Axel: I can’t speak for an entire gender, and my focus is only on you. But time is precious, so …
Me: You’re even bossy in texts.
Axel: And you’re even more evasive in yours. You had news?
Me: Maybe I forgot it. Batting my lashes and saying, “Yes, sir,” will do that.
Axel: I’m getting bored.
Me: Short stamina. Noted.
Axel: Zara.
If his attention being on me wasn’t enough, I can practically hear him growl my name, and a thrill thunders in my core.
Me: GIF *Proof that size doesn’t matter.*
His dots appear and disappear. With each prance, I envision his lips twitching with humor.
Axel: Cute. Bonding with my family, I see.
Axel: Have your fun. We both know you’d have trouble walking afterward, but the glow would be worth it.
My entire body heats, but I don’t respond. Maybe he’ll feel the need to prove his point. We can test his threat from this morning.
As I glance up, Mercy bites back a grin.
They set me up to see how I’d react to him, and I was so consumed by thoughts of the enigmatic king that I bared my infatuation to them.
Tessa shakes her head in what appears to be disappointment. “You are so fucked.”
She has no idea.
ZARA
Afew days later, I receive a text on my burner as I’m walking into my afternoon conference meeting with Axel and his executive staff.
He’s been ignoring me again. Sort of. Our innuendos ceased, as did any verbal conversations. His walls are firmly established. But our communication through literature has continued, which somehow feels more intimate—or at least like he’s willing to be a friend.
He placed John Milton’sParadise Loston my desk, choosing the line:The mind is its own place, and in it self / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
With that simple gesture, he assured me that he saw me, even with the chasm of insurmountable issues between us. Because I am trapped—both by circumstances and my own internal war.
So, I confirmed his assessment with F. Scott Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby:I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
Despite the surroundings and culture that fill me with a sense of community here, I’m still an outsider. The certainty of that is glaring at me from my phone.
Private: Get ears in the arbitration meetings. Report-out call tomorrow.
My stomach crawls to my throat, every step to my chair chanting a walk-the-plank cadence. Axel juggles a lot around here, as do his brothers and their executive staff. But there’s one task that seems to be primarily his—the arbitration meetings members or crime syndicates that are at odds can schedule. They plead their cases, and Axel finds a solution or makes a call. I’m sure for most, it’s a last resort. But it’s preferable to bloodshed.
The amount of top-secret information disclosed in those must be staggering. That is indicative of the peril it poses, not just with Axel, but with any of the other volatile groups involved, especially since there is no way for me to escape. How can I be expected to do this without an extraction plan? It’s suicide.
If I manage to steal intel from one of his arbitration meetings, will he be forced to kill me, like he said he would? It’s espionage in the underworld, so I know the answer. This is why forming any type of attachment on a job—or life in general—is frowned upon in my profession. Rather than brainstorming ideas of how to get a bug in the most coveted nefarious meetings, I’m lamenting over betraying him. Not only because of the risks—those are there either way. But because some pathetic part of me doesn’t want to let him down.
He claimed he’d help me. And to a degree, he already has. But my father and brother always tell me they’ll keep me safe, yet I’m compromised and still here. I’m the job, not their family. And to Axel? I’m nothing.
I can’t trust anyone.
