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“Both those things might be true, but it’s more than that. You’re not my biological child, yet you’re so much like me.” Romano puts his hand against Micah’s chest, digging his fingers into the blood-soaked fabric. “I know you don’t believe me, but you’re the only person I can live vicariously through. And there’s a reason for that.” Micah’s eyes slit, but that’s the only sign of pain he shows when Romano hooks his fingers through his shirt and into his flesh, too close to the wound in his shoulder. “Because you and I are cut from the same fucking cloth. I might be a piece of shit, Micah, but so are you.” His bloody grin is as arresting as the strange emotion with which he’s regarding Micah. His eyes roam all over his stepson’s pale face with a twisted kind of...lust. It feels intimate and violent at the same time, as if he could bathe in Micah’s blood and orgasm while doing it.
“Sade was in your mother’s belly before I came along, but you?” Romano streaks a bloody finger down Micah’s face, and Micah does nothing to stop him. “You’re as much my creation as that of biology. Somehow, in some strange way, I always felt that you were mine. Didn’t you?”
“There is a piece of you that I do believe should be mine, too.” His eyes slit harder. “Your life.”
My hand finally stumbles over that telltale rectangular shape in the inside pocket of Rufus’ jacket, and it’s all I can do not to yelp in triumph. I hold the device at his face to unlock it, then go over to the chat app to send a text to the two people whose numbers I know by heart—Annie and Justine. If there’s a God out there and they’re alive, then they must be with the Kings.
If they survived the mayhem, that is.
My text is short and to the point.
Me: SOS. Library lounge. Closed down bunker style. Micah hurt, Romano has bomb.
I turn the device around in my hands to find out how to turn down the volume, since the phone is different from what I have, and there’s no time for me to explore the settings.
It’s a matter of seconds until a text comes back from Sade. I don’t know his number by heart, but I have a habit of remembering the last three digits of everybody’s number, and this is his. They must have been waiting for a sign from us.
We’re ready for this. Couldn’t blow up the door with you inside, but we’ve got everything in place. Device in your hand connected to bomb. We’ll hack in, disarm the bomb, text back, and then Micah can have his way with the fucker.
It feels good that Sade and Justine are safe. If they’ve got everything in place, then they’ve got the mayhem outside under control.
The hardest battle is being fought here.
My fingers shake like crazy, waves of relief that they’re all alive and crippling anxiety coursing through me at the same time.
I’m not surprised Sade and the others have everything in place to hack into any devices that might detonate bombs. If I know anything about the Kings, these kinds of operations are just another Tuesday drill to them. They’ve probably disarmed every other device in the building by now, if Sade’s text is any indication.
And if Sade thinks Rufus’ device is connected to the bomb, then he probably excluded the possibility of Romano’s being tied to one, too. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. Romano expected his stepsons to have manipulated all of his devices. After all, he used a burner phone to get in touch with me, and Micah told me they even managed to get their hands on his smartphone once—when they discovered he was jerking off to my picture.
I hold my breath, Rufus’ cell clutched tightly in my hands as I direct all of my attention to Micah and Romano. I’m witnessing the fall of giants.
“You got what you wanted,” he says with a calm in his voice that would raise goosebumps on the dead. “Now let her go.”
“What, so soon? When I can squeeze so much more out of you?”
Micah brings up the stake and presses it under his stepfather’s chin. “You’re pushing it.”
Romano raises his throat into the jagged tip. “And what are you gonna do about it, huh? You’re the only one with something to lose here.”
“How do I know you’re going to let her go in the end?”
“You don’t. You’re just gonna have to trust me.” He wiggles the device in Micah’s face again.
My hands clamp so hard around Rufus’ phone that my wrists ache. I launch a silent prayer to God—and Sade—to disarm the sucker faster. Seconds tick by, long and torturous and utterly maddening.
“I’m only gonna play along one more time,” Micah says with a chilling finality in his tone. “So, whatever you’re gonna ask of me, make it the final price for her freedom.”
This seems to be exactly what Romano was waiting for. He keeps his grin on as he says, “Apparently what you feel for the lovely professor is more than love. It has a depth that only devils are capable of, and I want to see just how far it’ll go.” He licks his bloody lips as his eyes move down to Micah’s blood-soaked chest. “So, discard your weapons, rip your shirt off, and let me see you bleed for her.”
Fuck this. I’m about to throw myself between them, but it’s imperative for him not to notice where I am and what I’ve been doing. It’s probably also why Micah doesn’t hesitate, and begins to methodically take his weapons off, grimacing with every move. Buying time for Sade and the others to do what they need to do.
I watch the leather holsters hit the gound, the hilts of his blades making a muffled sound against it. Then he grips his black shirt where Romano’s knife juts out from his shoulder, and rips it off it one go. The shreds of fabric fall down to his sides, leaving him a naked god with streaks of blood trailing down the iron sinews of his body. Blood keeps swelling out of his wound, causing my insides to constrict in pain.
I scrunch my face, making an inhuman effort to put up with the pain weighing on my own chest.
But Romano finds sick pleasure in the sight, running his fingers down Micah’s body.
What I wouldn’t give to wrap myself around that body, to be back in our bed with him, to kiss away all the torment life drenched him in. I’d run my hands all over his arms and his back, caress away the demon etched into his skin. I would throw myself under the scythe of death itself for this man, right fucking now, if everything didn’t hang on the thread of a hope that Sade will save him. That I can actually watch him walk out of here alive.
