35. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Five
The basement had been empty since Gray died.
Owen had taken his place with only a fraction of the competence.
I wasn’t sure he would keep the job long-term.
He had Gray’s willingness to take orders without question, but none of his talent for gathering information or eliminating more challenging threats.
It meant the place was empty of screams and blood as I stood in the middle near the floor drain with the grimoire in one hand and my poor sentimental rabbit stuffy in the other.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Rook asked, and I only glared at him because this was the fourth time he’d said it. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Fine. Have at it.”
I breathed in slowly and blew it back out, then lifted the book to eye level and read the words hand-scribed on the page.
I noted Rook’s slight flinch as the circle erected around me in flames.
I laid the book on the floor and struck a match, hovering it over Stewart’s time-worn ears before I grasped the match tighter and forced myself to set him aflame.
veilknight had sent one last message before she deleted her account on the Midnight Chat:
You love no one and nothing but yourself. I’m not afraid of you.
Self-assured bitch. I would sacrifice this one thing, even if my heart squeezed at losing the last remnant of my mother. Fifteen years I’d held on to that stupid rabbit, and whatever childhood I’d had left when she was gone died with him.
The tired cotton burned rapidly as I incanted without faltering and picked up the knife, getting to my feet.
I braced myself for her to appear, readying myself to savor the moment I’d see her shadowy form and fiery eyes again.
The excitement that washed over me bordered on arousal, my whole being consumed with anticipation and glee.
Stewart burned to nothing, and Death did not appear.
The incantation ended, my voice wavering with the last few words as nothing happened.
I waited. Perhaps the summoning was not immediate.
Rook shifted in the corner. “Austin…”
I started the incantation over, speaking faster, the words tripping over each other and sticking to my tongue. I was halfway through when the flames guttered and I threw the book on the ground. A moment later, they went out.
“No! Fucking hell!” I kicked the damn book and raged in place until Rook wrapped his arms around me from behind and dodged the elbow that nearly smacked him in the face. “It was supposed to work!”
“We’ll figure out something else,” he consoled, even as I fought him, even as he gripped me tighter to prevent me escaping the secure hold that contrasted his soft words.
“Let go of me!” I writhed and his elbows bracketed both my arms so there was nowhere for me to go.
“Not until you breathe,” he said against my ear. “I’ll let you go when you calm down.”
“Calm down! Calm down? My life’s work just went to hell in front of me and you want me to—”
“Breathe. I can hold you here all night.”
I sighed and fought with the air until my lungs worked in time with his at my back, long and slow. His hold on me loosened and he kissed the side of my neck once.
“It’s going to be okay, baby. We’ll make it okay.”
But it wouldn’t be okay. I wasn’t a sentimental man.
There were no more cherished pieces of my life to burn, so everything else in my life would combust instead.
I fought back tears—the kind that hurt, the kind born of rage and disappointment.
Everything I’d worked for, hours sifting through the Prague collection, years chasing her with an obsession that nearly ruined me—wasted.
All of it for nothing. Sick. Defeated. On the brink of tears.
No amount of force or command from Rook could cure the consuming wretchedness that filled me.
“Go upstairs,” he said. “I’ll clean this up, and then I’ll come up with you.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the discarded book, knife, and the charred remains of my rabbit. Useless—all of it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I sobbed, fighting to keep the tears from spilling over. “None of it matters!”
He turned me to face him and squeezed me in a bruising embrace. “I’m going to take care of you, but I need you to listen to me. Go upstairs and wait for me. Don’t think about it, just do what I’m telling you to do.”
I slumped against him, defeat reaching every cell and my body suddenly overcome with fatigue. I had no fight left—not for her, not for him. I nodded and turned to go, but he gripped my hand one more time.
“I—”
I thought for one hopeful moment it flashed in his eyes. He was going to say it.
“I’ll be up soon.” He dropped my hand and the chill in the basement was not as icy as the never-ending cold inside me.
***
The lift ride was freezing and heavy with despair.
If it weren’t for Rook’s promise, I might have gone up and wallowed alone, might have refused to leave my bed for days.
My business—what the fuck did it matter?
I’d only gotten into my line of work to find her.
Power and money were convenient. The lifestyle that followed it didn’t hurt.
But I built my empire on the foundation that I would someday kill her.
That foundation shook.
I tossed my clothes everywhere when I disrobed. It didn’t matter if they were wrinkled, damaged, even ruined. I could buy more. That’s what all that hollow, meaningless money was for.
Parties and penthouses and holding it over the heads of other rich bastards—that’s what all that money bought me. They say money doesn’t buy happiness, but it didn’t buy me revenge either. The cost was something that I couldn’t measure in dollars.
It was going to destroy me.
I slipped on sweatpants to try to warm some of the chill, but it was so deep inside me I didn’t think it would ever heat again. Even the weight of my blankets didn’t help as I climbed into bed.
A few minutes later, the door creaked softly in the main room. Rook must have slipped his shoes off; his footsteps were soft as they padded into the bedroom. He climbed into the bed next to me, lending me some of his body heat, and waited for me to speak first.
Anything I would have said got lodged in my throat. I’d worked so hard, built so much, drenched my hands in blood to get here, and I was a failure. No earthly success, no epic power over this city, would ever change that. Inside, I would always be destroyed.
But his hand touching my spine in long, languid strokes lessened the ache.
“You don’t have to stay here,” I said.
“Yes, I do. I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
“The fights—”
“The money rolls in whether or not I’m there,” he said. “My crew can handle it until I get back. You should try to sleep.”
“I wish I were dead.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said. “Besides, you’d just come back and have to listen to me give you shit about wasting a life. I meant it when I said you’re mine. That doesn’t have an expiration date.”
“But you don’t love me.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s the only thing that’s not.” My bones rattled with it. Loving him was the only easy thing left, the only thing real and full and not a complete and utter fucking disappointment.
“What am I even going to do?” My voice came out scratchy and weak, like it was trying to disappoint me too. There was no strength left in it, none in my body or my soul. I hadn’t felt so weak since the night I couldn’t stop the blood from leaving my mother’s body.
He pressed himself against me, skin hot and arm tightening around my middle, like he was willing to lend me some of his strength too.
“You have a warehouse full of information on Death. Until you exhaust every fucking resource you have, you don’t get to give up.”
“Or what?”
He huffed a laugh against my neck and it ruffled my hair. “Or you’ll find out just how insufferable I can be. This means so much to you. The ritual can’t be the only way. You just need to be patient.”
“I’ve been patient for eight years. I could have stayed in England, living a bland, normal life.”
He nipped my shoulder and the pinch of his teeth soothed something in me. “I’m glad you didn’t. Anyway, this is going to have to wait. We need to deal with Emmett.”
“Easy. I’ll wait until he leaves his office this week and send some of my guys to grab him. We’ll take him to the basement and make it quick. I have no reason to torture him. I just want him gone.”
“I don’t think we should involve anyone else,” Rook said. “More people means more mouths to squeal if they’re questioned. We can handle him between the two of us.”
I jerked my chin in a small nod. “Fine.”
“It’s a date,” he teased.
“Only you would think political assassination is romantic.”
He reached across me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s time for you to sleep.”
But he was the one snoring softly ten minutes later, while I lay awake staring at the way the open curtains let the city’s unblinking lights cast over his face.
Gray.
Death.
Rook’s unyielding heart.
My failures were stacking up faster than I could fix them, and much quicker than I could accept that some of them could never be fixed.
My feelings for him were the only thing left that felt certain, unmoved by all the ways I had let myself down.
Perhaps that was why he resisted loving me back.
His world ran on bets and odds, and occasional luck.
Maybe he looked at me and predicted the odds weren’t in his favor.
Then why did he claim me? Why was he so impassioned by the idea of losing me—to Death, or life, or the arms of someone else?
Why did it matter so fucking much if he didn’t love me?
What was so complicated that I hadn’t earned his heart?
I closed my eyes, begging sleep to take me from my suffocating thoughts, but this time the vision that hit me didn’t cause pain. There was only a quick, glacial shock, as if my skull had been dunked beneath icy water.
A heart slowing. Something thick and cloying navigating blue veins. A choice—more a sensation than a sight—and the heavy crush of making it. A voice that should have soothed, but grated along every nerve in my body. Then a clock, ticking away seconds that felt too precious to waste.
The cold splintered and filled my chest with ice. I quieted my shallow breaths so that I didn’t wake Rook, but when the sun rose again, I was still wide awake with the terror of what I might possibly have left to lose.