Chapter 13
Bruise
THE MAESTRO | Past
Iswirl Scotch in my glass. It catches the dim light like molten gold.
Beautiful things always look better in darkness.
Maybe that’s why I can’t stop thinking about her.
Maybe that’s why I am losing what little remains of my fucking mind.
I thought I could wait.
Thought discipline was stronger than hunger. Thought sixteen days was survivable.
I was wrong.
Because beneath the tailored suits, the billion-euro empire, the bloodline, the crown… I am still just a man.
And men are weak where obsession is concerned.
I look at the invitation tossed carelessly across my desk.
I almost laugh.
Today I killed two of the Cosa Nostra’s most powerful men.
Two bodies. Two holes in my Father’s carefully constructed empire. Two names erased before sunset.
And still, my hands itch for another murder. I set the whiskey down. I reach for the picture that arrived a few minutes ago, lying at the edge of my desk.
And there she is. Selene.
My fingers tighten around the picture. She is wearing white.
A flowy summer dress that kisses the ground with every step, as if even the Earth knew better than to touch her skin without permission.
A faint smile curves her perfectly painted pink lips, beautiful… and completely fucking false.
Because her soft brown eyes… those eyes never smiled. Not in this picture. Not with me when she left, sobbing, calling me a monster. Not even when I made her tremble. I trace her face with my thumb.
A muscle tightens somewhere I can’t name at the sight of a man beside her. I know him.
He’s Vane Davenport’s son. Adrian Davenport. One I’ll kill very soon.
So, she thinks I was lying when I said I’d kill for her. She thinks sending me this invitation to her engagement, clicking a picture with another man, smiling at him, wearing his ring will save her from me?
And the audacity, for the engagement to be on the same day as my fucking wedding.
Well played, Dolcezza.
For a moment… I just stare. At the ring on her finger. At the bastard standing beside her like he has the right. Like he earned the privilege of breathing the same fucking air as her.
A low laugh escapes me. My thumb strokes the edge of the photograph.
Then my grip tightens hard enough to bend the fucking paper.
She’s smiling.
Trying to taste the lie.
Trying to understand how my sweet little ghost thought this would end.
Because Selene knows me.
She’s seen what sits beneath the suits.
Beneath the billions.
Beneath the carefully polished mask.
She’s seen the monster.
And she still thought she could provoke me?
And that… that’s when I know someone’s going to die.
But rage is sloppy. Messy. Temporary. This? This is worse.
This is eternal.
My eternal claim on her.
I lean back in my chair. Look up at the ceiling. And smile. Cute.
Real fucking cute.
She thinks this is rebellion.
Poor girl.
She still doesn’t understand.
Distance means nothing when obsession has your fucking name carved into its bones.
I grab my phone. Dial her number. Once. It rings. And rings. And rings. No answer. Something dark shifts in my chest. Something far uglier. I hit call again. This time… she picks up on the second ring.
“…Hello?”
I freeze.
My brows pull together.
Because that, that doesn’t sound like my Selene.
There is no fire. No venom. No sharp tongue. No trembling rage like that day.
My grip tightens around the phone.
“What happened?”
There is a long pause. Because my Selene would’ve told me to go to hell by now. Would’ve cursed me. Mocked me. Fought me. But this? This voice sounds like something broken. And broken things make me murderous.
She laughs.
But even that sounds hollow.
“Why do you care?” My eyes darken.
“Don’t play games with me, Dolcezza,” I growl, standing and moving to the window, where rain blurs the lights of Rome. “I saw the fucking picture and the ring. Why is his hand on you?”
She lets out a choked, dry sob that makes the whiskey I drank turn to acid in my gut.
“You’re such a monster,” she whispers, and the venom is finally there, but it’s weak, diluted by a bone-deep exhaustion.
“Wasn’t it enough? You broke me. You ruined everything.
You said you loved me, but that was all a lie, I know.
But what wrong have I done, Zagreus, that now you’re punishing me this way? ”
I freeze.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Don’t act confused! It’s beneath you, Zagreus!
” she screams, her voice cracking into pieces that pierce me.
“You threatened my Father. You tore our legacy apart. You forced my hand. You made me choose between my soul and my family’s survival.
You lied about loving me, ’cause you wanted to break me. ”
“I haven’t spoken to your Father in weeks, Selene,” I say, my voice calm. George Visconti appealed to the Cosa Nostra for his position, but I revoked it. “I didn’t send anyone.”
“Liar!” she shrieks. “You’re all the same. You and your Father. You’re my ruin, you monster! You ruined everything!”
“My Father?” I repeat the words, and the air in the room feels thin, like I’m standing on the peak of a mountain about to be struck by lightning. “Tell me exactly what happened. Now.”
Her breathing is ragged, shallow.
“He came to the house,” she says, her voice flat. Dead. “While you were out playing at being king… your Father came.”
“He asked for my hand in marriage to Corvin, and when I refused, he tried to kill her, Zagreus. Your fucking Father tried to kill my Mother! He burned the west wing with her inside! If Adrian hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t pulled her out…”
The phone in my hand feels like a live wire.
I stare at the photograph on my desk. The white dress. The fake smile. The ring.
A ransom. She’s getting married to him because he pulled her Mother out of the fire my Father set. This can’t happen. I made sure she was protected. This was our unspoken vow. My Father said he wouldn’t harm her or her family if I married Crystella. This was the price I paid.
“I’ll kill him,” I whisper.
“He’s your Father!” she cries out, the tears finally flowing, audible and agonizing.
“And you’re just like him! I hate you, Zagreus!
I hate that I ever let you touch me! I hate that I can still smell you on my skin while I’m standing next to a man I have to marry just to keep my family from crumbling! ”
She hangs up.
She thinks I did this.
She thinks I’m the one who threw her to the wolves. I pick up the whiskey glass and hurl it at the window. This is the birth of a God of Ruin.
He fucking played me.
He’s about to learn that when you take the only thing a monster loves, you don’t make him stronger.
You make him the end of the world.