Page 195

“I don’t care about them,” I snap.

“But I do.”

Her tears are on the verge of flooding.

And that sight is the weakness growing in me. An inconvenience of loving someone more than I value myself. I can’t deny her. Not when she’s standing there shaking and still asks me to protect people I’d feed to the river if it meant saving her.

Reese steps closer to me with urgency. “Edwin, the vote.”

The path of instinct and the path of strategy pull me in opposite directions. If I go for Frank now, Patrick will use it against me. The members of the Order will think I’m too emotional and impulsive.

They wouldn’t be wrong.

The Order loves cruelty, but it hates chaos it can’t control.

Patrick will be at the vote. We need information. And if he’s in on this, if he’s tied to whatever Frank is doing with Zaiya’s blood, then I don’t just want him dead. I want him exposed. I want his confidence to crack in front of the same men he’s trying to seduce into crowning him.

Zaiya tries to compose herself. Her eyes shine, but her mouth stays firm. She’s facing fear head-on.

“Was Michael at the church?” I ask her.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

“He was at Ophidia,” Lucian says. “I saw him take a girl back to his room. Limp dick is probably still there.”

Good. A weaker limb before we rip out the spine.

“We’re going to have a talk with Patrick’s flea,” I say to Zaiya.

She reaches into my pocket and pulls out my knife. Then, looking me right in the eyes, she slips it down the front of her ceremonial white dress, nestling it in her bra under her breast.

If it makes her feel better, she can carry any weapon she wants. But as long as I’m around, she won’t need to use it.

I look over my brothers, our collective anger passing between us like a current. Reese watches me with that warning look of his.

“Go to the vote,” he says. “After you win, Frank is first priority.”

I don’t give him an answer.

I look at Zaiya. At the way she’s standing tall, ready to fight.

She came to me for protection and justice. And now she’s standing in the center of my family’s storm, asking me not to become the thing I’ve always been most tempted to become.

A man who chooses destruction over duty.

I cut down the long hall of The Cirrus, Zaiya’s hand never leaving mine. The carpet hushes our steps, but the hotel still feels alive. Below us, the club pulses. A heart full of liquor and sin that collects bad decisions.

Order members stay here for free. It keeps them close and comfortable. Some of them take advantage of that.

So do I.

I know exactly where the flea is. Zaiya’s grip tightens when we stop in front of the room.

A tap of the key card unlocks the door, and I shove it open hard enough to make it slam against the wall. The sound cracks through the small space.

The naked woman on her knees jolts at the sudden crash. Her teeth come down on Michael’s cock as he sits on the edge of the bed.

He screams in pain and shoves her head away to rub at the bite mark.