I don’t respond.
“You bending me over that corpse and fucking me while his dead eyes watch us.” She takes a sip of her champagne, and her eyes close. “Hmmm. It’ll be…poetic.” Her gaze lands on me. “Don’t you think?”
The image hits before I can block it—her body draped over the dead man's lap, red dress hiked to her waist, expecting me to perform on command like the trained animal she's spent years building. My stomach contracts so violently I taste bile at the back of my throat, thick and metallic, and for one white-hot second the karambit in my hand feels like it's pointing in the wrong direction.
“I told you.” My voice comes out flat. Dead. The voice I use when the alternative is a sound that would get me killed. “I will never fuck you.”
She smiles. The smile that says she expected this answer and ordered it like room service. “One day you'll stop saying that, Nazareth. And we'll both know it's not because you changed your mind.” She swirls the champagne, watching the bubbles rise. “It'll be because you ran out of things to protect.”
Rage erupts, and I storm toward her. “We had a deal.”
“I know. And you know me, I’m nothing if not a woman of my word.”
I almost laugh.
“I won’t go near your precious Sophia Sinclair as long as you keep your end. But you're so quiet lately.” Her gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Not the old quiet. This is different. This is someone who's decided to behave. I'm not sure I trust it.”
I say nothing, sheath the karambit and step back.
“You seem settled.” She uncrosses her legs. Recrosses them. The slit parts and reforms, a controlled reveal that's aimed at me. “Focused. It's good to have you back, Nazareth.”
My name in her mouth. Thirteen years of hearing it, and it still sits in my skull like a stone in a shoe.
“I spoke with Samuel today,” Valeria continues, and every nerve in my body goes on high alert. “Mary and little Lucas are doing well.”
The mention of my sister is calibrated. It's always calibrated. Valeria doesn't make conversation—she builds pressure systems. She mentions Mary the way a banker mentions collateral, a casual reminder that the asset is in her vault and the terms of the loan haven't changed.
“Good,” I say. The word comes out exactly the way I need it to. Flat. Controlled. Empty.
“Although Mary looked thin the last time I saw her.” The concern in Valeria's voice is immaculate. If you didn't know what she was, you'd believe the warmth. You'd trust the softness.
You'd be wrong, and the wrongness would get you killed.
“You should check in on her. Pay her a visit.” Valeria’s lips pull in a barely-there smirk. She knows exactly what she’s doing, andI know exactly in which direction I’ll carve while cutting her mouth off her face.
“I will,” I sneer. “When I get a chance.” Which I haven’t yet because that’s how Valeria orchestrates it all. One job after the other while purposely keeping me away from my sister.
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.” She stands from the chair in one fluid motion, the dress falling into place around her like something that knows its job. She crosses the room toward me, heels clicking on the stone, and stops close enough that I can smell her perfume—patchouli and something darker, a base note I've never been able to identify that smells like the inside of a closed room.
Her hand rises. Finds my jaw. Fingertips pressing into the hinge, angling my face down toward hers. The touch is ownership.
Her thumb traces the edge of my scar through the cracked paint, and everything in me goes very still. The kind of still that happens inside a bomb one second before detonation, when all the components are in place and the only thing missing is the trigger.
“You've been such a good boy,” she murmurs. “So compliant. So efficient. It almost makes me nervous.”
I hold her gaze. Let her see what she expects to see—the emptiness, the obedience, the trained animal responding to the handler's hand. I've been performing this version of myself for so long, and the performance is flawless because it has to be.
“I have the intel from the interrogation,” I say, redirecting her the way you redirect a river. “Two accounts in the Caymans. A contact in the DOJ. And a safe house in Fairfield County he was using to?—”
“Later.” She pats my cheek. Two small, precise taps, the way you'd pat a dog that performed a trick. “Clean up first. You have paint in your hair.”
She turns and walks toward the stairs, heels echoing against stone. At the bottom step, she pauses. “Oh. And Nazareth?” A glance over her shoulder. “I have something for you. A new assignment. Overseas. You’ll spend the night here, and I’ll brief you in the morning.”
The door at the top of the stairs opens, closes. The lock doesn't engage. She doesn't lock me in rooms anymore. She doesn't have to. The locks are inside me now—installed so deep they feel like architecture, like the bones of the house itself, and I can't tell where the cage ends and I begin.
Fuck. I hate the nights I’m forced to spend here more than others. Knowing I’m sleeping under the same roof as that psychopath bitch is like sleeping with a snake at the foot of my fucking bed.
I stand in the basement with a dead man and cracking paint and blood under my fingernails, and I run the equation.
