Chapter 48 #2
He eats the concrete face first. Full body, teeth clacking so loud I feel it in my own skull.
Marcus groans, scratched up and bruised and the sight does something to me.
I crouch beside him fast, forearm across his throat, smile bright and pleasant as I lean into the pressure until his eyes start to water and panic rises up again.
“Mm-mm,” I chide softly. “Baby, no. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to run after you put your hands on what’s mine.”
He gurgles, choking a little on the pressure I apply. I ease up just before he blacks out. Got to keep him conscious. Ash will sulk if I bring home damaged goods. Though, this fucker doesn’t know that.
“Walk,” I say.
Wraith’s van is parked two streets over in a loading zone, hazard lights blinking, big and nondescript. No logos. No plates registered to this city. Blacked out back windows. The kind of vehicle no one asks questions about in East London because if you’re smart, you don’t.
Passenger door slides open before we even reach it. Saint steps down, fully armed to the teeth. He looks like judgment. And right now he is furious.
Not loud. Not showy. Just—contained wrath. His eyes are glacier pale. His mouth is soft and kind and promising sin. The brace on his wrist makes his forearms look obscene, all tendon and vein and faith gone rotten.
Marcus sees him and actually tries to backpedal. I tighten my grip on his neck and purr, “Ah-ah.” Saint takes one look at Marcus, then lifts his gaze to me.
“Problems?” he asks mildly.
I grin. “Minor.”
Saint’s eyes flick to the cut at Marcus’s brow, the bloom of swelling there, the scrape of skin at his jaw.
One brow lifts. “Mateo.”
“I didn’t break him,” I say, offended.
“Yet,” Saint murmurs.
I beam. “Exactly.”
Saint sighs like I exhaust him.
“Put him in,” Wraith’s voice rumbles from inside the van.
Wraith is all shadow back there — broad shoulders, tattoos swallowing what the dim interior light hits, eyes like polished amber in the dark.
He’s in black, forearms inked and flexed, jaw tight.
There’s a tension in him that hasn’t eased since we pulled Damien.
He’s been quieter. Meaner. Sleeping with Ember in his arms like if he lets go, the house will vanish around him.
He looks at Marcus like he’s looking at garbage he can’t wait to take out, and it makes my grin even more feral.
I love my family.
We guide Marcus into the van. It’s not graceful, but it gets the job done. He climbs. I “help.” Help being loosely applied. He goes down on his knees the second he’s inside because Wraith’s hand is already on his shoulder, huge and unforgiving, forcing him there.
Marcus yelps. “Please—I didn’t—I haven’t—”
“Shut up,” Wraith says without inflection.
Marcus shuts up immediately when his gaze connects with Wraith’s. Saint climbs in after them, then turns and offers me a hand up, gentlemanly. I quirk a smile at him and take it, because yeah, I’ll play his pretty games. He swings the van door shut behind us.
We’re rolling before Marcus quite processes that he has left his block and entered something else entirely. That’s my favorite moment.
The dawning.
That tiny flicker in the eyes when they register that they’re inside the wolves’ mouth and the teeth are already behind them.
Marcus’s breathing goes fast and shallow. “You—you can’t—you can’t just—”
“Just what,” I ask sweetly, dropping onto the bench across from him. I sprawl, wide-kneed, relaxed, forearms on my thighs. “Collect you? Sweetheart, we absolutely can.”
“This is illegal—”
Saint chuckles low. “Oh, darling,” he murmurs. “You haven’t even seen illegal yet.”
Marcus licks his lips, eyes jumping between us. Me. Saint. Wraith. Back to me. He’s trying to pick the weakest link. He’s praying there is one.
Bad news, carino. There’s not one.
His gaze stops on Wraith the longest. Of course it does.
Wraith’s crouched in front of him like a hunting dog at rest. One big hand on Marcus’s shoulder, pinning him to his knees without even trying. The other arm draped loose across his thigh. He’s leaning in close enough that Marcus can feel his breath.
“Listen,” Wraith says softly.
Marcus swallows so hard I hear it click. “P-please—”
“No,” Wraith says. “You’re going to listen.”
Marcus goes silent.
“You’re going to the house,” Wraith continues, voice low.
“You’re going to sit in a chair. You’re going to tell Ember Calloway exactly what you did, what you said.
You’re going to tell her exactly what you threatened.
You’re going to tell her exactly who you reported to and exactly what they told you to do when she told you no.
You’re going to do it without lying. You’re going to do it without crying.
You’re going to do it without trying to make her feel like she’s crazy.
If you don’t, I will hand you to him—” he jerks his chin at me “—and I will take a break.”
Marcus stares at him, trembling. “Who—who is ‘him?’”
“This,” he says, tapping my knee with two fingers like he’s introducing a favorite blade, “is Mateo Valez. We call him Vale. Some people call him the Devil.” His smile widens, lazy and lethal. “Those people don’t talk much anymore.”
Marcus’s face drains of all color.
“And if you survive Mateo,” Wraith continues, “Saint here will sit with you and ask about your soul until you beg to go back to Mateo. You will, for the record. Everyone does.”
Saint smiles warmly. “I’m a very patient man,” he says.
Marcus makes a tiny helpless sound.
“And if you survive that,” Wraith finishes, voice going low and edged, “then Rook will come in. And he’s not patient, or merciful. Rook doesn’t negotiate—he ends things. Do you understand?”
Marcus is breathing fast and hard. He nods so fast I’m surprised he doesn’t snap his own neck.
“Words,” Wraith growls.
“Yes,” Marcus chokes out. “Yes. I understand. I’ll talk. I’ll say whatever she wants. I’ll— I’ll cooperate. Just— please. Please don’t— please.”
God, he’s pathetic. I can taste my own grin. Unhinged little thrill of it sits bright under my tongue.
Because this is it.
This is the part I like. The lead-up. The pressure. The moment right before the blade kisses the skin. When they’re still whole and we decide how much to take. I lean forward, elbows on my knees, hands folded loose between them.
“Marcus,” I purr. “Look at me.” He does.
Smart boy. “You’re not going to talk because you’re scared of us,” I tell him.
“That’s part of it, sure. But you’re going to talk because she’s going to be in the room.
And you’re going to see her. And you’re going to know what you did.
And you’re going to realize you don’t get to walk this off. ”
His lip trembles.
“You’re going to understand that you don’t get to disappear into a gray flat in Bethnal Green and pretend you didn’t put your hands on a child,” I murmur.
“You don’t get to shrug and say ‘she wanted it’.
You don’t get to reason it out in your head and call it field conditioning and tell yourself it didn’t count.
You don’t get to frame it up as devotion to your country and think I’m going to clap for you.
You don’t get to be the victim in a story you wrote. ”
His eyes shine. He shakes his head frantically. “I—I never— I didn’t—”
“Tread carefully,” I sing.
He swallows the old lie down.
Good.
“See,” I say, leaning in, voice dropping to a whisper, “you touched our queen. And you did it when she was alone and vulnerable. She was a child! A CHILD, you smug bastard. So now you’re ours. And now you belong to her.”
His breath hitches, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. I hope the little bitch cries.
“Ours,” Saint echoes softly.
“Ours,” Wraith rumbles.
My smile sharpens. “Which means you don’t belong to yourself anymore. You answer whatever she asks, and you don’t get to die until she says you can.”
I let that sit. Let him really feel it, and understand the shape of his world now.
That’s what’s eating at me, if I’m honest. Why I keep terrorizing him even though I know I can’t kill him.
It’s because I don’t get to decide when.
He doesn’t belong to me. He belongs to her. And for someone like me, that’s… new.
Annoying, but slightly addictive.
I lean back and drape my arms along the bench, loose and satisfied, and let the feeling settle under my skin. I’m buzzing with it, grinning like a lunatic and I can’t stop.
She’s been walking around for days with that cold light in her eyes, that new weight in her shoulders, that crown we all put on her head fitted like it was made for her skull. She’s calmer. Sharper. Worse, in the way that’s better. She’s not prey anymore. She’s the hunter.
We did that, we helped build that confidence back in her—helped her come alive again. And now I get to hand-deliver her the man who made seventeen-year-old Ember feel small and tell her, here, reina, this one is yours.
Yeah. I’ll keep him breathing for that… Barely.
The van turns off the main road.
We’re heading toward the manor now — the long private drive, trees lining the lane, security gates shutting the rest of London out.
Marcus feels the change. He goes very, very still. “Where are we,” he whispers.
I lean forward, grin wide enough to split my face, and pat Marcus’s cheek. Tender. Patronizing. “Welcome to court,” I say.
He flinches like I hit him, and I laugh in his face. It’s sadistic and cruel, and I love every fucking second of watching him squirm.
Because here’s the truth… I’ve been a lot of ugly things in my life — blade, traitor, animal, executioner.
But right now? Right now I get to be a gift.
And that’s almost better than killing the wanker.