“God almighty.”
I fall over Lavinia’s back, cock twitching inside of her warm pussy. Her elbows are on the top of my old dresser, giving me a fantastic view of her tits in the mirror. All in all, perfection.
Breathlessly, she asks, “Satisfied?” Her eyes lock with mine through the reflection, her cheeks the most delicious shade of pink.
‘Just been fucked’-pink.
Remy may be onto something with this color thing.
I bend to suck a kiss into her neck. “Partially. That was only fantasy number one for fucking my girl in my childhood bedroom. There are like,” I run it over in my head… six different ways in bed, against the bedroom door, titty fuck, blow jobs, obviously… “ten other positions on the list.”
She sighs, but it’s laced with contentment. Should be, too. I dragged her up here after Thanksgiving dinner to give her the dessert she really needed. “Well, you’re going to have to pace yourself, because I already feel weird enough knowing that your parents are fully aware of what we’re doing up here.”
Snorting, I say, “My mother, the sex therapist, raised two teenage boys. This house was nothing but dirty sheets and long showers for a good eight years. She’ll just be happy I didn’t mess up the bed.” I open the top drawer of the dresser and remove an old t-shirt. Pulling out slowly, I catch my dick in the cloth with one hand and reach between Lavinia’s legs with the other, dragging the leaking cum back up to her slick, well-fucked pussy.
She hums as I push it back inside, spreading her legs wider for me. The movement is automatic, an afterthought to the wistful look I see on her face as she laces her fingers with the hand I’m bracing against the dresser. “I can’t wait to get home. Do you think Remy was serious before?”
“Yes,” I answer instantly, balling up the cum cloth to clean her inner thighs. “Remy is never not serious about making promises.”
All three of us keep searching for traces of regret, or even grief, from Lavinia after killing her father, but we never find it. All I find is this–the soft, assured look she gets when she inspects my fingers. If anything, she seems happier. Settled. Even Remy says that all he sees is clean, pure white. It’s why he asked her to get her next tattoo with him.
It’s why Sy and I demanded the same.
“It’s not exactly something we can take back.” There’s a soft sort of skepticism in her eyes. “Are you sure Sy–”
“Yes,” I insist, tipping down to brush a gentle kiss over the scar on her shoulder blade. “Sy and Remy are just realizing what I already knew two years ago. There’s no one else for us, Lavinia.” Still, I make sure she knows, “You can say no. If you’re not ready, or–”
“Nick.” She meets my gaze, giving me a small, satisfied smile. “I’m ready.”
Nodding, I glance around, trying to find a spot to toss the dirty shirt. Coming up empty, I reopen the drawer and stuff it inside.
Lavinia jolts up, jaw dropping. “Oh my god!”
“Anyway,” I ease her skirt over her hips and spin her around, “if you didn’t want me to fuck you today, you would’ve worn underwear and pants. Instead, you’re all commando beneath a skirt.”
She pulls at the hem, smoothing out any wrinkles. “Pretty Nick Bruin, always the romantic.” If this girl wasn’t being a smartass, she wouldn’t be true, but I see the glint in her eye.
My Little Bird loves me.
I grab her cardigan off the bed and hand it to her. As she covers up, her eyes shift toward the door, and she asks, “Do you think they’re finished talking down there?”
‘They’ is no doubt a reference to my brother and our mom. Remy and the dads took off for the basement as soon the kitchen was clean, and I dragged Lavinia up here. But my brother is most likely sitting at the table, regretting that third piece of pie, and getting the lecture of a lifetime about his new title.
Buckling my belt, I answer, “I doubt it, but I suppose my job as a brother, and second-in-command, means I should go save his ass.”
She rolls her eyes but kisses my cheek. “Go ahead. I’ll be in the bathroom for a moment, cleaning up all the cum you barely pretended to wipe away.”
Winking at her, I watch her ass as she struts out. I hear the hallway bathroom door shut as I jog down the stairs. Pausing at the kitchen door, I hear my brother’s perturbed voice. “Mom, I know. I promise—”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Simon.” Her tone is laced with something she usually keeps under wraps. “Taking out Saul is one thing. I don’t like it, and I hope you’re talking to a therapist about the emotional toll of taking another human’s life, but going after Lionel Lucia?”
Hotly, he argues, “I had nothing to do with Lionel’s death. He’s the one who wired this city with explosives. It was only a matter of time before that backfired—literally.”
This is the official line. That the explosion at Lionel’s house was an accident. That he was taken down by his own hubris. That the explosion was the consequence of neglect and carelessness. It’s believable enough that no one is asking questions.
Unless, apparently, you’re our mother.
“Simon—” mom starts, the warning tone the signal it’s time for me to be a good soldier.
“What time does the game start?” I ask, strolling into the room. Forsyth’s annual rivalry game is a big matchup. DKS usually shows it on the big screen down at the gym.
“Seven.” Sy makes a show of looking at the time. “So we should probably get going.”
“We’re not through,” mom says, as much to him as to me.
“Of course not,” he says, standing and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
Remy walks into the room, having linked up with Lavinia at some point. The two of them have been wound around each other a little intensely these past few days, and right now is no different, their fingers tangled together loosely between them as they filter in.
Remy looks hopefully at the dishes. “Any leftovers?”
Mom smiles up at him. “Already packed up.”
He touches his chest with a solemn expression. “You never fail me, Sarah.”
With our mom distracted, Sy gives me a hard, annoyed look. “Thanks for taking your time saving me,” he quietly hisses.
Sniffing dismissively, I say, “I was busy.”
“Yes,” he rolls his eyes, “we all heard.”
If he wants me to be embarrassed that people could hear my fuck-rhythm when the dresser hit the wall, he’s out of luck. I pat his shoulder. “Jealousy is a bad shade on you, big brother.”
He shakes his head. “You’re a fuckwit.”
“A well-fucked fuckwit.”
Piled with leftovers and two additional pies, the drive back to West End is spent in a quiet sort of anticipation. At the main intersection, Sy flips on the signal to the left—toward the gym.
Lavinia leans between the seats, looking between us. “Hey, guys? I know the game is a tradition, but…”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence.
We’ve spent the week following the explosion living out of a hotel–a nice one next to the university, paid for out of the King’s coffers, while the tower was methodically swept for additional signs of explosives. Turns out, being a King in Forsyth comes with a heavy stipend, and since Saul didn’t have an heir, he’d left everything to his successor. His accounts and real estate, including his penthouse, all belong to Simon Perilini now.
But none of us have an interest in moving into Saul’s property. At least not yet. We just want the tower and its staircase, the belfry and its open sky, the floors and walls that Remy swears are living, breathing things.
Our eyes all meet in the rearview mirror and Sy flips the blinker again, turning toward the towering structure in the distance. The clock’s hands are still frozen in time, but the building is safe. “Let’s go home,” he agrees.
Most of the time, I know just who I am and exactly what I want. Pops used to tell me I’m a manifester– and then Dad said if I ever want to get a conventional job, I should use the term ‘motivated self-starter’. Really, it’s not often I surprise myself.
But sometimes I do.
I’m sitting on Remy’s bed, bringing a beer to my mouth as I watch the way he curls over Lavinia’s hand. She’s on his weird table-chair-bed thing, but only perched on the edge. Her palm is flat against the table and Remy has this look on his face, all focused and soft. I’ve seen him give dozens, maybe even hundreds of tattoos by now–a lot of them on me directly–and he’s always methodical and precise.
But I’ve never seen him work like he does with Lavinia. He keeps tucking his hair behind his ear, but it’s not quite long enough to hold, so it springs back, and he does it again, and again, not even looking frustrated. He’s too distracted for all that. His green eyes hone in on her skin like it’s something religious–something worth worshiping.
The surprise is that I like it. The way they look together. How Remy treats her so reverently. The adoration in Lavinia’s eyes when she takes over the task of holding his hair back, the fingers of her free hand curling it behind his ear.
Something clinks against the neck of my bottle and I look over, my brother pulling his own beer back. “Yeah,” he says, eyes moving back to Remy and Lavinia. “I feel that.”
The Archduke, having been returned to us by Verity an hour ago, is currently nestled in Sy’s lap, aggressively cleaning his tail. Despite being the one to put his foot down about a hotel room not being a fit place for a cat, he’s monopolizing Archie’s affection like he’s missed him.
“You look ridiculous,” I say, taking another pull from my bottle.
Sy’s eyebrows snap into a glare as he assesses himself. A hulk of a man, a skilled fighter, a killer, the reigning King of West End.
And his fluffy white kitten.
Sy shrugs, raising his beer to his lips. “He’s the Archduke,” he replies, as if this is a perfectly valid explanation.
I suppose it is.
The buzz of the tattoo gun suddenly stops, drawing our gazes to the table. Remy purses his lips as he inspects his work, wiping down her finger before tilting the hand from side to side. She watches with him, but I already know she’s pleased with it when she looks up to catch my eye.
In a tone that’s clearly meant to convey her thoughts on my earlier whining, she says, “It wasn’t so bad.”
I scoff. “Fingers hurt like a bitch. You’re all fronting.”
Sy fidgets with the gauze around his own finger. “Pretty easy, as far as victory tats go.”
Remy looks Lavinia straight in the eye as he raises her hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. She flushes under the intensity, because it’s not just a victory tattoo. The sad fact of the matter is that three men can’t marry the same woman. It doesn’t really mean much in a place like Forsyth, where relationships like ours aren’t exactly a rarity.
The rings tattooed on each of our fingers aren’t legally binding in any way.
But they’re still a promise.
He pulls Lavinia from the table with his hands on her hips, giving her ass a little slap. “Nicky will do the ointment.”
She climbs into the bed, moving to sit between me and Sy. Archie gives a little squawk when he sees her, and she reaches out, running her finger over his nose.
“Give me your hand,” I tell her, and she rests it on my knee. I look down at the delicate design–four narrow lines–creating one band. “You sure that didn’t hurt?”
“I know pain, Nick,” she touches my chin, “and this isn’t it.”
There’s no accusation in her tone, just facts. Lavinia proved one thing in her time as Duchess, she doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want. And this tattoo–this ring—proves one thing for certain.
She wants us.
The next morning, she hauls us all out of bed and up the stairs to the clock room, eyes alight as she directs us back down with the supplies and components. At some point over the last few decades, a group of Dukes clearly decided this godforsaken clock was never going to work again, and took down the mechanisms that connected it to all the guts upstairs.
“You’re not lifting it high enough,” she says as she stares up at me, hands on her hips. She’s wearing this teeny little tank top that isn’t exactly helping me stay focused, especially given that I’m looking right down the neck of it, but I try.
Good god, I try.
The last time I climbed up into these rafters, it was to spy on her. This time, it’s because she bullied my brother and I up here to be the muscle to lift the pinion, or shaft, or whatever-the-fuck it’s called. It’s more like an enormous metal rod that weighs a metric shit-ton. We have it rigged with ropes so all we have to do is pull, and about twenty feet down the rafter, my brother fixes me with the most insincere look of concern he can manage.
“You need to do more bench presses, Nicky.” He wraps the rope around his fists, looking cool as a cucumber. “It’s not really that heavy.”
My eye twitches, jaw clenching. “On three.”
I’ll show this asshole who needs to do bench presses.
Remy, who’s on a ladder in front of the clock, is holding the end of the pinion, attempting to guide it into the threads in the center of the clock face. Apparently, this monstrosity will be responsible for turning the hands on the clock.
Who knows if it actually will.
“One, two, three.” Grunting, I pull. Sy is careful to keep pace, making sure the shaft doesn’t just slide right out of the rope cradle and crash into the living room.
“Almost there,” she calls out, tipping her head back to watch Remy. He directs it a little to the right, arms straining, and then– “There!” I can feel it locking into place, Remy rushing to slide the threaded bolt to it, tightening it hastily. Lavinia brings her hands together in a victorious clap. “Now we need to attach the–”
“I’m on it,” Sy says, tying the rope off on the beam he’s straddling. It holds the shaft steady as Remy hauls the ladder back down to where the coffee table used to be, climbing until he’s teetering at the very top.
Lavinia watches this all while grasping the ladder from the ground, gasping every time the ladder shifts. Fortunately, Remy’s never been sketchy about heights–even when he really fucking should be–and he easily catches the rod that emerges through the ceiling, affixing the transmission joint to the monstrosity that’s currently making my arms ache.
He gives it a testing shake, Lavinia on the edge of having a stroke as she watches the ladder wobble, but he had all the parts right.
It’s solid as fuck.
I let the rope go slowly, more for her sake than mine, watching as her face goes from panicked, to cautious, to bright enough to light up the room.
“You did it!” she yells, catching Remy in a celebratory embrace the second his feet touch the floor. To us, she orders, “Text me if it moves!” and drags him by the hand up the staircase to the loft, disappearing through the door that leads to the clock room.
Sy watches them go, leaning back to wait with his phone in his hand.
I never really understood Lavinia’s obsession with the clock. I doubt she ever has, either. Now that we know what was lurking inside of it, it’s a bit eerie, as if somehow she could feel her father had something to do with it. It was broken long before he came along, but there was never a hope of fixing it when it was all jammed up with his device.
Now, there’s a chance, and Lavinia has been working ‘round-the-clock–pun intended–to get it into working shape again. I’m sweaty and sore and tired, and I’m also pretty sure when we go to crank that thing, nothing is going to happen.
Still, I turn to watch the clock face.
Apparently, there’s some mechanism up there that allows them to set the time.
I ask Sy, “You don’t really think–”
Only then, the transmission jolts to life, turning.
Turning the hands of the clock.
Dusty rust rains down to the loft as the hands spring to life, inching toward the top of the face. I’m frozen, a part of me feeling it deep down, like a wound. This clock has been sitting at 7:32 for as long as I’ve been alive. It’s a snapshot in time. It’s such a big part of West End’s identity that I have it tattooed on my temple, for fuck’s sake.
But a bigger part of me knows that some paralyzed, broken thing shouldn’t be our identity at all. I watch with a silent, complicated sort of respect as it moves forward, the hands pausing on 3:53.
When I look back to Sy, he appears just as stunned, even though he hides it better, tapping his phone screen.
The squeal from upstairs is audible, even through the stone and distance.
So we slink down the ladder and then trudge up the steps, finding our girl waiting impatiently by the crank lever. The clock room looks completely different now, all the pieces put back where they belong, clean and greased.
Lavinia presents this to us like a game show hostess, making sweeping gestures to the machine. “We’ve already cranked the striking mechanism and set the counterweights. It just needs to be wound now.” She looks at my brother, giving him a firm nod. “It should be you.”
Remy’s in the chair by the table he usually files serials at, hands laced lazily behind his head. “Fuck it up, Sy.”
My brother sends him a thumbs up, giving his palms a good rub before stepping up to the lever. I’m the one to tug Lavinia into the curve of my body, lifting her chin to lock eyes with me.
“Look, I know we got the hands connected, but keep in mind, this might not work,” I warn, already dreading her disappointment. “This clock has a million moving parts. The chances of them all coming together and working after a few tries… realistically, it’s slim.”
I should know better than that, though. She holds my eye and I don’t see someone who’s ready to be disappointed.
I see a woman who’s willing to fight until she wins.
The corner of her mouth tips up. “Wind her up, Sy.”
Glancing at her, my brother grasps the crank, smirking. “That’s usually my goal.” His muscles flex as he gives it a push, grunting. The lever gives, whirling around with each push and pull, and the cable above begins moving, winding around the barrel. Lavinia grasps my hand, watching anxiously, as her eyes keep flicking to the back of the room, where the counterweight is located, then up toward the belfry, then back down to the strike train, continuing the circuit.
It takes a while, Sy’s sweat-dampened hair flopping into his eyes as he turns and turns, tendons shifting beneath his dark skin.
Finally, it’s wound.
He pulls away, huffing with the exertion, and asks, “What now?” I can see it in his eyes, the seed of his own excitement, and it grows when she nods to the little dial beside him.
“Push that pin and it’ll engage the gears.”
Sy points to it, and at her encouraging nod, turns to regard it with a dubious stare. Never one for a suspenseful pause, Sy just reaches out and pushes it.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Our eyes dart around to meet one another’s, breaths caught in our chest.
And then Lavinia tips her head back, letting out an ear-splitting victory cry. Both of her fists thrust into the air, and I’m speechless as I watch the joy transform her face. That, plus the shock of watching all the gears turn and tick, is why I almost don’t catch her when she launches herself into my arms, barking out a jubilant laugh.
“We did it!” Grabbing my face, she plants a hard, aggressive kiss to my lips, springing back with a beaming smile. Sy and Remy look just as floored, and maybe it’s a testament to the complete fuckery of our tenure as Dukes that it takes a moment for us to begin celebrating too.
“Holy shit,” Sy says, taking in the moving clock parts. He palms his forehead as he watches. “It is working, isn’t it?”
Lavinia excitedly suggests, “Let’s go downstairs to–”
From one breath to the next, the air around us suddenly explodes.
We all drop to the floor, Sy diving to cover Lavinia as we clap our hands over our ears. All I can think about are hidden bombs and failsafes. I see the same panic cross Remy’s eyes as he crawls toward us.
But the longer we brace for it, the more we realize this isn’t an explosion.
It’s the goddamn bells.
Sy’s hands drag slowly from Lavinia’s head. “Oh,” he mouths, looking upward with a bloodless face. “Oh, hell no. Fuck no!”
Remy belts out a relieved laugh, but I’ve got to agree with my brother. Yelling over the bong of the chime, I ask, “We’re supposed to sleep beneath that thing?”
Lavinia is absolutely awestruck, though. She climbs slowly to her feet, gaping up toward the noise. I know where she’s going before her feet even move, and I groan as I follow her, Remy and Sy not too far behind.
If I thought the bells were loud in the clock room, then they’re even worse when we climb out onto the belfry, a gust of air whipping her blue hair around her face. Sy sticks his fingers into his ears and sends the bells above us a sharp glare, but Remy and Lavinia look absolutely fucking captivated.
“Holy shit,” I hear Remy yell over the noise. “Vinny, you fucking did it!”
She turns to say something to him, eyes alight with wonder, but I’ll never know what it is. Her gaze drops to the streets below, and I don’t understand at first what the slack, shocked look on her face is meant for.
And then I turn to look, too.
Below us, the streets are growing speckled with people.
They spill out from warehouses and buildings, arms raised as they point upward, to where the four of us are standing. We can’t hear them–we can hardly even make out their expressions, they’re so far down–but I can imagine well enough what they’re thinking, because I’m thinking it, too.
One day, at 7:32, West End stopped breathing. For decades it’s been here, quiet and solemn and so fucking angry about it that we grew into a group of desperate fists.
Today, we have a heartbeat again.
I sling my arm around Lavinia’s shoulders as she stares out over them. The lost people. The broken people. The fighters. People like us. Pressing a kiss to her temple, I tell her, “I love you so fucking much, Little Bird.”
There’s no way she can hear me over the bell chimes, but she still turns to give me a proud, fierce smile. “I love you, too.”
Those words will never get old. I couldn’t have predicted it two years ago, when a hurt, terrified girl slammed the sole of her boot into my jaw and made an imprint on my soul. I couldn’t have known during all those long nights in the old Crane Motor Inn. I didn’t even realize it when I placed the dominoes that would fall to make her my Duchess.
Little birds, striking vipers, and angry bears…
These are all wild, resilient things.
And a cage could never hold her heart.
