I walked further into the War Room. The space was mostly empty—just the live-feed wall on one side, the war table in the center, the city grid lighting up Villain ports, Black Vault Casino, Aureum, all our holdings in neon lines.
“Where are they,” I asked.
He dragged on his cigarette, exhaled smoke away from the table. “Rome’s at Aureum pretending nothing’s wrong. Bastion took Luca to the docks to keep him from coming back up here and joining my insane plan.”
“So they think you’re insane too. Good. I’m not alone.”
He gave me a look that would’ve shut anyone else up.
I didn’t shut up. That was why they’d called me.
I leaned my hands on the edge of the table and stared at the rotating jet.
Tail number. Usual route between Villain, St Cross, and Marcellus territory. Flight windows. Maintenance logs. He’d pulled everything. Every time that aircraft breathed, Vince knew about it.
“How long have you been up,” I asked.
He checked the nearest clock like he hadn’t thought about it. “Since the island.”
“That’s not a time. That’s a trauma.”
“She is not okay, my baby, is not okay.” He broke the stylist in his hand. “She thin. So fucking thin. And her eyes… it’s like someone crushed her happiness and that someone is fucking me.” He started to pace.
“Carefree, funny, everything I loved about her I destroyed. My perfect sub who trusted me with everything, looked at me like I was…”
He paused and just stared at me. Grief. Painted all over his face.
“Not trustworthy?” I offered
“Someone she never knew.” He slumped back down in a chair, for a moment. Only to get straight back up.
“She hates me,”
“And yet, you’re up here trying to ruin her future.”
He shot me a look. “I am up here planning to get a piece of this fuckers plane. To mount on my mantle.”
“How Viking of you,” I put my feet up.
“No. Proof. To her. Someone tried to take her from me. Daddy takes that persons life.”
Possession, obsession tendencies are extreme in our bloodline. Which was why, I took my brothers threat as an intended plan. Not his ego screaming.
His fingers tightened around the edge of the console. I reached over and killed the rotation on the hologram. The jet froze mid-air.
“Vince, you’re not coping with the slow plan. I get it. But this is not an adjustment. This is insanity.”
He inhaled smoke, then crushed the cigarette out so hard the ashtray jumped.
“You and I agreed,” I reminded him. “We leverage Thorne first. We let their pride make them desperate. Then we offer them the solution they can’t refuse—marrying her into our line.”
“We planned that before my baby told me she was leaving. Before my girl looked me in the eye and told me she’s finished. She hates me, Nik.”
I shook my head. “No. She’s hurt.
“Same thing,” he muttered.
He flinched, just enough.
