No ego. Just truth. Nik played better game than half the courts now. Impressive for us. Terrifying for everyone else.
“How are you actually doing with the sub thing,” Nik went back to the nerve. He always knew where to press. “Not the Atticus jealousy. Or the collar fantasies. You.”
“Feels like running two operating systems. One with docks, guns, ledgers. The other tracking when she last ate, how long she slept, who sat too close to her at dinner, if she flinched when someone touched her elbow.”
“And?”
“And the second one feels better than the first,”
“That’s not a bad thing, Vince.”
“It is if it makes the city optional.”
“Cities should be optional. People shouldn’t. You’ve just never had a person.”
“I had you,” I countered.
“You didn’t choose me. We were born into the same mess. Madeline is the first thing you’ve reached for that wasn’t assigned.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Can’t shake the fear I’ll fuck it up. If I hurt her, even by accident, I prove every horror story she’s ever heard about me, right. That’s worse than anything Damius ever did.”
“You’re not him or our father.”
“Not the point.”
“Men who plan like you do don’t become Damius overnight. You’re thinking about fallout before you even take her for a weekend. That’s how I know you’ll walk away from the edge if she tells you you’re hurting her.”
“Good intentions don’t mean shit if the knife still cuts.”
“Which is why you call me before you swing,” he said. “You put your Crow instincts through someone who isn’t in love with her. You’ve done it with Rome. With Bastion. With Kingston. This isn’t different, it’s just… closer.”
Ghost of a smile tugged at my mouth. “You volunteering to be my sponsor.”
“I’m volunteering to stop you from locking her in your penthouse. Which, by the way, do not do.”
The idea had crossed my mind.
“Noted.”
“Message me when you’re home. And if Rome moves.”
“Fair,”
I let my head fall back, cigarette burning low between my fingers. I stared at my ring for a moment longer before ending the call.
Blood brothers for thirty-one years. Foster fathers since seventeen. Nik knew me better than I knew myself. Which was exactly why I was sure he already expected me to stay local this weekend instead of taking Madeline out of the city.
Enforcer. Lord of Villain. Whatever name they wrote in the papers. In the end, the one person who could predict me was Nik.
28
Madeline
Three Weeks Later
I stepped out into the marble hall with my chin already lifted, the way my uncles liked, the way my mother called “good posture”. The cream dress hugged too tight over my ribs to inhale properly. Will every step I took echoed with the reminder, I won.
