“Crimson velvet barstools, dark polished wooden floors, and red leather chesterfield booths with black round tables, lamps with beaded fringing on each,” she answers immediately, telling me she’s already been planning. “A stage over there”—she points to a corner of the room—“with scarlet velvet curtains behind it and an old-fashioned shiny microphone. A crystal chandelier, and everyone wears twenties clothes.” Her eyes are bright, practically sparkling as she sweeps her gaze across the room, seeing what it will become.
“And the rooms out the back?” Knox questions, and the skin around my eyes tighten with her flinch. I watch as she licks her lips, her hands clenching into fists before she relaxes, a small smile tugging her lips upward.
“There’ll need to be restrooms and a manager’s office. The others can be for gambling,” she tells us, and I watch as Aeron tips his head to the side, his eyebrows raised. She gives him a wink. “We have to clean dirty money somehow, right, Devil Man?”
I watch as his jaw goes slack, Jude giving a bark of laughter and skipping to her. She holds Aeron’s stare, and I can practically see hearts in his eyes. Not that I can blame our illustrious leader, we’re all goners for her. A twinge of unease slithers through me like a snake, hissing that this happiness can’t last forever. Not for all of us anyway. But I tamp down what feels suspiciously like guilt and focus back on the love of my life.
“Right, Dove,” Aeron answers as Jude frames her face with his palms, bringing their foreheads together.
“I knew they made you for us, Nightingale,” Jude tells her, and I couldn’t agree with him more.
“Let’s make some notes. I’ll call our team down so you can tell them all of your ideas,” Aeron says, taking his phone out of his pocket and striding over to her. Jude releases her with a soft kiss, and she turns her face for Aeron to do the same.
I watch, my chest aching with an unfamiliar warmth as I gaze upon this marvelous woman who turned our world upside down when she stepped into it. And I thank every star in the heavens that she did, knowing with a certainty that is unshakable, we would be utterly lost without her.
We spend the rest of the day at the site, going over plans with builders and decorators, and I continue to watch our bird spread her wings and commanding the room with a regal quality that israrely seen. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and taking it out, I frown at the screen, my heart giving a painful thud.
Unknown number: Time to come home, Tarl Ahmed.
“Everything okay?” Aeron asks, and I quickly delete the message, blocking the number and slipping the device back into my pants pocket. His brows furrow as he looks at me, and I school my features to smooth out my own face into a mask of serenity.
“Everything’s fine,” I reply, nodding over to Lark. “She’s coming into her own over this. It was a good idea of yours to let her reclaim her past like this.” He looks to her as well, his features softening.
“She needs to face things if she’s going to move on. Hopefully, this will help her do that and give her a bit of purpose now that she’s no longer having to plan an escape,” he comments, and I’m not surprised that he’s thought of everything before the rest of us. He always was good at anticipating our needs.
“She seems to be in her element.”
We watch as she talks to a contractor, using hand gestures to help describe her vision, and his eyes follow her movements, his head nodding as he agrees with her. She has them all eating out of the palm of her hands. Again, I’m not surprised given how she’s tamed us.
My phone buzzes again, and a sinking feeling in my stomach makes my hand tremble slightly as I lift it out of my pocket once more.
Unknown number: You can’t run forever; we’re coming for you.
The room narrows down to the screen, the faint screams of my mother and sisters sounding in my ears as I read the message again.
“Tarl?” Aeron’s voice breaks through the remembered noise, and I snap my head up to look at him, blinking the light from the screen away, the words imprinted on my irises. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” I answer automatically, my face a blank mask as he studies me, his arms crossing. “Just a message about tonight’s job,” I lie, seeing his shoulders loosen ever so slightly. “I’m not keen on leaving Lark by herself.” That's not a lie, the thought of being apart from her leaves my skin crawling. He huffs a breath out.
“Me neither,” he agrees, his eyes going distant as they always do when he’s trying to come up with a solution. “I think we should leave her with my dad and Rook up at the big house. Security is top-notch there, no one is getting through, and Rook and my father will be there so she won’t be alone.”
I’m nodding before he’s even finished, using the discussion to put the two messages to the back of my mind. I’m safe here, I’m a Tailor for fuck's sake, not some frightened little boy who has just had his family murdered in front of his eyes.
It’s too late to stop this now anyway. I’ve come too far to not see this through to the end.
“And I’m sure she’ll like to spend some time with Rook,” I add, looking over once more at Lark who is now slow dancing with Jude to some song he’s no doubt humming.
“Then it’s settled. We’ll tell her about the job and go to see Rook after we finish here. It’s a quick exchange job. We should be done and back with her before midnight.”
“EMPTY CROWN” BY YAS
LARK
A mixture of excitement and trepidation makes butterflies fly around my stomach as Knox drives us in his truck to the big house, as they all call it. It’s where the boys grew up and where Adam still lives, with Rook staying here until he finds a place of his own.
We drive along the quiet road, on the posh side of town because of course their McMansion is on the west side where all the rich people live. My eyes feel like they’re about to bug out of my head as we pass countless other enormous houses and gates with drives so long you can’t even see the house that lies beyond them.
“Jesus, you Tailors really like to rub shoulders with the rich cunts,” I mutter, taking in the way the walls on either side of the gates get longer the further we go, clearly showing how much land these rich fuckers have. Knox laughs from the driver's seat, his eyes on the road as he talks over his shoulder at me.
