Chapter 4 #2
I shook my head and backed away, stepping into the darkness of the hall.
Then I did what I always did, what I’d done for so long I hardly realized I was anymore; I fled.
Because Luca was right. He wouldn’t use me to get closer to my family only to discover and exploit our secrets.
Someone had. Long ago, betrayals between partners of the Major Houses were common.
It’s why the cut off rule was established in the first place.
But Luca wouldn’t. I knew that truth in the depths of my soul, knew it with every fiber of my being, knew it in the heart I’d thought had already shriveled and died, but it didn’t matter.
Because letting him in would be a risk and he wasn’t worth that. I wasn’t worth that. No one was.
So I left him standing alone in his grandfather’s office and I ran from the House, sprinting through the back door and into the night before I could think to hide myself in the shadows.
Then I made my way to the stairs. Before I could even think about what I was doing, where I was going, I’d descended to the Second and was standing right in front of their house.
The lights were on inside. I could see shapes moving around in the living room from the street.
Two women, two men. One of them threw their head back laughing and another joined in.
They were happy. How were they happy? Did they not miss her?
Did they not mourn her absence in their lives every second of every day?
Did they not feel the sting of her loss with every movement, every moment?
“Don’t just storm away from me, Wolf,” someone hissed in the darkness.
My gaze snapped to the side, past the closed front gate of the Bexley home and to the house next door, a modest brick construction with windows shuttered tight.
The door was open, swinging shut with a silent snap, and on the porch stood a young woman with strawberry blonde hair and freckles up and down her nose.
Her hands were on her hips as she called out quietly to a man in a long coat and oversized combat boots who seemed to have just stormed out of her house and made his way onto the street.
“I’m not doing this with you, Veronica,” the man hissed. His voice was low, raspy. It grated against my ears as I slid back around the stairs to hide myself on the other side. “You had an assignment. You don’t get to bail now, after all this time.”
“They’re good people,” she snapped, stomping down the steps to approach him.
“So are we.”
I saw her glaring at him when I poked my head around the corner to look. To her credit, she didn’t back down when he glared right back.
“Fuck this, Veronica,” he finally growled. “You took a vow. You can’t just back out.”
“I’m not backing out,” she argued, defiant. “I just think there’s a better way to do this.”
“What better way?”
“You saw how that Harrison guy stood up to Cosmo at the Tenth, the way he disagreed with him in front of everyone. Maybe we could convince him—"
“He’s a blowhard, not a leader. We need the middle brother and you know it. Now, if you’re not up to the task, I know plenty of members who’d take up your post living up here in a cushy abandoned Second Ring house.”
“Wolf.”
“Have you even made contact?”
“Once. With her.”
The man called Wolf scoffed.
“A lot of good that does us now,” he grumbled.
“I’ll work on it, okay? But this takes a delicate approach you just aren’t capable of.
This isn’t the kind of job you go crashing into.
These people don’t trust anyone outside the family and can you blame them?
Look at what they’ve been through the last year and a half.
I’ll find an in, I swear. Just give me some time. ”
Wolf eyed her for a moment, gaze narrowing, but she just crossed her arms and raised a brow back, enduring the examination. Finally, he shook his head and turned away. I darted back behind the stairwell as he began walking my way.
“Two weeks,” he called over his shoulder.
I pressed myself against the inner wall of the ring, hoping the stairs up to the First were hiding me well enough in their shadow, as he made his way to the stairs down to the Third.
As he looked down to begin his descent, I saw a tattoo on the back of his neck, right in the center. Three rings beneath a thin web.
I watched as the Guardians on duty didn’t even glance his way as he descended to the Third from a level he clearly didn’t have clearance to be on and felt a chill shoot through me.
So Cosmo didn’t have every Guardian on his payroll.
Some belonged to this man, whoever he was, which meant there was another power in play.
Could it be a fourth leader no one was aware of?
The sharp snap of a shutting door in the dead silent night told me strawberry blonde Veronica had gone back inside, but I kept my gaze firmly on the man named Wolf as he disappeared into the darkness of the ring below.
Because I’d recognized that mark. Though I couldn’t for the life of me recall where I’d seen it, I knew I had.
And somehow, I knew it was important that I remember where.
Releasing a breath, I turned and quickly took the stairs back up to my own ring with a sigh. It looked like Milo wouldn’t be the only one wiling away his hours in the library anymore.