Once I end the call, I dash toward Axel’s office, texting him on the way. The sight of our meager thread stings. Maybe this is our truth—stilted communication that will never amount to more.
Me: Look at that. We haven’t texted since the GIF of me kicking your ass. Lucky for you, I’m in the mood for a repeat.
Axel: I bet you are, darling. But the offer isn’t on the table yet.
Me: Maybe I should share this GIF with the staff.
Axel: It will only hurt you, much like this bratty attitude.
He isn’t wrong. I’m not usually this untethered, so I do need to rein it in.
Me: Where are you? I need to talk. It can’t wait.
Axel: About a five-minute walk from your current location.
Me: You’re watching me?
Axel: Always. There is nothing more important or captivating than my spirited Thorn. Your gait seems angry.
Me: Are you trying to get under my skin right now?
Axel: Absolutely.
Me: Why?
Axel: It’s only fair when you’ve been under mine since you first arrived here.
Is that true? I can’t breathe. Can’t think. I honestly don’t know what’s up and what’s down because my father practicallyadmitted that I’m going to be neutralized. A closer has already come for me. It’s unlikely that I’ll survive much past the Prohibition Ball. I do think they’ll keep me alive for that, but then what? I can’t escape this resort, unless I agree to be erased, which means I’ll be alone and looking over my shoulder for the rest of my days, however few they are. Until someone claims that torment as a prize—my head on their platter.
But despite all that pandemonium, I am undone at the thought of this man truly wanting me.
Maybe he doesn’t. He could be playing me. I stop, my chest heaving, my heart hammering, my eyes burning. And as if he were privy to my madness, as if this damn bracelet provided a telepathic report, he texts an answer to my inner battle.
Axel: Believe it, Zara. You have occupied my every thought and owned my every breath since I spotted you on the security cameras. I am consumed by you.
One additional torturous second of insecurity before he reels me in.
Axel: I’m in the executive conference room with my brothers. Feel free to question me and find your truth.
Maybe he was listening, translating the Ukrainian. That notion revamps my ire. I resume my jaunt at a brisk late-for-a-meeting pace and not a stride faster, doing my best not to draw the scrutiny of the executives.
When I reach the conference room, I don’t knock. He can see me coming anyway.
Busting inside, I scan the faces of all the Noire brothers—the men who I’ve become attached to, but also the men who are complicit in whatever sick game this is—and shut the door withmy foot. “You killed him? Keller? You’d figured out who I was speaking about to you—in confidence—and you killed him?”
His midnight-blue gaze hitches to mine without an ounce of remorse, and the huskiness of his voice is coated in ice. “Yes. In an achingly slow fashion.”
Even though I know he issued an order of protection, I need to hear him tell me the reason. “Why would you do that?”
“Because, my darling Thorn, unlike yourkin, I do kill out of vengeance.”
AXEL
“And why would Keller be the object of such?” Zara’s face is devoid of her usual rosy coloring, a hint of panic creeping through her polished mask.
Much of that is due to the death sentence her father likely just delivered to her, but some of it is because she doesn’t believe I want her.
She’s obviously not absorbing how she’s infected me. I can’t fault her for that. Between all the pressure on our unlikely union, death hovering outside the door, and of course, my own reluctance to commit to someone—especially a woman so young, who deserves so much more—I haven’t been forthright with my feelings.
