Chapter 7
7
Lex
By the time we get back to West End’s tetanus factory masquerading as living quarters, my neck is fucking killing me. Nine hours of staring down at veins isn’t the most ergonomic way to spend my day. Frustratingly, there’s also a nagging presence in the back of my brain reminding me of the Scratch dealer we passed on the way here, and the more the day drags on, the less I’m inclined to ignore the tickle in the back of my throat.
When I shove the key into the loft’s door, prying it open with a bump from my shoulder, my body feels heavy, like weights have been tied to my limbs.
Still, I help Verity inside first, hefting my bag with one arm as the other presses a hand to the small of her back. Over time, she’s gotten more inclined to accepting these small, proprietary gestures, which is good, seeing as how it’s getting more and more difficult to be around her without touching some part of her.
Usually her belly.
The loft has a strange smell. Old, like dust. There’s also an edge to it, metal and the tang of salt. Rust and paper. We’ve been here a week and no one is more surprised than me to find I miss home. Part of that is the professionally contained bedroom I can lock myself into, not to mention the impeccable medical facility built into the palace, but maybe what people say about the Princes is right. Perhaps we really are spoiled.
I miss my silk pillows.
As I’m dumping my bag and emptying my pockets, I watch her carefully. She goes to the fridge, swinging the door open to stare at the contents for a long moment. Verity does this new thing where she’ll pick at her lips when a craving hits her. She does it now, bottom lip pinched gently between forefinger and thumb as she gazes at the selection. I’ve had it stocked with vegetables, fruits, and easy proteins since our second day here.
Her chest swells and shrinks with a long sigh.
She opens the freezer.
My mouth twitches as I watch her work through the mental steps of what it is she wants. Her hair is pulled up into a messy bun, the back of her neck flushed. She’s been hot all day. She’s not hungry. We ate at the gym just two hours ago, with seventeen DKS members, twelve cutsluts, her mother, and Remington Maddox.
I kick off my shoes. “Ice cream.”
Without even meeting my gaze, her eyes pop wide, a delicate, longing ‘ooh’ floating off her lips. “Mint chocolate chip,” she moans. And then, with a pout, she lets the freezer door swing shut.
No, I don’t stock the freezer with ice cream.
“There’s yogurt,” I offer.
She cuts me a horrified look. “It’s not the same.”
“I’ll get some tomorrow,” I promise, unbuttoning my shirt.
She shrugs like she doesn’t care, watching as I collapse on the couch. A jaw-cracking yawn takes me, and I know there are things I need to do—brush my teeth, check the baby’s heartbeat, get her a pint of mint chocolate chip—but I can’t bring myself to do anything other than reach for my hair tie, letting my hair loose as my eyes flutter closed.
I hear more than see her shuffling around the room, the sounds growing closer.
The instant the weight of her presses into the couch against my hip, I reach for her, splaying my hand across her stomach. I don’t feel him moving. He must be resting. Maybe he had a long day, too.
“Can I ask you something?” The sound of her voice, small and confusingly fragile, is the only thing that could make my eyes flutter open. Her tired eyes stare back, fingers fidgeting with the hairband around her wrist. It’s only now that I realize she’s taken her hair down too, the red locks cascading over her shoulders.
My thumb sweeps soothingly against her belly. “Of course.”
She glances down, catching the motion of my hand, and stills it by placing her own hand on top. “Remember back when you were… making deposits?”
Something in me stirs at the quick flick of her eyes to mine. The timidness. The blush rising to her cheeks.
God, I want to feel her beneath me.
Haltingly, I answer, “Yeah.”
“Why did you…” A crevice appears between her eyebrows as she works through the stilted nature of her words. “Why did you always make me look at you?”
I blink, fighting the urge to pull my hand away. Instead, I squirm, clearing my throat. “I don’t know.”
She finally meets my gaze, leveling me with an unimpressed stare. “Yes, you do.”
With a resigned sigh, I think back to those long weeks. Most of the time, filling those syringes meant sitting in a dark room, desperate to get it over with—to come—out of nothing but obligation and a fear of failure. There was no passion in it, only desperation and persistence. I’d think of her, of course. Sometimes, I’d have Pace pull me up a clip of her and Wicker. More often than not, I’d put myself in his place, imagining I was the one emptying my balls into her with the same untethered grunts.
But mostly, it was just a battle with my body, fighting to stay hard.
“Because if my seed took hold,” I begin, struggling to put something so absurd into words, “I wanted to know it was done with… more of me than just a lousy nut into a specimen cup.”
Okay, it definitely sounds stupider when I say it aloud.
Looking up, I catch her watching me back, her head cocked curiously. “Why?”
Unsettled by the confusion in her eyes, I look away, my gaze falling on the coffee table. It’s a chaotic mess consisting of my laptop, the heart monitor, nursery invoices, the framed articles I’d taken off the wall for her, and a stack of old newspapers that I found in the closet. Fittingly, these things have become a sort of clock for me. Rotations of my day. Mornings with the heart monitor strapped to Verity’s belly. Afternoons spent pouring over spreadsheets and lab results. Evenings coordinating with the contractors over the phone. Nights—long nights that seem like they’ll never end—spent flipping idly through all these clippings of Forsyth’s history. This building has all kinds of tattered shreds of it lying around.
It’s why I relent, turning my hand to lace our fingers together. “Because I’m not like Wicker or Pace. My blood isn’t Royal, or warm, or full of potential, and I—” I look down, fixated by the sight of our entwined hands, resting against our son. “I didn’t want to create a life out of emptiness. A life like mine.”
Her face goes slack, lips parting. “What?”
“It was dumb. Superstitious, I guess.” It’s never easy being faced with things I can’t quantify, and I frown as I consider her belly—the life stirring inside of it. “But what is a soul? Does it even exist? Is it just a pretty name we give to the concept of sentience, or is it something that transcends science? And if it is, are we imbued with one at birth, or is a soul something we build ourselves? Can we inherit a soul? And if we can, does that mean we can also inherit the absence of one?” Exhausted, I rub my eyes, confessing, “I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know. But with my history, if there was a chance of that moment, the spark of creation, having any impact on genetic nature, then I wanted to at least?—”
A loud, wracking sob shatters my meandering train of thought. I lay there, stunned, as Verity rips her hand from mine, covering her crying face. There couldn’t be a more concise validation of those fears than this. I feel it in the pit of my chest, this dull, painful throb that I’d put her through it. It’s why I’d been so happy to find out our son was made from Wicker.
Wicker, whose biggest problem is that he has too much soul.
But really, who’d want to look into these dead, empty eyes while creating life? It’s harder than I thought it’d be to say, “I’m sorry I made you look.”
Her hands fly away from her face, revealing red, tear-stained cheeks. “No,” she cries, the agonized twist of her expression tugging at something painful. “Looking at you was the best part of the whole thing, Lex. I’m… I’m so glad you made me look.” She sucks in a sharp, shuddering breath, her green eyes brimming. “But Wicker didn’t.”
For a moment, all I can parse are those words.
“... the best part of the whole thing.”
And then I push up, sweeping the hair from her wet cheek. “Hey, what are you talking about?”
She grimaces, but I don’t let her twist away, thumbing a tear from her cheek. “I found out I was pregnant after the cleansing,” she explains. In my periphery, I see her hands tangling the hem of her shirt up into fists, wringing them. “What if that’s how we made him, Lex? What if it was worse than empty? You were all so mean and hateful, and you… you didn’t want to create with me. You hated me. You wanted to hurt me.” She untangles a fist only to push it against her diaphragm. “That hurt is still in here somewhere.” With wide, shining eyes, she presses a ragged whisper into the space between us. “What if it’s him, Lex? What if we bring this child into the world and I can never look into his eyes and see anything but pain?”
Her words sink into me like a knife, the thought so gutting that it’s a physical impulse to recoil from it.
Instead, I pull her close, gathering her shuddering body up to mine. “Fuck, Verity…” She smells sweet and ripe, her hair like silk against my cheek. I want to fucking hit something. “You know how hard I’ve worked to analyze this pregnancy.” Every last deposit. Every ovulation. Every menstruation. Temperatures. Hormones. “You trust that, don’t you?”
Her breath hitches with another cry. “Yes.”
Nodding, I command, “Then I need you to trust this. Look at me.” Pulling away only enough to frame her face in my hands, I hold her watery stare, willing her to hear me. “That’s just not possible, Ver. Our son was conceived before the cleansing.”
She makes a quiet, miserable sound. “You can’t know that.”
“I thought you trusted me.” But really, why would she?
She pulls in a sniffle, searching my eyes. “How can you even be sure?”
“I pinned it down before…” I reach into my pocket, pulling out my phone. I began tracking her cycle that first night I put a deposit in her, and I bring up that calendar. It’s packed with tags and times and details she’s probably not even aware of herself. With only the slightest hesitation—it might put her off to realize how closely I’ve been tracking her—aware that it may seem obsessive, psychotic even, I turn the phone to show her. “It had to have happened the last week of January. See? That was almost two weeks before the cleansing. You wouldn’t have even been ovulating that day, Verity.”
She drags a wrist beneath her nose as she inspects the data, brow furrowing. “And you… you’re sure? You’re positive?”
I do her one better than that. “I’d swear it on Wicker’s life.” I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, trying to catch her gaze again. “And hey, you and Wick had some good sex in there, didn’t you?”
She does this little half-laugh, half-grimace that makes her nose wrinkle cutely. “I think so,” she croaks. She’s still inspecting the calendar though, her forefinger landing on January 27th. “That night… Wicker and I went to that dumb party.” It’s tagged in yellow; a Wicker deposit. She glances up at me, a glow of hope in her green eyes. “We had sex in the pool downstairs. It was… it was the first time he looked at me while we were…”
I catch on, whisking a teardrop from her jaw. “I bet that’s the one that did it.”
“Yeah?” She looks so hopeful, that I can’t bring myself to tell her we can never actually know.
But I believe it. “Yeah,” I agree, gathering her close again.
She comes with me when I pull her down, tucking her head beneath my chin, and I let her keep the phone, her fingers slowly browsing all the daily details and timelines. For a little while, it’s perfect. The warmth of her against me, pressed between my side and the back of the couch. The weight of her thigh, slung over my leg. The press of her stomach—our son—resting against my hip. The rhythm of her breaths tickling against my collarbone.
By the time I speak, the phone has gone black, her breaths evening out, and I know she’s close to falling asleep. I should rouse her, tell her to lock herself inside her room, protect herself from me.
But selfishly, I don’t.
“I’m sorry we did that to you.” The whisper is little more than a breath, but I know she hears it. I don’t say that Father engineered the circumstances, or that I was too high on Scratch to stop myself, or that I was just protecting my brother from someone I thought would hurt him.
It doesn’t change anything.
I stare out the large windows facing the east and imagine Pace sees us right now, watching as I stroke my fingers through her hair, trying to soothe a hurt we both imparted. My last thought before slipping under a weightless doze is that I hope he’ll call to wake me up.
It’s not a phone call that jolts me into a panicked awareness, though.
It’s the sound of sirens.
Once I realize this, I exhale, wrapping my arms around a still sleeping Verity. West End, I’ve found, is always a little more chaotic at night, and distant sirens are just a part of its atmosphere. It’s one of the things that fascinates me about Perilini’s territory, the way West Enders let the city be part of their lives. It’s not done that way in East End. We have the Purple Palace, which is set back from the city. We’ve never heard traffic from our bedrooms, even when we were living in the Golden Row. But out here, the sights and sounds of western streets are married to the buildings they border. It’s loud and jarring, the sirens swelling, but I find myself growing used to it.
What I’m not used to hearing is the sudden series of slams against the loft’s door.
It jolts Verity awake, but it practically propels me off the couch, my hand ducking under the couch for a gun.
“Go to your room,” I order, racking the slide. “Lock the door. Don’t come out until?—”
“Verity?” Another loud bang against the door precedes Remington Maddox’s panicked voice. “It’s us, open up!”
The look I give her says in no uncertain terms that this doesn’t change the spirit of my command, and with a shocked scowl, she obeys, scurrying into the bedroom.
Laying abandoned on the couch, my phone begins ringing.
Pace’s ringtone.
Turning to the door, I lift a finger that I know Pace will see. “Maddox?” I call. “What do you want?” I just saw Remy a couple of hours ago, leading some of the frat members to the refrigerated truck behind the gym with the coolers holding the blood bags. He seemed a lot more calm than he sounds now.
“Open the fucking door!” he screams.
Screams.
It goes against every instinct in my body, but with another glance toward the window, I clench my teeth and unlatch the lock.
The second I crack the door, all of them slam through, pouring in like an avalanche. Maddox is first, then Perilini, Ballsack, and one of the DKS members I’ve begun recognizing as a soldier, Kaz.
They’re carrying a bloody Nick Bruin with them.
“Lock it!” Sy barks, but no one waits for me. Kaz slams it shut behind them, popping the latch.
I watch, frozen, as Sy dumps Nick on the floor because he’s fucking choking him. “What the hell are you?—”
But no.
Sy isn’t choking him.
He’s applying pressure to a wound.
The same wound that's saturated Nick’s shirt, down to the waist, with dark, sticky blood.
My phone goes off on the couch again, and I rake my fingers through my hair. “Shit.”
“Nicky, stay with us,” Sy’s snapping down at him, but Nick’s eyes are unfocused and cloudy, his face pale.
Remy looks like he just ran a marathon, soaked in sweat and blood. He’s staring down at his shaking, blood-covered palms, panting out some wild-eyed nonsense. “Crimson and black,” he gasps. “Ruby and onyx. The river didn’t lead to the sea.”
A stone-faced Ballsack leans close to translate this gibberish. “Oakfield’s brother caused a ruckus during a drop. Nick took a piece of shrapnel, I think.”
I survey the scene with growing disbelief, wondering if those sirens I heard were meant for them. “And you brought him here?” I ask, anger swelling my chest. “With my pregnant Princess in the next goddamn room? What if he comes looking for you?!”
Kaz begins, “We’ve got some guys outside?—”
But Sy cuts in, his voice sharp and tearing, “My fucking brother’s dying here, so could you please shut the fuck up about your pregnant Princess?! This is our property, and we need a place to hide out until?—”
“Oh my god.” Whipping around, I realize—unhappily—that Verity’s come out of her room. Her green eyes are locked on a motionless Nick, her face almost as pale as his. “Oh my god, is he…”
It’s a testament to Nick’s condition that Ballsack checks, squatting to put an ear to Nick’s mouth, before answering. “He’s still breathing. We can’t take him to the hospital, because?—”
“Because it’d out you idiots as the gun runners involved in a local shootout,” I say, ignoring the phone still going off on the couch. “Jesus Christ…”
“Pauly and Vinny are on the way,” Remy says, nodding. “She’ll make him better. She always makes him better.”
The look I give him isn’t subtle. This isn’t some slice he’s taken during Friday Night Fury. He doesn’t need a cutwoman or a gym medic. He needs a whole goddamn surgical team.
There’s a sharp intake of air, and then Verity zips toward me, dragging me toward the kitchen. “Save him,” she hisses.
I gawk at her. “With what?!”
Her gaze keeps darting behind us to where Nick is lying. “You keep people alive; that’s what you do. Pace said?—”
The phone’s still ringing.
“He’s a King’s brother,” I hiss back. “For fuck’s sake, he’s a Bruin. If I try and fail…” Shaking my head, I can perfectly imagine the consequences waiting for me. It’d be the same if it were one of my brothers. “It’ll start a war. West End will never forgive me.”
Her face falls when she reaches out, touching my chest. “Earlier, you said… you said you were sorry for what you did to me.” Green eyes blaze into mine. “You’re sorry because you’re not empty, Lex. You have a soul. And… and one day, I’ll be able to forgive you for what happened that night, because deep down, I don’t really believe it was you.” Her face hardens as she strains closer. “But if you let Nick die on that floor without even trying, then I’ll be the one who’ll never forgive it. And then maybe you’ll prove yourself right because no one with a soul could do that.”
I search her face, and though I’m not proud of it, I wonder if she’d get that same anguished, desperate fire in her eyes for us. For me. “They’re family for you,” I realize.
Without hesitation, she answers, “Yes.”
Looking over my shoulder, I see Perilini giving his brother’s cheek a firm slap.
Nick’s unresponsive.
Muttering a curse, I start moving a stack of pregnancy and nutrition books from the dining table, snagging my glasses from the counter. “Get him on the table,” I call out, snapping my fingers. “You,” I say to Kaz. “Make a call to the frat’s best fighters and shore up security downstairs.” As they’re lifting Nick, Sy’s hand still tight against his jugular, I begin scrubbing my hands in the kitchen sink. “Ballsy, go in the bathroom, get all the towels and alcohol you can find. Ver.”
“I’m here,” she says, voice crisp and urgent.
I point to the couch. “Answer that phone. Put it on speaker.”
She scurries to grab the phone, and as soon as she does, Pace’s winded voice rings out. “I’m walking out the door now.”
I scrub harder. “Then go back inside. I’m going to need my red bag.” Glancing at Nick’s lifeless body, now splayed over the kitchen table, I add, “The blue one, too.”
“Blue, yeah,” Remy rushes out, stroking Nick’s forehead. “Hear that? We’re gonna make you blue again, Nicky.”
I give Ballsy a nervous look, but he just shakes his head, mouth set into a grim line. There’s blood every-fucking-where, so when Verity holds the phone closer, I tell Pace, “And bring the ambulatory pump. He’s going to need a shit-ton of blood. Maddox! Are you with us?”
When I glance back, rinsing my hands under the hot spray, Remy’s snapping upright, fists flexing. “I’m here. What can I do?”
“Remember where we took all those blood bags?” I ask, pleased to see his quick nod. “Find Nick’s, Sy’s, their parents’, and whatever else is labeled ‘type-O’.”
Remy’s shooting out of the kitchen before I can even think to tell him he’ll need to break into it.
He’ll find out eventually.
When I get to the table, Sy spears me with a glare. “So help me god, if you tell me to do something that isn’t sitting here with my brother, I’ll knock your pretty fucking teeth into this table.”
“I need to see the wound,” I explain, reaching for the hand he has over Nick’s neck. A shirt, I realize, and Sy’s own, going by the fact his chest is bare.
But when I touch it, Sy growls.
Like a fucking bear and everything.
The ridiculousness of it hits me, and I snap, “Has your Duchess ever re-attached a limb before? Because I have.” When he finally looks at me, I see the fear in his eyes. It’s an all-encompassing panic, and I’m bombarded by these flashes of memory.
Wicker standing over me after a rough whipping.
Pace standing over Wicker after that fight on the ice.
Wicker and I sitting outside the door to the dungeon for days, waiting for Father to release Pace.
“I’m not letting anyone lose a brother,” I promise, easing his hand away from the compress. “Let me try.”
Sy looks like he wants to let it go, but it takes a long moment for his hand to obey him.
When he does, the blood gushes out.
Immediately, I replace the shirt with a clean towel, applying pressure. “Pace? You still there?” Verity’s across from me, the phone still in her hand. Her face is drawn and slack, even though she couldn’t have gotten more than a brief glance at the wound.
“In the med room,” Pace says.
I inspect Nick’s motionless face. “Get the black box, too.”
There’s a long pause, and then Pace’s muttered, “Fuck.”
“What’s in the black box?” Verity asks, eyes wide and glistening.
I spare Sy a quick glance, knowing better than to bother lying. “Resuscitation equipment.”
Just in case.
There was a time when I wanted to be a surgeon so I could heal people.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt it, though.
The dream became a job, and then the job became an ambition, and then the ambition became a duty. Over the last few years, I’ve cut into way more people who deserved it than didn’t, and at some point, I stopped paying much mind to my knowledge being more of a weapon than a gift.
But right now, hunched over a lifeless Bruin, I begin feeling the strangest of things.
Like I really want to save him.
Not because Verity or West End wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t. Truthfully, not even really because I'm convinced Nick Bruin’s life is precious or whatever nonsense. There’s no real incentive. No contract. No money. No Father on the other side of the door demanding it.
I want to save his life because I want to prove I can.
For a good ten minutes, I can do nothing but apply pressure to the wound, monitor his vitals, and make an order of operations, which Verity scribbles down for me on an old scrap of dusty newspaper.
“Vitals and transfusion first,” I say, giving the wound another quick look. It’s a clear slice in the carotid artery. Either the universe is on our side, or Nick’s worse off than I thought, because the bleeding has slowed to a sluggish trickle. “I’ll suture after he’s more stable.”
Luckily, the first knock on the door is Pace. He strolls in with a scowl, dark eyes going to Nick’s bloody body first, eventually landing on Verity, who hasn’t stopped pacing.
As soon as their eyes meet, she does.
“Just a head’s up,” Pace says, dumping the red and blue bags at my feet, “these streets are fucking crawling with five-oh.”
Rory Livingston trails in behind him, setting the black box down at the end of the table. “Also, the ten flashy fighters you’ve got posted out front are going to start drawing heat real soon.”
“Hold this,” I tell Sy, eager to get to my supplies. Once his hand replaces mine, putting pressure on the towel, I get to work unloading equipment, asking, “Doesn’t Maddox have connections on the force? Can’t he put in a call?”
Sy hasn’t paced once, choosing instead to stand back and stare at his brother, fists flexing rhythmically. It’s a bit surprising how still and quiet he’s been since I took the reins, almost like he’s giving me room to do my best.
It very slightly feels like a threat.
“If you think the heat out there is bad, then the Forsyth PD is basically a tire fire,” he explains, eyes never leaving Nick’s slack face. “That goddamn Fed has his dick buried in every hole of the department.”
“That’s why you couldn’t take him to the hospital.” Verity’s question emerges in a small, shocked whisper, and when I glance at her, she’s gone ashen.
As he applies pressure, Sy’s thumb slowly strokes Nick’s bloody jaw. “We can handle local heat, but federal intervention will mean the end to every Royal house.” He finally glances up, catching everyone’s stare. “It’d mean the end of Forsyth.”
I try to catch Pace’s gaze, but he’s locked on Verity, and it’s like a storm cloud is floating over his head, eyes dark and shadowed. Not exactly the reunion I wanted for them. I’d planned to stay here with her for a month and then take her home, put her and Pace to bed, and let things work themselves out.
Now, her owlish eyes are suddenly brimming with tears, locking with Pace’s over the distance. “You were right,” she gasps, clutching her chest. “This is all my fault. He’s going to die because Stella went missing, and she went missing because someone wanted to take me.”
With every word, her voice rises, hysteria bleeding into the edges, and it’s a good thing Pace springs into action because I’m too tangled in the ambulatory pump to calm her down.
“Rosi, stop,” he rushes out, gathering her up into a forceful embrace. Her shoulders hitch with a sob, and I’m reminded of the two of us doing much the same thing mere hours ago, right on the couch.
Her hormones must be going into overdrive this week.
Pace murmurs gentle words into her temple. “We don’t know why she went missing. I’m the one who was wrong, okay? I was trying to scare you because I didn’t want you to leave. This isn’t on you, and neither is Stella. Understand?” I don’t miss that he reaches down, splaying a wide palm over the swell of her belly.
Despite the situation currently happening on the kitchen table, some part of me unwinds in relief. He’s been insufferable all week, but my brother has always been too stubborn to apologize.
I plug the pump into the nearest socket, calling, “Pace.” And ignoring the fact Perilini is right beside me as I say this, I look my brother in the eye and command, “Take her to bed. The stress isn’t good for either of them. Give her what she needs.”
Pace pulls her closer, his hand wrapping around the base of her neck. “You’re sure?” At my nod, he exhales, a slight shudder moving through him. “I’ve got her.”
It bothers me less than it should as he leads her into the bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him. I’ll never really understand it—the way having him inside of her evens her out, makes her soft and pliant and calm—but it’s something they both need.
Plus, it’ll distract her, which is good.
If I’m going to save Nick Bruin, I’ll need complete focus.
“Remember when you came for me and Remy that night? In the water?” She’s sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the table. It’s been dragged all the way up to the edge, but Lavinia Lucia’s cheek is pressed to the table, her mouth up against Nick’s ear. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy, tears still occasionally tracking down her temple. She’s tangled their fingers together, their joined hands resting on his tattooed stomach. Every few seconds, she’ll tense with a sob that she refuses to let free. “He knew you’d find us, Nick. That you’d never let us fly away. I need you to come back to us now. Follow my voice, okay?”
Sy’s begun pacing finally. He walks back and forth in front of the large windows, eyes scanning the rooftops above and streets below. “Is he still breathing?”
He also keeps asking these annoying questions. “Yes,” I sigh, squinting as I place the next suture. The skin of his neck is all torn to fuck, but thankfully, the artery itself is a rather clean laceration. At the head of the table, the ambulatory pump is feeding the seventh unit of blood into Nick’s veins.
Remy is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, his head in his hands.
At least he’s quiet.
I work like this for a long while, the Duchess’ soft, lilting voice a background mantra to the hum of the pump and the beep of the blood pressure monitor. Ballsy dug out some rusty old hood lamp from a storage closet downstairs and it pains me to think of how much more sterile this all could be.
As I tie off another suture—almost done with the hard part—I glance up at the monitor to see how his pulse is doing.
Nick Bruin’s blue eyes are staring back at me.
I freeze for only a split second, holding his blank stare, and then get back to work. “You took a gnarly piece of shrapnel during the shootout,” I explain, keeping my voice low and matter-of-fact. “Right now, I’m suturing the hole in your carotid artery. I need you to be very still. Don’t speak.”
It’s only then that the others realize I’m not just talking for the sake of it.
A lot of things happen at once. The Duchess jolts from her chair, the legs screeching against the floor. Sy sprints towards us. Remy bolts to his feet.
“Nick?” Lavinia cries, squeezing his hand.
Sy looks like he both wants to vomit and punch something, and it’s very hard to tell which is the greater impulse. “He’s awake? You’re doing that while he’s conscious?!”
“Please,” I grit out, feeling sweat spring to my forehead, “calm down. This is precision work I’m doing.”
“Oh, god.” Lavinia lifts their joined hands to her lips, brushing a kiss to his inked knuckles. “Does it hurt? Are you hurting him?”
I’m saving him, I want to snap back.
I don’t.
Nick’s eyes cut to mine, and I don’t even need words to understand the command in them. They’re saying, “Yes, this hurts like a motherfucker.” And they’re also saying, “Keep going.”
Bruin’s lost a lot of blood. It took every unit from his family—can’t say he and Sy’s father don’t share blood now—plus a few other donations. That much blood loss can cause all manner of brain damage. So, I begin asking him questions. “Today’s date is July ninth. Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
He blinks once.
“You used to work for Rufus Ashby.”
Two blinks.
“You worked for Daniel Payne.”
One blink.
The Duchess takes the next one, leaning over him with an agonized expression. “My father’s dog, the night you broke in…” She swallows. “His name is Angus.”
Two blinks.
She exhales, relieved.
But I keep pressing. “The mayor of Forsyth is Kenneth Strong. Thumb up or down.” Slowly, Bruin lifts the hand Lavinia isn’t clutching like a lifeline, twitching his thumb up. I glance at it before asking, “You suck at finding cover from active gunfire.”
Nick raises a finger, but it’s not his thumb.
My lips twitch at being flipped off. Seems like he’s fine, so I tell him what I’m doing, ignoring the anguished chuckles of his family. “I’m tying off the last suture now, then I’ll close up your neck. I know a surgeon in Northridge with decent facilities. I’ll call him in the morning and see if he can take you for a few days?—”
“Like fuck you will,” Remy says. He never washed the blood off of himself, and right now, he’s caked in it, elbow to fingertips, all down the front of his shirt. “Nicky stays in West End. With us. With DKS.” He waits until I look up, catching his gaze, to add, “With you.”
I pause, glancing at Bruin. He looks sluggish, but that spark of life in his eyes hasn’t dimmed. Still, I wonder, “Why?” I’m looking into this guy’s neck. One wrong move and I could end it all. Why trust me with the life of a legacy like Bruin?
Remy gives me this look, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and then points to the counter, where all my supplies are littering the surface. “Because you got the blue bag.”
I follow his gaze, confused and yet… strangely not. The blue bag has stuff like the heart monitor, O2 meter, and diagnostics. These supplies aren’t just for keeping someone breathing for now. These are the kinds of things I wouldn’t bother bringing down into the dungeon.
“Because you saved him,” the Duchess concludes, drawing my gaze to hers.
Sy nods toward the bedroom, adding, “Because she’s our family, and you’re her family.” He dips his chin in a grim nod. “Family is the only thing we trust.”
Dragging in a deep breath, I reach for another suture kit and a bundle of gauze. “Yeah,” I mutter, getting ready to finish this up. If there’s anything I can understand about the Dukes, it’s that. “Yeah, okay.”
Dawn bleeds over West End like a slowly leaking puncture, the sky flowing from black to orange. Outside, there’s a sour moisture in the air, smog mingling with summer, and the streets are quickening with buses on their early morning routes. I dodge one as I cross the street toward the corner store, stepping inside with an exhale. The air conditioning is on full blast, even at half past six, and I’m already feeling the sticky sweat clinging to my neck evaporate as I wrench open the back freezer.
It isn’t until I reach the counter, sliding the carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream toward the cashier, that I realize I’ve forgotten my wallet.
“No worries,” the haggard man behind the register says. He gestures out the window. “Word on the streets this morning is that the visiting Prince is to be treated like Royalty today.” He slides the pint of ice cream back, eyeing the smear of blood over my white tee. “To the victor, my friend.”
So it’s with an odd sense of confusion that I wander back onto the streets of West End, pointing myself toward the old newspaper building. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours, but it’s more than the exhaustion wearing me down.
When I return to Royal Ink, Ballsack, Remy, and Pace are waiting just outside the door, sharing a thick blunt. “I found him,” Pace says, only hesitating briefly before offering me the blunt. “Oakfield’s hiding out in a building that borders South Side.”
I take the blunt dazedly, giving the glowing cherry a long look before attempting a drag. It feels like fire going down, burning my lungs. I’m not sure I like it.
“You’re going now?” I ask.
“We were waiting for you,” Pace explains, tipping his head toward the door. “She’s supposed to be sleeping, but…”
“You didn’t want to leave her alone,” I say, understanding. She wouldn’t be alone. Sy, Lavinia, and Rory are probably all up there with her. But none of them are her Princes. I adjust the paper bag, already soggy from condensation, and pass the blunt to Maddox. “Call me if you need backup.”
Pace nods, and then they’re off, the three of them disappearing into the alley—a Duke with a grudge the size of a skyscraper, a soldier with nothing to lose, and one of the most skilled torturers Forsyth has ever seen.
Brice Oakfield is in for a world of pain.
When I reach the loft, I pause in the entry, gaping at the sight before me. “You shouldn’t have moved him!” I snipe, but all I get in response is Lavinia Lucia’s annoyed grunt as she squirms closer to Nick.
Nick, who they’ve moved to the couch.
The couch, which apparently fucking pulls out into a sleeper?
Why didn’t anyone tell me that?
Annoyed but diligent, I check the IV and monitors, making sure they haven’t jostled something important in the move from the table to the couch. Sy and Lavinia bracket his sleeping body, all of them half-naked and way too comfortable considering that their Duke isn’t out of the woods yet.
I really wish they’d let me hand him over to the surgeon in Northridge.
Thankfully, everything looks in place, so I leave them be, shoving the ice cream into the freezer. I didn’t just buy the ice cream because I promised it for Verity. I bought it because I was buying time. The events of the last twenty-four hours have proven more than ever that life is short, and we can’t fuck around hoping for another opportunity.
Grabbing the stack of papers off the coffee table, I carry them into the bedroom and find Verity, propped up against the pillows, a book tenting the curve of her stomach.
“Hey, you’re back,” she says, setting the book aside. “Pace told me to wait here.”
“I saw him out front. Ice cream’s in the freezer,” I say by way of greeting. “Want some?”
Her nose wrinkles. “As much as I want to say yes, I think it’ll give me heartburn all day if I eat it now.” She watches me kick off my shoes and yank the bottom of my shirt free. “You sleeping in here?”
“Not sure I have much choice,” I unbutton and shrug it off, leaving on the white tank underneath, “there’s a pack of Dukes sleeping in my bed.”
“A sleuth.”
“Huh?” I unfasten my pants and let them drop to the floor. Yeah, I’m stalling.
“A group of bears is called a sleuth,” she says, eyes dragging away from my legs to the stack of papers I left on the dresser. “What’s all that?”
My eyes linger on it, tightening. “That’s something I want to talk to you about.”
It’d been startling to see them when I first arrived at the apartment. Someone—the Duchess, I think—had started a collection of the articles, tacking them to the wall. Morbid curiosity with serial killers is nothing new, and the Royal Gazette’s documentation of the Forsyth Carver was thorough. It just feels different when it’s your history, your story, pinned to the wall as a novelty.
In East End, we don’t put our pasts on display. Those records are sealed, only to be brought out by Father as a reminder of our inferiority, validation for his need to assert control over us. Our blood—our genetics—are inferior, none more so than mine, and he seemed to think that he could punish them into submission.
The time we’ve spent alone here in West End has brought us closer, and it’s time Verity knew the truth about her Prince.
I grab the top paper, which bears a big, bold headline announcing, “Forsyth Carver Slays Wife, Himself, Child Found Among The Bodies.” I hand it to her, watching her forehead furrow in distaste, and comb my hair back from my face.
“I was two,” I begin. “All I remember are the blood, flashing lights, and a faint memory of a police badge, but—I can’t be sure that isn’t false. What feels the most real is something that’s more of a… a sensation,” I place my hand over my chest, “like being ripped away. Like a tether being cut.”
“You?” she says, recognition falling into place. She sits up, face going slack in shock. “You’re the baby they’re talking about here? The Carver’s child?”
I nod and pull out a separate file. I’d found it in Father’s belongings after we locked him in the dungeon. It’s worn and stuffed with official-looking papers from the police, federal agents, and psychologists. There’s a profile inside, listing the characteristics of a psychopath, along with notes in a familiar script. Lists from Father’s ledgers. Dates. Timelines. Rufus had been tracking him for years. Watching him hunt the co-eds of Forsyth, not only out of interest, but because he knew exactly who he was all along.
Reluctantly, I explain, “My biological father was a Prince. No one noteworthy—a faint line that gave him enough credibility to earn the position. Father—Rufus—as much as he goes on about bloodline, that’s never his real priority when choosing the Princes. In his mind, the Ashby legacy is the only one of importance.” I feel the oddest combination of disgust and intrigue as I hold the pieces of a puzzle—my puzzle—stuffed inside this folder. “Father must have seen something unique in him. That’s his gift, you know. The ability to see a flaw and cultivate it. Nurture it. The value of Wicker’s legacy. Pace’s paranoia and fear of rejection. My detachment and precision—which we know are inherited.” I shake my head. “It was no accident that Ashby was there to adopt me days after my parents’ deaths. He’d been waiting for the opportunity to create his own family, one misfit at a time, and when the Carver committed murder-suicide, it gave him the opportunity.”
“You’re not a misfit,” she says, dipping her head to hold my eyes. “And you’re not detached.” She reaches for the file, slowly tugging it from my hand. “You’re the glue that holds you and your brothers together.”
“That’s debatable, Princess.” I laugh darkly. “What I do in the dungeon, what I did to you… those things were as instinctive to me as blinking.”
Her eyes flare angrily. “Those things have been trained into you by a madman.” She pulls me to her, moving us both to the center of the bed, until we’re lying, facing one another, nothing between us but her round belly. “You’re a good man, Lex, despite the blood that runs through your veins.”
My eyes flutter at the feel of her fingertips against my face. “You don’t know that.”
When I blink them open, she’s watching me unflinchingly. “I do, because the blood that runs through my veins belongs to that madman. If you’re lost, then so am I.” She touches my lips. “So are Wicker and Pace. And this baby? He’s ruined before he takes his first breath.” She stares at my mouth, eyes shining. “You’re the one who told me he was created from something good—even if it was just a glimmer of connection between me and Wick. I believe that, Lex. I have to.” She lifts my hand and flattens it over her stomach. “There are times when I’m not sure how you all feel about me—whether or not you still hate me for upending your lives—but there’s no doubt in my mind that you love this baby, and I have to believe that he feels it.”
I reach for her—not the baby, but Verity—twisting her around to cradle her back against my chest. “I don’t hate you, Verity. Not even fucking close,” I whisper in her ear, but I can’t articulate what I do feel. I’m exhausted but raw with the uncertainty of our lives caught in eternal bedlam. Violence and death. Creation and hurt. It claws at my chest like a wild animal threatening to get loose.
“What does that mean?” she asks, fingers stroking the fine hair on my knuckles.
“It means I’ll always protect you and our child. I’ll take care of your family, East and West.” I swallow the emotions close to the surface. “Just promise me that you’ll always be here. That you won’t get taken away, severed, like a…”
She twitches. “Like a tether?”
“Yes.” The word emerges in a gust of breath, a sudden urge to be connected to her consuming me in a maelstrom of need. I run my hand down her hip to the hem of the loose dress and push it up, finding cotton panties underneath. “Let me inside, Verity,” I tell her, reaching into the flap of my shorts. My cock is hard, pulsing, the tip slick. Desperate, I shove her panties aside and nudge against her pussy, almost slipping inside. “You’re wet,” I tell her, knowing it’s too much to be just from her own desire. “He was in you?”
“Before he left,” she says, arching back into me with a hitched breath. “He filled me up, told me to wait for you.”
With an exhale, I sink in, engulfed like a warm hug, understanding that my brother knew what I needed before I did. That I was too tired to fight anymore. To fight her. To lash out with the darkness I feel inside.
After the blood, stress, and fear, I needed this.
A tether.
Rising up, I fuck into her, plunging in as deep as I can go—as deep as she’ll take me. Her fingers curl into the sheets, her breath coming in hot, rapid bursts. I drop my hand between her legs and find the spot I know will set her loose, rolling my fingers across the volatile nerves.
“Right there,” she cries, face burying into the pillow as I fuck her slow, drawing this out as long as I can make it last. “Don’t stop, Lagan. Don’t stop.”
“Never,” I tell her, realizing that I mean it. I am never letting this woman go.