Later, I’ll berate myself for it, wondering if orgasms have really made us so lax and soft that we’re off our game. She tells me–the clock tower. She gives me a sign, the odd silence in her voids and vacancies a clear, hushed warning, but I don’t even feel the orange until we’re pushing through the door.
Nicky has his gun out before the rest of us even realize something is off.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks, gun leveled at Saul’s face, despite the fact there are three goons in the room, positioned at the loft, the doorway to Nicky’s room, and the entrance to the kitchen.
The tower’s air shivers with alarm, though.
There might be more.
Saul’s a fucking bastard, but Kings don’t survive by playing fast and loose. He’s sitting in the leather armchair, still in his suit from the poker game. Unlike the three of us, he still looks immaculate, fingers curled around the neck of a beer bottle–our beer. A tinge of goldish orange rolls off his skin like toxic waste. It’s worse when he smiles, eyes sharp and menacing. “You must think you’re so clever.”
Nick doesn’t lower the gun. “Only because I am.”
“That’s the problem with you Bruins,” his eyes hold Nick’s as he takes a swig. “You’re all so incredibly full of yourselves, as if not becoming a stain on your mother’s bedsheets makes you special.”
My eyes track the room, darting into every dark corner. Saul is most likely aware that Sy and I were both disarmed at the poker game by his men. That means all we came into this fight with is our fists and Nicky’s pistol.
Before Nick can reply to Saul’s insult, Lavinia pushes between us, eyes flaring in hot irritation. “We jumped through your hoops. We hosted the party, and we put on your fucking show. What more do you want?”
He raises the beer to her. “You certainly did, and congratulations are in order. It seems the esteemed VIPs of West End are ready and willing to see you as a Duchess.” His fingers tap against the glass of the bottle, his bulky ring clinking loudly in the stillness. “So I suppose it’s time to make you one.”
“Time for what?” Sy asks. The tendon in his neck pulls taut.
Saul radiates gold. “To complete her initiation.”
Nick throws the keys on the coffee table, wagging the gun. “Your ears must still be ringing from the cheers I was getting, old man. Lavinia’s already our Duchess. There are no further initiations.”
“It’s not really official,” Saul disagrees, bending forward to place the beer on the table. “Not until she bears the scar of our house.” Without breaking Nick’s gaze, Saul turns his head–just an inch–and raises his voice to call out, “Bring the branding tools.”
“What?” Vinny says, her eyes wide and confused. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Ewing steps from just inside the kitchen, the straps of a black bag in one hand, his gun in the other.
Fuck me, but I have had enough of this shitstain.
Jolting forward, I angrily grab my jacket from Vinny’s shoulders, wrenching her around. “She already has a fucking mark!” I snap, revealing the tattoo on her shoulder. “I put it there myself, on your orders, that night at the Hideaway.”
Saul hums quietly, touching his lips as his eyes roam her body. “Yes, we’ve all seen the tattoo by now. It’s nice work, Remington. But that was your initiation, not hers. At the time, Lucia being a Duchess wasn’t on the table. That mark was a warning to the Lords that I’m not to be trifled with.”
“Yeah,” Nick says, mouth tipping into a vicious grin. “We all know Killian’s Lady got the best of you, and you’re still sore about it. But that has fuck all to do with our woman.”
Saul gives Nick a mockingly patient look. “A Duchess bears the brand, Nicholas. That’s tradition. Don’t pretend like you haven’t seen your mother’s.” His lips curve upward, eyes gleaming hatefully. “I can still smell the scent of her burning flesh as your father held her down.”
The shot slams through the room, sending a shrill scream in my ears. In a flash, Ewing has Nick on the ground, hand tight around his wrist. When I regain my bearings, I see that Sy’s body is curled around Lavinia, muscles coiled tight as he tucks her into his chest. Looking to Saul, I fully expect to see a bullet hole square in his forehead, his brains spattered over the armchair.
But his hand is on his ear, blood dripping down his fingers, and he doesn’t look dead.
He just looks annoyed.
“You missed.” He seems as surprised as I feel, turning to seek out a bullethole. The tower has gathered plenty over the years, the lead swallowed whole by the stone.
“No, I didn’t.” Nick says, the gun has already been wrangled from his hand, his snarling face pressed against the floor. “That was the only fucking warning you’ll get, Saul. The next shot I take, you’ll be dead before you feel it.”
Saul stands, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, and presses it against his ear, face hard. “And here I was going to let you do the branding yourself–as per tradition. I’m not feeling so generous anymore, boys.” He lifts his hand, flicking two fingers. “Bring him in.”
One of the goons stabs the elevator button, and Sy shoots me a pointed look. If they’re planning to cram our girl into that goddamn elevator…
Well, Saul doesn’t know it, but she’ll be just fucking fine. We’ve been working with her on being in that steel trap for the last week, and it’s not pretty, but my Vinny can handle it, and when she turns, pressing her cheek against Saul’s shoulder, I see her readying herself, gathering up all her white and blue.
Unfortunately, when the doors slide open, an enraged, blood-stained Bruce steps out of it.
Hot rage shoots up my spine, my vision filling with crimson and fire. “You’ve got some fucking nerve showing up here.”
“No, it’s good,” Sy curls his arms around Vinny, voice low and harsh. “It means we won’t have to chase his ass across West End to give his ‘fuck around’ a little ‘find out.’”
“I had a feeling you’d refuse.” Saul waves Bruce over, frowning at the bloodstain on his handkerchief. “So I brought someone who appreciates the sanctity of DKS’s legacy.” He looks at Bruce with arrogant eyes, resting a hand on his shoulder. Quietly, as if sharing some valuable wisdom, he says, “It’s all in how long you press it, you know. The longer the iron is on the skin, the more the symbols will spread. Restraint is important. Some Duchesses’ marks are barely identifiable. The screams are fun, though.”
When Bruce turns to us, his smirk tugs at the butterfly stitches holding his cheek together. “Oh, I’m gonna enjoy giving this slippery snake a little pain.” He lifts his chin, eyes piercing right through her. “And making you assholes watch.”
I step between them, catching his gaze. “You’re not touching her.” Whatever happens here tonight, that much is fact. It’s as vital to me as breathing. The thought of someone putting a mark into her skin–my skin, my canvas–just isn’t bearable. Even the mention of it makes my blood throb with the utter wrongness of it. I gesture to Nick. “He’ll kill you instantly. Sy will pummel you to death.” I tilt my head, holding Bruce’s glare. “But you can’t even imagine the things I’d do to you. The last time I sawed into someone’s body, I could have stayed there playing with his guts for hours.” Taken by the notion, I idly muse, “I wonder how long I could keep you alive…”
Bruce’s face screws up. “You’re all a bunch of fucking whack jobs!”
“Clearly.” I shrug, shooting Sy a look. “Point still stands.”
A gun rises to Sy’s back, the goon nodding to Saul, who says, “I don’t think you understand. This isn’t a request.” He ducks his head to meet Vinny’s gaze. “Or should I give Killian Payne a call? It’s pretty late. I venture he won’t be in the most forgiving of moods at three am.”
“Vinny,” I start, already seeing that spark of panic in her eye.
But she’s already twisting free of Sy, snapping, “Fine! Just fucking do it already!” All of the red in her aura becomes tinged with green when Saul takes the bag from Neon, unzipping it to produce a large butane torch.
“Absolutely fucking not!” Nick sneers, bucking against Ewing.
Saul gives her a flat look, taking the iron from the bag. “Get on your knees.”
Gripping my hair in two thick fistfuls, I hiss, “Goddamnit.”
Sy’s eyes swing to mine, the alarm in them meant only for me. He’s afraid I’ll do something stupid–something rash.
He’s right.
“Stop,” I say, my shoulders caving in defeat. My stomach roils at the thought of what I’m about to do, but we’re outmanned here. If anyone has the right to this, it’s me. Despite that, I can’t even look at her as I begin rolling up my sleeves, glare fixed to Saul’s shiny shoes. “Tradition says a Duke has to do it,” I argue, extending a palm. It’s only then that I allow myself a glance in her direction. “Give it to me.”
Her eyes are wide, shining with unshed tears. “Remy…”
Forcing a smile, I lie through my teeth. “It’s okay, baby.” From the way Nick is peering up at me, eyebrows crushed together in restraint, he understands.
Unlike Bruce, I won’t make it hurt any more than it has to.
Saul looks between me and Bruce, the conflict clear. This man is obsessed with tradition as much as inflicting pain, but showing his power through both?
He can’t resist it.
Saul sizes me up, like he’s trying to decide which is worse. Ultimately, he decides, “It’s your right, Maddox.” He tips his chin toward Ewing, who’s still holding Nick down. “But if he makes one false move, we will kill him.”
Saul places the rod of the iron into my hand.
It’s heavy and rough, and I test the weight of it, trying to remember back to the summer when I saw this coming. Back then, Verity was in line to become Duchess, and I spent a solid week before initiation trying to imagine it–burning a mark into her flesh. It never sat well with me. Not because it’s barbaric and unhinged–although both are true–but because I couldn’t fathom pressing a mark into a girl’s skin for the purpose of making her mine.
Not until Vinny.
An explosion of red and yellow makes me flinch, Saul sparking up the torch and setting the canister on the table. The flame glows with a hypnotizing gradient of blue and white, and if it weren’t for the hiss of butane, I could almost drown everything out and get lost in it.
“Remington,” Saul says, voice full of warning. “I do have all night, but I’d rather not waste it on this.”
Looking up at him, I step forward, inspecting the tip of the brand. The greek letters of our house, Delta Kappa Sigma, stand out in relief, and I lower it to the flame, feeling the radiating warmth graze the tip of my fingers.
I speak mechanically, turning the iron to heat it evenly. “It has to reach five-hundred degrees to burn through the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous skin.” Looking up, I meet Saul’s impatient gaze, my own narrowing. “Don’t suppose you brought a thermometer.”
He smirks. “No.”
There’s a tension in the air as we wait, my fingers spinning the iron against the torch’s flame. “Sy,” I say, glancing up at my friend. “Take off your belt.”
Dread fills his eyes as he begins unbuckling it, tugging it through his pant loops with a tight, jerky reluctance. “I used to respect you,” he says to Saul, folding the belt over on itself–once, twice. “Back before I knew who the real snake around here was. Open.” He says the last part to Vinny, gently placing the belt between her teeth. More quietly, he says, “Bite down, baby.”
Here’s the thing about Vinny, though.
She’s not scared.
She meets Saul’s eye and clenches her teeth around the leather like she wishes it were him.
“Where?” Sy asks, threading his fingers through her hair, cupping her face. “Where are you going to…?”
I shift my gaze to the flame. Trying to hold myself together long enough to do right by my girl, I answer tonelessly. “Her back.”
“Fuck that,” Bruce spits, running a finger down his mangled cheek. “Brand the bitch on her face!”
I grip the iron hard, knuckles straining. “The tradition is that her Dukes choose. But I can always shove it up your ass.”
Saul flicks a hand. “Put it wherever you want. But you’d better hold it to her skin for ten seconds, just like any other Duchess. No less.”
Shifting my gaze to Sy, I work my posture into something believably unyielding, giving him a nod. Without a word, he begins gathering up her hair, shifting it over a shoulder. “Hold on to me,” he whispers, Vinny’s arms threading around his neck. He brushes a kiss to her temple, taking a hard, bracing inhale. “Make it quick, Rem.”
The first tattoo I ever inked into her skin stares back at me from over her corset. I accept it as a part of her now, but I don’t think much of it. It’s my work, but not my soul.
This will be neither.
“Keep her still,” I tell Sy, watching Lavinia’s back go rigid as I lift the iron. Nick raises his head just enough to turn the other direction, looking away, muscles clenching up.
I take a series of short, fortifying breaths, tightening my grip on the iron with each one.
And then I press it to her shoulder blade.
The tendons in her neck go taut, her biceps swelling as she squeezes Sy’s neck. But she doesn’t make a sound. I count down the seconds in my head, ticking away. One, two, three…
“Don’t,” Saul warns when my arm twitches, “fucking move.”
It’s not until the fifth second that she finally screams.
It’s a horrific sound, gnarled and muffled against the belt. I watch helplessly as her back contracts with the force of it, her lungs emptying themselves of the cry that claws from her throat.
“Stay,” Saul commands, his voice barking into my ear. “Hold it!”
My shoulders tremble with the impulse to pull it away, to throw it at Saul’s face, to feed it to Bruce through his fucking teeth. Baring my teeth, I count through gritted teeth, “…seven, eight, nine, ten.”
The iron falls to the floor with a resounding clatter.
I’d like to be the kind of guy who stays. The kind of guy who gathers Vinny up in my arms and soothes her through the hurt, the sting, the agony, the tears. I want nothing more than to be the one who presses a kiss against her brow and whispers to her about how strong she was. How fierce.
Instead, I bolt to the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet in time for the first retch to hit me. The bile burns–not hot enough–as everything I just ate comes back up. I grip the basin with trembling hands, taking in gulps of air that just get forced back out on the next back-aching heave.
I don’t know how long it takes to expel all the green and the orange, my body exorcising it like a demon. By the time the heaves grow dry, my abs twinge from the pressure, hand trembling as I lift it to flush everything away.
Collapsing on the floor, I spend a long moment catching my breath, too cowardly to go out there and face her.
In the end, Sy finds me there, head in my hands.
I don’t hear him come in, too distracted with the colors of her hurt to notice him until he’s kneeling beside me. I flinch at the feel of his palm on my back, but he doesn’t pull away.
He speaks in a detached tone that grips at me, drawing my gaze up. “They’re gone. They left.”
Nodding, I drag my wrist over my mouth. “Is she…?”
“She’s okay,” he says, but his eyes are hard and dark, full of a coldness I’m not used to seeing on him. I take his hand when he extends it, lifting me up off the floor. “She needs you,” is all he says, tipping his head toward the door.
That’s the only reason I leave, catching a glance of my ashen face in the mirror as I pass. I want nothing more than to lose myself in a bottle of booze–or shit, a bottle of pills–but I take one look at her and know I won’t.
She’s on her knees, back curled as she rests against Nick, panting. One tear-filled, gray eye peeks out at me through limp strands of her blue hair.
I fall to my knees beside them, voice wrecked. “I’m sorry.”
Her expression collapses as she pivots away from Nick, clutching for me. “Don’t,” she cries, winding her arms around my neck. “Remy, it’s not your fault.”
She smells like panic and pain, green and yellow, ozone and smoke.
Burnt flesh and salt.
I cradle her head, too scared to touch any part of her below the neck. When I look at Nick, he’s staring at the mark I left on her back, his body clenched so tightly in anger that he’s shaking.
From above us comes Sy’s even voice. “Looks like it’s time we have that talk, Nicky.”
Nick glances up, locking eyes with his brother. “Which talk would that be?”
“The one where we kill Saul Cartwright,” Sy says, “and make you King.”
