“I cleared the weekend,” the words came out on a sigh. “I was going to take Madeline off-grid, cliffside property. No calls. Just the house and the sea.”
“And now you’re wondering if you’ll be babysitting Rome in concrete instead,” Nik’s voice lost some of the war-room edge. More brother, less general.
I rolled the ring Madeline had given me with my thumb. Slimmer, warmer. Not dynasty metal. Her taste. Which mattered more.
“I can’t drag her out there and then leave her alone while I go stand in tunnels hoping our brother doesn’t cave someone’s head in on live feed,” jaw tightened. “Not when Atticus fucking DuPont is circling Harlan and Villain like a well-bred shark.”
“Atticus,” Nik repeated. “So that’s started.”
“In chambers every second day,” I ground the stub out, already reaching for another. “Thorne bringing in DuPont to ‘advise’ on water rights. My girl stuck in the middle smiling politely.”
“How close?”
I clicked lighter open. Close. Open. Closed.
“Too close. He’s always there. Dinners. Briefings. That ‘I understand your burden’ look they all practice in the mirror. She says he’s polite. Smart. Easy to talk to.”
Things I was when I remembered and had enough sleep.
“He can offer her things I can’t,” the thought had been pacing my skull all week; it finally slipped loose. “Clean merger.House Thorne plus House DuPont. A life with the right last name on the invitations.”
Quiet on the other end. Listening, not judging.
“And you’re supposed to stand there and be gracious about that? Shake his hand. Play nice?”
The ring cut into my skin as I twisted it. “I don’t want to play anything where he’s concerned. I don’t want him breathing near her.“
“Can you let her go if they arrange it?”
That was Nik. Straight to the point. Even if that point was as sharp as a knife.
“No.”
“Define no.”
“I mean I don’t know how to stand in a room and watch her walk toward someone else,” smoke burned the back of my throat. “I don’t know how to stay neutral while she calls another man safe.”
“You never wanted a relationship,” Nik sighed,
We both knew why. Same house. Same childhood. Surrogates carrying us in pairs because Damius liked his lineage laid out like a fucking game board. Nik and I split by six months on a clinic calendar.
By the time we were old enough to understand what any of that meant, love already looked like an audit.
“And now?” Nik’s question dragged me back into the car.
“Now I’m fucked,”
The driver took a corner smooth enough I barely felt it.
“She trusts me,” my fingers found Madeline’s ring again, rolling it. “She gave me that word. Sub. Gave me the right to use my worst instincts on purpose. And it feels… good.”
That was the part that terrified me.
“Crow-level good,” Nik murmured.
“Yeah.”
The obsession had been there my whole life. I used it on ports. On brothers. Sisters. On making sure Kingston and the twins and Rome didn’t end up dead in some alley.
