Page 87 of Queen of Nothing

The thuds are gentle and soft, but his presence is wholly commanding.

He swallows up the room, the apartment, the camera.

He’s all I can look at.

Dray Sinclair wanders into the room.

Dressed in all black, from trousers and shoes to his sweater, he slips his hands into his pockets, and glances around the deterioration of the old loft.

I sink deeper into the seat.

And my tears fall freely.

“Now,” my father slides down the window to sit on the ledge, and he folds his hands on his lap, “tell us about that boy.”

That boy…

My heart is hammering now.

A sweaty gleam mists my forehead. I swat at it, wipe at my face with too much pressure, but I can’t tear my wide gaze away from the phone screen.

Dray’s pace into the loft is wandering. Casual. But there’s an inherit intensity in him, like there always has been, that of a predator—a tiger prowling, sleeping, relaxing. It’s still a tiger.

Then, behind him…

My eyes almost bulge out of my head.

James, as meek as a mouse, side-steps along the open door. His gaze is downcast as he backs up to the stand at the wall.

Serena’s shoulders sag and she backsteps until her spine slumps against the window.

She stares at James, and she understands.

His power.

His print.

Iitrin.

Serena’s hollow laugh is cracked glass.

Her head drops, inky hair falling over her cheeks.

I can only make out slivers of her profile as she sets the letter and envelope on the window ledge.

Dray stops at the edge of the bench and considers the kitchen.

His mask is impassive, unaffected, but there’s no doubt in me that he is flooded with disgust and judgement—that we live like this, with cabinet doors leaning off old hinges, stains on the splashback that never wash off, and a faint smell of stale cigarette smoke that we’ve never managed to get rid of.

He stands close to the camera, so close that all he needs to do is look down, and he’ll see the screen.

Not me.

But maybe evidence of the call.

There should be little buttons on the screen—unless Serena threw a quick illusion on it.

That makes sense.