37. To own is to… Mar
Chapter thirty-seven
To own is to… Mar
W arrick
My head pounds relentlessly as Henrietta's voice shrills outside the doors to my office.
“…Sir, she’s refusing to leave. I-I apologize, but she’s already in the foyer.”
My back aches in protest as I sit up, upsetting the glass that had been forgotten on my lap. The sound of it shattering only adds to the constant prick of needles assaulting my temples. For a moment, that strange wave of unease hits me dead in the chest, making my eyes flare wide, my hangover forgotten as I try to make sense of the dark office, looking for the only teacher keeping me topside. The faint rustle of chain and leather frays the worst of the never-ending pressure in my chest as I find her collar amongst the disheveled papers.
The next pounding seems to pick up a harmonic rhythm with the one in my head, this one originating from the heavy wooden doors. “Get your ass up and deal with this, or I will!” Stuart booms. You’d think after Pup was gone, he’d have been pleased. I suppose he was for the first few days, when I was still half of a functional being. Before sleep only fed me dreams featuring her, so I started avoiding it. Before everything else lost its interest and flavor too.
The sound of the banisters on my bed groaning under her thrashing weight makes bile dance in my stomach, upsetting the copious amounts of liquor, cigars, and jerky that seem to sustain me. That agonizing memory is enough to incite that anger…the one I no longer control, so I don’t breathe as it carries me from my dark office. Yesterday’s suit is wrinkled and musty. I squint at the bright hall, shooting a warning glance at Stuart as I pass him.
“You look like shit, Basilisk,” Mahari goads as she sees me pass the landing. Again, far too bold for her own good. If she even knew, or maybe she does. Maybe she just doesn’t care. I certainly wouldn’t.
Where I was once a king, stalking the halls of his empire, now, I’m a fucking wraith, an omen haunting the tainted halls.
“I will ask you one more time: where is she?”
I smirk. The movement feels putrid as I reach her. “Gone, but you knew that.”
The woman’s eyes widen and mist, her delicate brow twisted in anger. “Did you kill her?”
I scoff.
“You fucking monster. Tell me what you did with Chloe, now !”
Chloe.
“I sold her to her new keepers, for a hefty price.” The words are acid on my tongue, and when she makes a shocked, distressed sound, her hand flying out to connect with my face, I don’t stop her. Her slap stings far less than what I deserve.
“You’ve killed her.”
My jaw clenches.
“She adored you, and you’ve tossed her out?” Her voice is thick with emotion, proving it was only Pup’s tears I could tolerate. “I know of the return clause . Have you sent her back to that awful house? Why? Why would you do that to her?”
Why, indeed?
Because I’m a miserable fucked up bastard.
Because I never deserved her .
Because she hurt me, scared me that day…and I couldn’t stomach it.
I couldn’t—
“Her death would have been a mercy compared to what that vile fucking woman will do if she gets her hands on her! You fucking monster ! You sent her off to be tortured and fucking raped, you disgusting—"
“Warrick!” Stuart warns as I jerk my gun from my waistband.
To the woman’s credit, she doesn’t flinch as I put one in the chamber, my finger dancing over the trigger. “She’s safe, far from Bloom's reach.”
“Then you’re delusional too.”
That constant ache, the one that makes it hard to breathe, slams to the forefront as I push the barrel harder into her forehead. Her wide doe eyes halt my finger. Even now, the halls devoid of her humming and shoulders devoid of her tears, she refuses to release her hold on me.
“Tell me, Basilisk, head of the House of Serpents , was being loved by her really that terrible?”
“Loving her was ,” I seethe.
It still is.
The absence of her only served to make that clearer.
It didn’t go away.
Oh, how I had deluded myself into thinking it would be that fucking easy.
“Warrick, put the gun down. It’s time for her to go,” Stuart offers, his hand gripping mine. She releases a heavy breath as he lowers my arm, but she doesn’t look away. She has no idea how close I am, how bad it truly is. I lost sight of why I was preserving anything months ago.
Mahari’s threats rattle the windows as she’s escorted out, my eyes throbbing and stinging as I climb the stairs, jerking my phone from my suit jacket as I call the owner of the small bathhouse. Each ring of the phone slips a blade deeper into my ribs until my breath is betraying me, coming in guttural, ragged heaves.
No answer.
I whirl on Stuart, always looming, oddly quiet these days. “When was the last time you verified contact with anyone who didn’t stand to gain something from lying to me?” My voice is dark, seething.
“One week ago, as I reported to you, she was alive.”
“ Alive ,” I seethe. “Those are not the words you reported to me. She was settled well , I recall.”
“She was settled, yes. Well is subjective, Sir.”
My eyes bore into his. “And for proof, pictures, videos, what do you have?”
“I have been working on that.”
He has nothing. Fucking nothing.
“Work faster,” I warn, my stomach swirling. “If they found her—"
“You’re spiraling,” he cuts me off.
The laugh that leaves me is a disgusting one, filled with so much malice and hate, it nearly chokes me, a man who was born and molded by both. “You’ve seen nothing yet.”
****
One week and three days, and it has become disturbingly clear I’ve been betrayed. Anxiety raddles my chest as I pull every contact, every database, every favor. All of them but one comes in fruitless. Her collar is clamped in my fist as I sit at my desk, taking a long swig of my drink. I haven’t eaten in days; my suit is dirty and crumbled. It seems no matter how much alcohol I consume, it does nothing to balm the wounds I inflicted on myself. On us both. She’s gone, and for the life of me, I can’t find out for how long. That thought spurred such a gnawing wave of guilt, it turned out to be my undoing.
My eyes darken on the empty fireplace, picturing her laid out in front of it. She’d lounge there, so close to the licking flames that her pale flesh would redden, hot to the touch. I keep her there in my mind as I listen to the click of the revolver’s barrel as it spins, a flick of my wrist sending it back in place. The muzzle isn’t cold anymore. This is my fifth round, after all. My fifth time pressing the barrel under my chin, only to hear a deafening click .
I’ve never believed in things like fate, but sometimes, the universe demands your attention by shoving signs up your ass with no lube, whether you want to see them or not. That’s how it feels when Stuart tosses the thick paper envelope down on my desk, stamped with the seal featuring an open book pierced through with a dagger, its hilt the all-seeing eye.
An invitation from Tyet.
A private ball.
Stuart eyes the revolver placed in front of me. “It seems, for all their connections, Tyet hasn’t figured out who sunk their yacht that night.”
I barely hear him, my eyes unseeing on the envelope, but I can feel her, sopping wet and trembling in my arms. The way she sobbed into my chest, her nails scoring me—she clung to me because she knew I would keep her safe.
But she was wrong.
Even my connections at Bloom came up with nothing.
I lost her.
I fucking lost her.
She was wrong to love me, but her downfall came with that trust.
I’m a snake, after all.
I ignore the man in front of me as I hit my com. “I want a full squad briefed on the layout of Tyet’s entertainment hall by the end of the week. Meet me in the war room in fifteen.”
He nods. “Welcome back, Sir.”
But I’m not.
I’m on my way out.