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Audrey glares at me. “You dirty little slut.”

“You wait just a⁠—”

“Save it,” Audrey cuts in. “You have work to do.” She turns and walks to the door. “And strip that bed.”

I stand in the center of my room, unable to move.

Dirty little slut.

I look at the bed. At the sheet. At the dress. At the bracelet still on my wrist.

I think of Nathaniel’s mouth against mine.

His hands.

The way he looked at me before he went cold.

And the emptiness from this morning breaks open, and everything rushes in at once.

I stumble to the bed and sit on the edge.

Then I fold forward, hands over my mouth, and the first sob tears out of me before I can stop it.

Another follows.

Then another.

I cry hard enough that my ribs hurt. Hard enough that, for once, I don’t care who hears me.

I have work to do. But for these few minutes, I’m not moving.

I can only sit in my small room and cry because my day in the sun got me burned.

24

NATHANIEL

Cain is halfway to the door before I move.

“Wait.”

He stops with his hand on the knob. Not because I order him to. Cain has never done anything because someone orders him to. He’s only stopping because he thinks whatever I have to say may be in his interests. Cain knows the value I bring to the table. We all know the value we each bring to the table.

Which is why Cain won’t kill Samson. Not if I have anything to say about it. So Sam has a weakness. So what? He’s still our enforcer, and we need him.

Cain turns. “What?”

“You can’t do this,” I say.

Cain’s brows lift. “Can’t?”

“He’s our brother.”

Cain laughs.

My jaw tightens. “Don’t.”

“No, really. It’s touching. Samson Vexley, beloved elder brother. Family man. Loyal son. Tender beast locked in his tower.”