Okay. Okay. Let's break this down.
Fact one: I was in a bookshop.
Fact two: I drank mysterious tea.
Fact three: I fell asleep.
Fact four: I am now in a chapel.
Fact five: A bride just ran past me and disappeared through a secret door.
Fact six: She told me to hide because someone—"he"—has gone insane.
Conclusion: I am hallucinating. That tea was definitely drugged. This is all happening in my head while my body is probably slumped in that velvet armchair and the mysterious shopkeeper is calling an ambulance—
The chapel doors burst open.
MEN POUR IN.
A dozen of them, maybe more, all in dark suits, all armed. They fan out with military precision, guns raised, and within seconds I'm surrounded.
I should be terrified.
Iamterrified.
But there's also a small, hysterical part of my brain that's thinking:This is the inciting incident. This is where the story really starts.
Which means—
The men part.
And he walks through.
I didn't look at his illustration in the book. I skipped right past it, didn't let myself linger, didn't want to know what he looked like.
But I know anyway.
Dark hair, a little too long, pushed back from a face that's all sharp angles. Golden eyes. Actually golden, like honey, like amber, like something that shouldn't exist in nature. The kind of coloring you'd have to color-correct in post because no one would believe it was real.
He's tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a suit that fits him so perfectly it had to be made for him, charcoal gray with a subtle sheen that catches the stained-glass light.
The light from the windows falls directly on his face. It should be unflattering, that angle. It exposes everything. Most people look worse in direct overhead light; it creates shadows under the eyes, highlights every flaw.
He doesn't have any flaws.
Or maybe he does, and he just doesn't care who sees them.
Something twists in my stomach. Something warm and unwanted.
No. Absolutely not. I already did my stupid thing for the day. I drank the mysterious tea, and now I'm hallucinating, and I amnotgoing to make things worse by being attracted to the figment of my drugged imagination.
Devyn Chaleur.
Mafia King of the South.
The one route I refused to read.
He stops in front of me. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. Close enough that I can see the faint scarat the corner of his jaw, the way his mouth is set in a line that isn't quite a frown but isn't anywhere near a smile.
