Chapter 16
I’d hated the secret society I sold my soul to longer than I’d ever enjoyed it. I was promised power, but was treated like a puppet. Their little plaything they could jerk around, nothing more than a pawn for their bidding.
For a while I could pretend I didn’t mind. That the strings they liked to tug didn’t tear at my muscles, at my very soul. It gave me my company, the loaded zeroes in my bank account. This house.
I just had to pretend I didn’t know the hidden prices I had to pay to achieve any of it.
After my father’s arrest, I promised myself I’d never be like him. I wouldn’t cheat to get ahead. I wouldn’t steal. I’d live an honest life and bring honor back to the Delacore name.
Arguably, I became someone worse.
And tonight only cemented that.
I hated Icarus, but I never felt this searing, blinding rage that charred my insides, that left me feeling hollow, like I did tonight.
I didn’t know a person could feel this empty, like there was nothing left to give. Just a twisted wasteland of regret. Of agony.
It weighed me down, pulling me under. Drowning me in this emptiness that consumed every bit of me.
I vaguely remembered leaving my room, and coming back downstairs to the party, but I couldn’t tell you what I did. Couldn’t tell you who I talked to or when it ended. Only that I somehow found myself in the kitchen after the music had faded away, and the people dispersed out, staring at the aftermath of a well hosted party.
Normally the mess would make my eye twitch, but it barely disturbed a muscle. I wasn’t really focused on what was in front of me anyway. Too consumed with the way Mady’s warm honey hazel eyes, the very ones I had spent the last week memorizing, crystalized in heartbreak before solidifying in hate.
Stabbing myself in the lung would’ve hurt less than how I hurt Mady. My little dove.
I wasn’t born to be a good man, but she made me think I could pretend. That I could forget all my crimes, that a simple smile from her was enough to absolve my sins.
So I did what I did best, and ruined it.
No, ruined felt too clean of a word for yanking out Madelayne’s heart, watching the candle she had always kept lit for me inside there go out.
Taking any shred of good of me with it.
I’d done a lot of questionable things in my time, things that altered my moral compass, but nothing would haunt me like tonight.
Raw, visceral, debilitating pain shot across my chest, and I sucked in a pained breath. The air that sliced through my clenched teeth felt punishing.
As if even the oxygen in the room knew what I did was unforgivable.
I wasn’t supposed to want her.
We stood on two sides of a very unforgiving line. The brother’s best friend and his little sister. His nineteen-year-old sister.
It should’ve been easy to stick to our reserved sides.
It shouldn’t have even been a thought in my head.
And it wasn’t.
Until one day, six months ago, when Mady had walked into a room and I instantly became aware of her movements. It was such an innocuous thing. She was looking for a book or a magazine or something, mumbling under her breath. I wasn’t even sure if she knew her brother and I were in the room, but I kept finding myself stealing glances at her. And each time it got harder to look away. I didn’t want to look away as this strange, wholly foreign feeling fluttered in my chest.
I still wasn’t sure what it was about that moment that changed the way I looked at her.
Only that I hadn’t been able to stop since.
But I tried. I tried really damn hard to ignore the way my skin pricked with awareness every time she was near or how my ears strained to hear even her faintest laugh.
I fought the urge to find reasons to be close to her, putting conscious distance between us instead.
I did everything I could to not see her as anything other than my best friend’s younger sister.
Until London. One night with her was all it took for the walls I had built to be torn down, and one hotel room where I gave in to the moonlit temptation for me to know I was ruined.
I wanted one good thing in my life, and all the good that surrounded me came in the form of Madelayne Novak.
My best friend’s younger sister.
A woman I was never supposed to want.
And the very person who had tormented my every breath.
She made me feel alive in a way that I forgot existed and gave me the one thing I never thought I’d get to taste.
Peace.
My little dove. My salvation.
My agony. My devastation.
I had been a fool. A complete and utter besotted fool who thought he could have it all.
Except, I didn’t want everything.
I just wanted her.
I’d give it all up. The money. My house. The power. My company.
I’d trade it all in, until I was nothing but that poor son of a convicted felon.
I’d give up everything to just have her.
My throat still burned from the words I said. My tongue felt heavy with the wreckage it left behind.
I broke her. I destroyed myself.
All for a duty I’d never asked for.
Nothing more than the monster they had made me, leaving me to feel dead inside.
I knew my words were going to break her. I picked them for that very reason.
They needed to break her. I needed to push her far away from me.
The Leader demanded it.
My fists curled until my knuckles were bleached white.
The Leader .
Uncaring that I was inside, my hand found its way into the back pocket of my pants, where I stashed a pack of cigarettes. It wasn’t until I got home from London that I realized the last one I had was outside the pub on Mady’s birthday. I was now on my third box in just as many days.
I relished the burn in the back of my throat as I took a long, painful drag, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from this self-inflicted agony. I needed something else. Something stronger.
“It had to be done, Saint.” The Leader stepped out of the smoke and shadows.
That doesn’t mean I had to like it, fucker. My mouth stayed sealed, but he could see the malice in my stare. He was the last distraction I needed, when all I wanted to do was strangle him.
The room twinged with red as I fought to get a handle on my rage.
What was he even doing here?
I fucking hated him.
Him, and his secret society he trapped me in when I was too arrogant and angry and hungry to prove myself to say no to his sick games.
I used to worship this man, would’ve given anything just for a lick of his attention.
Now, most nights I fell asleep imagining a bullet between his eyes and me behind the gun.
He was still dressed in what he was wearing when he came to see me this morning.
A deep, royal purple suit, shiny loafers, and his silver hair slicked back against his scalp. His face, like always, gave away nothing.
“What’re you doing here?” I growled, smoke billowing right in his face.
“Came to see if you followed through.”
“Don’t I always?” Saint, the dutiful servant. The obedient puppet.
“True.” He chuckled with sick enjoyment. The Leader stopped when I didn’t join him. “Come now, you’re not actually upset, are you? You didn’t actually have feelings for the girl.”
Feelings. That felt too plain for the cacophony of emotions Mady stirred up within me. All these overpowering, fluttery, off-kilter, all consuming sensations that attacked me every time I thought about her, every time she looked at me.
They were a lot stronger than simple feelings.
I took a slow drag of my cigarette. At least feeling dead inside helped me sell an unaffected narrative. He needed to believe everything I told him. It was the only way to keep Mady safe.
“I’ve known her her entire life, so no, I didn’t like hurting her.” That was as much honesty as the Leader earned.
“She’ll get over it.”
She would, I agreed silently. Bitterly. With smoke trapped in my throat.
She’d get over me long before I got over her. If I ever did.
But he didn’t know Mady. She’d move past this, but she’d never forget it.
She was like me in that regard. We never forgot those who wronged us, hurt us.
I had all but signed my death certificate from her life.
After today, if she ever looked at me again, it would be with nothing but malice and ill intent.
It wouldn’t even surprise me if she broke out some crystals to curse me, or however that kind of shit worked. She’d figure it out, and do it.
“Are you going to tell me why I had to do it now? Why Icarus doesn’t want us together?” Why you don’t want us together?
The Sons of Icarus were all about power. In business, in partnerships. Arrangements. They loved to make arrangements—of any kind.
Marriage arrangements weren’t just common in the society, but expected. The official reason was that it was the perfect way to make sure we stayed a secret.
The unofficial?
The Leader and the Ascended—the people of the highest level in the society—loved fucking with us. They gave us the power to rule through the backdoors of not just America, but all of Europe and parts of Asia, but they kept power over us.
When I was still living in Honeycutt, after my father was arrested and our assets were seized, I used to dream about the day I got out, made a name for myself, and had a family of my own.
Kids of my own.
I’d give them everything I never got. Safety, security, protection. Love.
But those dreams died when I joined Icarus. They might’ve had control over me, but I wasn’t letting them have control of anyone else I cared about.
It had been so long since I resolved myself to that kind of life I almost forgot about it until I found the Leader in my kitchen this morning, waiting for me with coffee in hand.
“Drop the girl,” he had ordered before even handing me the cup.
Good thing, too, or else I would’ve launched the steaming mug at his head.
“Why?”
His white brow had raised. I had never questioned him—at least, not out loud.
The Leader had waited for me to bow my head in submission.
I hadn’t, choosing to stare at him dead on. No matter the station, I didn’t lower myself to another man. Certainly not one as arrogant as the Leader. He might’ve thought he had me by the balls, but only I got to say how fucking hard.
“She’s not for you,” was all he had said. Which wasn’t good enough for me.
I had crossed my arms over my bare chest, waiting. He wanted me to end things with the sweetest little Georgia peach I ever had, he was going to give me a reason that had me scared.
And then he had.
Any fight in my body had fled at that moment.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” is what I had told him, while internally I made a promise to myself.
I had to keep Mady safe.
It didn’t matter how much she hated me. As long as she was alive.
“Tonight. At the party.”
“Tonight,” I had repeated back.
So I had told her not to come. Tried to delay the inevitable.
If she didn’t come, I could’ve tried to steal more time with her. One last time to taste her, to hold her.
The last thing I had wanted to do tonight, or any night, was have a party. All the ones I had ever hosted were because Icarus had told me to. Tonight’s had been no different.
Anything for Icarus. The pain in my ass Sons of Icarus.
And ever the dutiful servant, the task was done.
“Satisfied?” I struggled to unclench my teeth as I stared at him now, my hatred for him at war with the wreckage I caused myself.
“You’ll thank me, boy. We can’t have you distracted.”
Madelayne wasn’t a distraction. She was my salivation. My molars grounded together.
Don’t speak. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you unwind. That’s what he wants.
The Leader stepped in close, and I could smell his aftershave as he patted my cheek. Like the good little pet I was supposed to be.
Condescending prick. I struggled not to glare at him.
“Hate me now all you want, Saint, but we have big plans for you. I have big plans for you.” He was impossibly close, hand still on my cheek, when he reached down and pulled my cigarette from where it was clenched between my fingers.
I barely felt his fingers graze mine before he slipped it between his lips.
He didn’t back away as he took a drag, blowing the smoke in my face as he said, “You’ll forgive me in the end.”
“You sound so sure of that.”
I didn’t back away and neither did he as he dropped his voice into a sinister whisper that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Oh, I am, because I’m letting your pretty little sex toy live. As long as you don’t touch her, she gets to keep breathing.”
I wished it was an idle threat made by a weaker man, but I had been around the Leader far too long to know that nothing about him was idle. Least of all his threats.
They were as good as promises, and the man never went back on a promise.
“You won’t have to worry about her any longer, sir.” There was a reason the Leader liked me so much. I knew how to play his game. Knew how to suppress the rage he always stirred, when to keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself.
I knew how to subdue everything if it meant getting what I wanted.
And I wanted everything the Leader was protecting.
“You make me proud, son.”
I nodded, my neck feeling like stone.
Everything in my body felt stiff. Rods held me together instead of bones. All I saw was Mady’s face.
Her sweet, beautiful, doe-eyed face crushed with my callous words and frigid treatment. All for him.
“Thank you, sir.” The words tasted no better than candle ash.
“See you in a few weeks.”
Again, I forced myself to nod through the stiffness. The Leader gave me one last look before leaving through the back door, taking my cigarette with him.
After he was gone, I felt my body collapse into itself. Exhaustion sank into my bones, waiting for a surrender.
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this tired before three in the morning, but I was just ready for this day to end. Part of me wanted to just stretch out on my sectional, but it was littered with party remains and I didn’t have the desire or the energy to clean it tonight.
So with trepidation I forced myself up the stairs, not caring that I was afraid to find what greeted me when I got to my bedroom.
I half expected Madelayne to have torn it apart. I would’ve welcomed it.
Instead, my room was practically untouched. Exactly how I left it, save for the heaviness that surrounded me. As if our conversation still lingered, all the vile words and broken promises now decorating the space.
It felt haunted, and my throat started to close up. Suffocating me with all the lingering pain.
I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t?—
I turned to leave when something on my dresser caught my attention. Or rather, the lack of something.
No. For the first time all night I felt my heart kick-start in my chest, revving with panic as I stumbled toward the furniture.
My hand ran over the top of the sleek wood, as if it would find what my eyes couldn’t see, only to confirm the key I had been given this morning wasn’t there.
The very key I needed if I wanted to find a way to get out of this godforsaken society.
Trying to suppress my panic, I tried to recall if I put it someplace else.
After all, it wasn’t like me to just leave something so vital out in the open. I had a safe for all my secrets for a reason. But the pressing weight of the Leader’s threat had distracted me enough that I forgot to lock it away.
Now it was gone. And I knew exactly who took it.
“ Fuck! ” My fingers pushed through the familiar path of my hair, pulling at the strands with a painful grip. “This can’t be happening.”
I really hoped I was wrong and that the very person who I just made despise me didn’t steal the key to my freedom right from under me.
I spun around to check another place in hopes I maybe misremembered, when something on the ground caught my eye.
A necklace.
Fuck, my chest started to deflate with relief until I noticed the chain was metal, not a cord. And the charms were dainty, not a skeleton key.
The necklace on my floor wasn’t mine, but Mady’s.
My knees felt shaky, and I reached out to grab my dresser for stability.
She took the key.
Mady took the fucking key.
Bad. This shit was bad.
Worse than bad.
This was a fucking nightmare.
Of course Mady took the key. She just couldn’t keep her hands to herself. She probably took it in hopes it would rile me up. That it would somehow inflict some kind of hurt to me, like I did to her.
God, she had no fucking idea.
Now Mady was entangled in something I couldn’t get her out of. The very people I just destroyed her to keep her safe from.
The necklace wasn’t a trinket, but a key to Icarus’s most guarded secrets.
It was an honor to receive the necklace. It meant that you had done enough in your tenure in the society to be considered to join the Ascended. I had been doing everything I could in the last eight years to get myself noticed, to earn a chance to join the most elite group.
It had been my plan since I found out that Icarus was responsible for Delvak Tech’s success. I wanted to get the key, and infiltrate the highest level.
It was there I’d figure out how to leave unscathed or tear the whole society down in the process.
And it finally happened. Before the Leader left my kitchen this morning he gave me the key, with the instructions to guard it for the next two years.
My last test.
And I didn’t even have it for twelve hours before it was stolen from me.
Goddamn it, Madelayne. I gritted my teeth. Everything was falling apart.
You don’t know what you just did, baby.
The girl whose heart I just broke now held the key to my freedom, and I knew with absolute certainty she wasn’t going to give it back. Not even if I asked. Not even if she knew what it was for.
I broke her, so it was her turn to make me suffer.
Which meant I needed to get it back a different way. I needed?—
Mady’s necklace caught my eye again. The sight of it felt like a jagged spear had pierced my heart. It felt final. Like what we were was no more, and we were about to start something neither of us would come back from.
With shaky fingers, I scooped it up, knowing what I had to do.
Madelayne Novak better watch out. She just entered a very dangerous game. One I intended to win.
To be continued…