Page 48 of Freedom’s Inferno

The way it rolled off her tongue, not an accusation, but something born of affection. It got under my skin in all of the worst ways. The sound of it scraped against every wall I’d built. Yet, when Lana called me by that name, it sounded like I could become a better man. If I let her keep saying it.

Chapter 20

Lana

Icouldn’t decide if I felt powerful or pathetic.

The salty taste of him still clung to my tongue. I could still hear the ragged rasp of his breathing. The image of his face, slack with pleasure, replayed behind my eyelids. I couldn’t shake what we’d done. What I’d done.

I wanted to prove that I could turn his threats into surrender with nothing but my mouth and a little bit of nerve. The goal was control, reminding him he could be manipulated. But in the end I didn’t come out victorious. Something far messier moved through me. Something I didn’t have a name for.

Something about Charlie—Chuck—pulled at me like a tide, slow but relentless. He made me angry. He made me feel when I didn’t want to. I used to think Charlie was the human embodiment of Eeyore: gray and joyless, a walking raincloud that mistook cynicism for wisdom. His kind of pessimism was contagious, a slow leak of energy from anyone foolish enough to stand too close.

Somewhere along the way, I’d started to see a different man entirely. Cynicism wasn’t what hollowed him out, endurance did. He wasn’t toxic; he was tempered. He was strong in the way iron is, steady even when everything else was falling apart, and now, when he spoke, it didn’t sound like despair anymore. It sounded like depth.

I’d recognized all of that once before, a long time ago, and filed it away somewhere I preferred to ignore.

Ethics in Finance, sophomore year. The class had spent the better part of an hour debating the legality of cycling money through a network of shell companies, fractured down the middle between the letter of the law and the spirit of the game. I’d planted myself firmly in the corner of the law; gray areas were just shadows for criminals to cloak themselves in.

He’d caught up with me in the corridor after class, falling into step beside me with a shy grin. “You know,” he said, almost amused. “An argument could be made for the other side.”

I glanced at him, catching his profile, the way the muscle in his cheek bulged, like he was working a gumball. “Rules exist for a reason.”

“The system wasn’t built for equality.” He shrugged. “Sometimes moving around the rules is the only path available.”

“Moving around them.” I raised an eyebrow. “That’s generous. So where’s the line for you? Between bending the rules and just deciding they don’t apply to you?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets, his pace slowing. “If you’re starving and the man next to you has more than he’ll ever eat, and the law says you can’t touch it, is the law just? Or is it just the law?”

I stopped walking, momentarily knocked off balance. I didn’t have an answer.

“That’s‒”

“Take your time,” he cut in, and the grin that crossed his face flipped my stomach.

I laughed despite myself. “You’re insufferable.”

He smiled at the floor, sheepish, then his gaze swept up to mine. Those dark eyes bore into me, depthless. Something lived in those eyes—something ancient and haunted. We held each other’s stare while our classmates filed past, the noise of the hall fading into the background.

Then his brows knit together. “You’ve got‒” He extended a hand, the pad of his thumb stopping just shy of my chin. “‒a little bit of lipstick.” He withdrew, jamming his fist into his pocket.

“Oh‒” I wiped at the corner of my mouth, his eyes tracking the gesture. “Thanks.”

I dragged myself from the memory and turned toward the mirror, the soft light from the bedside lamp catching my reflection. My lipstick was gone, my mascara smudged, and my hair was a wild tangle of copper curls spilling over my shoulders. I didn’t recognize myself.

Tomorrow, we’d have to go to the bank to check out the safety deposit box, and confront Richard’s ghost. Damian Costa’s shadow stretched longer by the hour, but I was bone-tired. Running, pretending, holding myself together with nothing but good posture… I couldn’t keep up.

The bed was soft, the kind of decadent comfort that made the world outside cease to exist. I let myself fall into the down pillows and cool sheets, the mattress sighing beneath me, cradling me. For the first time in days, my body unclenched, the ache in my limbs giving way to something gentler.

I’d only intended to rest my eyes for a minute, but the second my head hit the pillow the world tilted. The weight of him, of all of it, slipped from my chest. Sleep came like mercy, and I let it take me.

Lana was back in her bedroom. Gone was the luxury of the hotel sheets, the long, flowing velvet drapes, and gold accents. She sat at her vanity mirror, staring at her ghostly complexion.

She turned her head, her gaze raking across the familiar room. She recognized her pale pink sheets, the leather settee at the foot of her bed, the roses on the wallpaper… everything was there, exactly as it should be, but something didn’t feel right.

A faint pressure flared behind her eye sockets, and a haze ghosted over her body—like the nerves in her skin were muted.

Lana turned back toward the mirror and terror tore through her.