“You’re wiser than you know,” she whispers in my ear.
“Fine,” Zeph grumbles. “You can’t milk getting stabbed forever though, man.”
I ignore him, snuggling into Silver and breathing in the scent of her as I bury my face in her neck. When I glance up to flip Z off, I spot Dante staring at the tabletop, his eyes darting up to rest on Silver for a moment before shooting away again.
He looks hungry.
Lusty.
Ooh, something tells me things are gonna get interesting around here.
First, though, I need to drag a stubborn control freak away from his desk and force him into bed.
“You’re a fucking moron, you know that, right?” I tell Fabian as I sweep into his office a couple of hours later.
His eyes flick up from the laptop in front of him and he rubs his face, looking about as lively as a reanimated corpse.
“Shit, man, you’ve got ink on your face.”
“What? I have? How did that get there? I haven’t even been using a pen,” he grumbles, scrubbing at his face with his hands.
I step closer and peer at him. “Ah, nah, sorry, it’s not ink. It’s just you look like someone’s punched you in the face. The circles under your eyes are that dark.”
He huffs and slumps back in his chair. “I’ve not exactly been sleeping well.”
“Pretty sure you’ve not been sleeping at all. What time did you get in last night?” I sound like his damn mother. Orsomeone’smother, not Fab’s, since his mom is a stone-cold bitch he hasn’t seen or heard from in years.
“I don’t know. Probably three or four in the morning.”
I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest, giving him my best disapproving look. “What the fuck are you doing down here for all these hours, man? It’s not good for you.”
He sighs, and it’s a soul-weary sound and makes my damn chest hurt. “Trying to make things right. It’s gonna take months of work to make a dent in things, especially after Felix had his fingers in so many of the businesses in the district, bleeding them dry.”
I perch on the edge of the desk, eyeing him curiously. He actually looks worse than he did when he had the blood curse sucking the life out of him. I reckon he’s only gotten about twenty hours of sleep in the past week combined.
“Look, bud, I know that this place is supposed to be your legacy and all that shit. I know your dad made you think you’re only worthwhile if you’re working on the fucking family business and all that, but it’s not worth killing yourself over.”
Fabian lets out another sigh and sits back in his chair, letting his head hang down like he can’t muster the energy to raise it.“Just because things are tough right now, doesn’t mean I should give it all up. This is what we’ve been working towards for years.”
I gesture at the window, which shows the twinkling lights of the city, but a few days ago, the still burning sections of the district were lighting up the sky. “I’m just saying, Felix is dead. Your dad seems more interested in fucking his girlfriend than having anything to do with the business. And you’re here, working yourself to death. You don’t have to do this, man.”
Over the years, I don’t think we’ve ever had this conversation. The one where I ask if this whole stupid legacy is actually something hewants, or his asshole father and his sense of duty have brainwashed him.
He’s not listening, though. His attention returns to the laptop in front of him and he blinks slowly as he types away at the keyboard.
I decide to try a different tack. “How’s Seb doing?”
“He’s fine. Seems in better spirits recently. Now he has so many people around all the time.”
Dammit, that’s true. I figured maybe Seb was his weak point and I could pile on the brotherly guilt.
“And what about Silver?”
“What about her? She’s been busy these past weeks, as far as I know. And part of what I’m doing here is trying to make the district a safe place for her to walk around again without being afraid of getting jumped.”
Ah. “Is that why you’re so obsessed with fixing things in the district? You’re still feeling bad about what happened the morning after the Solstice?”
He doesn’t reply, but the look on his face tells me enough.
