“You’re making a mistake,” Silas says from the doorway.
“That’s my business, not yours.”
The door closes.
I stand there for a moment, hands braced on my desk, breathing through the anger.
Your father was an arrogant piece of shit.
My hands curl into fists. I am nothing like my father.
But I stay there longer than I should, staring at the closed door, and I find myself thinking about the way Silas Cross walked into this room. No weapon. No backup. Fully aware that I could have had him killed before he finished his first sentence, and he pitched his case anyway, calm and direct, like a man who’d decided the meeting was worth dying for if it came to that.
I’ve dealt with a lot of men since returning to Malus. Politicians who sweat through their shirts. My cousin Andreas who laughs too loud at things that aren’t funny. Capos performing confidence for an audience of one.
Silas Cross wasn’t performing anything.
Nico clears his throat and gestures toward the door. “Boss? You want me to—”
“No.” I straighten, smoothing down my jacket. “Let him go.”
Nico nods and retreats, closing the door behind him.
I pick up my phone and open the feed. Mina’s apartment is quiet. Leon must be asleep. I can hear her moving through the small rooms, the soft sounds of her evening, and I close my eyes and wait for it to work its calming magic on me.
It doesn’t. Not entirely. Silas Cross’s voice is still there underneath hers, relentless and immovable.
When the Sokolis come north—and they will—whose side are you on?
I’ve been choosing Mina’s side since I was eight years old. Everything else has always had to arrange itself around that fact.
It’s just that the everything else keeps getting harder to ignore.
Nine yearsearlier
The bus dropsme two blocks from North Malus High, giving me exactly five minutes to reach the gates before Mina gets out of school.
I walk fast. I always walk fast on this route, even though there’s no reason to rush. She’ll wait for me if I’m late. She always does. But the thought of her standing there alone, scanning the crowd, wondering where I am—
I walk faster.
The other boys from St. Peter’s are headed to football practice or piano lessons or whatever it is that boys like us are supposed to do with our afternoons. I got on a bus to Mina’s school with my blazer and tie stuffed inside my schoolbag, because nothing is more important than walking her home. School has kept me away from her all day, and I won’t wait a moment longer than necessary to see her.
The gates of North Malus High come into view, and I take my position against the brick pillar where I always wait. Students stream past in their ordinary clothes, laughing and shoving and shouting to each other across the courtyard.
I check my watch. She should be here by now.
Girls linger near the gates, the same ones who’ve been circling me for weeks. They don’t know my name. They don’t know anything about me except that I show up here every afternoon from St Peter’s and wait for Mina, and apparently being from a private boys’ school is enough to make me interesting.
My face is arranged into the blank mask that keeps everyone at a comfortable distance, yet one of them approaches, the bold one with the blonde hair and the too-bright smile. She’s holding a bag of candy, offering it in hopes of tempting me.
“Hey.” She tilts her head, trying to catch my eye, but I’m looking past her. “Want one? They’re sour watermelon. Really good.”
“No.”
“Come on.” She shakes the bag. “You’re always so serious. Don’t you ever smile?”
Her friends giggle behind her and whisper behind their hands. I hear fragments.
