“You mean soyour crimeswouldn’t spread,” Nathaniel corrects.
“Yes,” Mark breathes.
“Look at her,” Talon tells him. “Look at the woman you tried to erase.”
I don’t know how he manages to sound both lethal and worshipful, but he does. There’s this feral devotion wrapped in amusement and hunger in his voice. It’s like air to my lungs.
Cassian feels it too. His fingers tighten at my waist, then climb up slowly, until his palm settles beneath my ribs, the heel of his hand braced right under my heart.
“Eyes on her,” he orders Mark. “Don’t even blink.”
And Mark obeys, because terror breeds obedience, especially in men who only understand hierarchy when they’re beneath it. His pupils blow wide. He tries to swallow and fails.
Talon lets the crowbar slip to the floor with a soft metallic kiss, then takes up position at Mark’s shoulder like a devil roosting on the worst part of his conscience. Nathaniel remains at a calm remove, still cloning the evidence.
Cassian’s palm stays braced beneath my heart; the other settles at my hip as he draws me back a step, into him, until his chest is at my spine and his breath lives in my hair. Then he inhales deep.
“You wanted her small,” he tells Mark. “You wanted her quiet.”
His hand skims my ribs, unhurried enough to count sins. I let my head tip to his shoulder and keep my eyes on Mark.
He flinches at the intimacy like it’s a slap.
“You didn’t know what a diamond you had in your hands,” Talon murmurs. “Too bad for you. Good for us.”
I turn my cheek; Cassian is already there, mouth waiting. He bites my lower lip, and I smile against it while watching Mark watch us. It’s ugly and sweet at the same time, like rotted justice wrapped in honey.
“Language lesson,” Nathaniel says, almost gentle, not looking up from the phone. “This is what power looks like when it isn’t pretending to be benevolence.”
Mark’s breath turns ragged.
He’s never seen me like this—wanted, unafraid, choosing.
In control.
Cassian’s hand climbs my throat. My breath catches because I want it there, because wanting in front of the man who starved me of wanting is a sacrament.
Mark can’t look away. He wouldn’t know how.
“Say her name again,” Talon tells him softly, almost kind. “Say it right this time.”
“Skye,” Mark rasps. I hold his stare until he drowns in it.
“Good boy,” Talon purrs.
Cassian turns me, settling me against his chest, bracketing me in warmth and unshakeable possession. His hand slips beneath the hem of my shirt, palm closing over my breast. My breath breaks on a hitch. I don’t even bother hiding it.
“Look,” Cassian tells him. “Look at this beauty.”
He drags his mouth along my jaw. I don’t close my eyes.
“You closed the door on me,” I tell Mark. “You didn’t want to watch me with Duvall. How about you watch me now?”
The thought of letting my men take me apart in front of Mark should feel deranged. Maybe it is. But after death, deranged loses its meaning.
I want Mark tosee. To live with the memory the way I lived with the grave he gave me. He might never understand what I am now, or what these men can do, but hefeelsit.
Fear is its own proof.
