. “Whatever you’re walking into, be very fucking careful.”
“I always am.”
“No,” Zayn says, and his clouded eye seems to see right through me. “You’re not. That’s what worries me.”
I don’t have an answer for that. So I just squeeze his shoulder once more and turn away, walking back through the silent house, past the guards and the closed doors and the shadows that seem to watch me go.
Ezra is still reading when I pass the library. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t see me.
I’m almost grateful for that.