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No, I can’t be a safety net for Maeve because I won’tbe herefor very long.
Not that she, or anyone else, knows that.
I lean against the wall next to the windows. Maeve is quiet as she picks up the pencil and idly starts to move it across the page. It takes me a second before I glance down and realize she’s sketching a very quick but very gorgeous portrait ofme.
Somehow, that makes me even angrier for everything she’s about to get thrown into.
Before he died, our father and grandfather had barely spoken for years. Dad never wanted the life Charles set him up for: one of grifting, skirting the law, and making shady deals with criminals. Instead, Dad got his Juris Doctor degree at Yale and married aGovernor’s daughter rather than the mafia princess Charles had picked out for him.
Layla, Gabriel, Alistair, and I weren’t raised under Charles’ mob-like influence. And I hate that I can’t say the same thing for Maeve.
She’s so much better than all of this. Sogood, and so fucking talented. And all of that is going to be wasted when Charles forces her into a marriage with Mr. Cocky Psychopath who for bonus points runs the city’s most notorioussex club. I mean fucking seriously.
“Charles didn’t mention a timeline?—”
“Tomorrow.”
I blink in horror, my mouth falling open.
“What?!”
“Not…” She shakes her head. “Not the wedding or anything. But I’m supposed to go to Mr. Sartorre’s house tomorrow and sign the blood marker.”
Fuck you, Charles.Fuck you. Fuck you.Fuck you.
He’s not even just marrying the poor girl to that psycho. He’s using the mafia-world bond of a blood marker: a bullet-proof, inked-in-literal-fucking-bloodcontract that the criminal underworld uses for iron-clad agreements.
You can divorce, or annul a marriage.
There’s no escaping a blood marker, and Charles knows that. It’s fittingly medieval.
“Maeve…” I go back over to hug her just as the tears begin to fall down her face.
“I’m really scared, Tempest.”
“I know you are,” I whisper quietly as I hold her tight. “I know, and I’m going to fix it.”
“How?”
I don’t know.
I don’t know because I’m running out of time. It’s one of the reasons this hurts so much: I’m not able to do a damn thing to get Maeve out of this mess, because in six-to-eight months, I won’t evenbe here.
My chest constricts as I hold her tightly. But I don’t cry, because I’ve already cried all the tears I have about the injustice of it all, and how unfair life is.
Tears I might not have any more of. But Idostill have a heart. And drive. And a burning hot, molten spark inside that hasn’t gone out yet.
Suddenly, like an icy blade piecing my skin, it hits me with blinding clarity.
Thereisa way I can save Maeve.
I’d normally label the idea forming in my head as completely suicidal. But in my case, it’s just fantastically poetic.
Elegantly so.
A final “fuck you” to all the men in the world who think they can control a woman’s life just because they’re men. It’s also the one chance I have of stopping Maeve from having to marry Dante.
My one chance, because of my big secret.
