I stared at the screen, at his name, at the way he talked to me like I wasn’t a mistake someone regretted having.
What I didn’t tell Vince was how much I needed that.
Needed him and two days where no one grabbed my wrist when I reached for bread. Or listed every flaw I had. Where I wasn’t a project or a burden someone almost died for.
With him, I could almost believe I was wanted on purpose.
I typed, then deleted,I had a bad day. Typed and deleted,She hates me. Typed and deleted,I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Instead I sent a smiley I didn’t feel and a joke about needing coffee before I could survive a whole weekend with him.
Unwanted mistakes didn’t have someone rearranging their entire weekend just to be with them.
I set the phone face down on the table, pulse still racing, and clung to the only solid thing I had left.
I might be nothing here, too much and not enough at the sam emit, but in forty-eight hours, I’d be with someone who looked at me like I wasn’t a waste.
43
Vince
Madeline was asleep in my bed. Where I should have been.
Instead Damius had summoned us all to the island. Nikolai stood beside me in the hall, hands in the pockets of his suit pants. If anyone else looked at him, they’d see composure. I saw the truth, the low, simmering dread we’d both carried since the summons.
We had hoped our brothers would never see this part of dynasty law play out. Not while they were still this young. Not before they had the chance to believe we were monsters only in reputation.
The lower levels smelled like metal and lemon oil. The combination never meant anything good.
“Think Damius planned this?” I murmured.
Nikolai didn’t look at me. “Of course he planned it.”
“He could’ve kept them out of this.”
“He didn’t want to.” His jaw flexed. “He wants to measure them.”
Footsteps echoed down the hall, uneven in rhythm, Luca’s quick stride, Bastion’s heavy one, Rome pacing himself but still wound too tight. They turned the corner. I straightened.
They froze when they saw us standing there alone.
Their faces changed in unison, the kind of shift that happens when instinct recognizes danger before the brain does.
Bastion spoke first. “What’s this about?”
I held his gaze. I didn’t answer immediately, because saying it aloud made it real. His eyes flicked over my face, and he must’ve seen the truth, the thing I never wanted any of them to see in me.
Pity.
“A lesson,” I finally said.
Rome stepped forward. “Who’s being punished?”
Nikolai exhaled through his nose. “Our cousin. He loved someone he wasn’t given.”
“And?” Bastion asked.
“And Damius demanded she be shared among the Crows to cleanse the disobedience,” Nik said.
