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Infinite light years.
You are not a queen.
You are history, religion, and love.
You are my god, and I will worship you throughout all of time, Arabella Sinclair.
Through life and death.
Beginnings and ends.
Stare falling to the thick silver carpet, her heavy tears glitter as they fall through the air to her feet. Quiet but all the while lethal. Every charcoal stain materialising around her fills me with ice. Exactly what I need to do what needs to be done.
Shutting the door behind me, I clutch at the knob as I lean back on the hard wood. My heart painfully ticks in my chest, ready to explode with all the feelings balled up inside me.
Fire and ice. Two polar opposites, yet they feel the same. They burn and destroy. They can save and kill.
“Well?”
My eyes snap up at Benedict’s insolence. He’s either pushing for me to explode, or he’s forgotten who the fuck he’s talking to.
“The Russian.”
“It’s not your concern.” Standing, he does up the middle button of his designer suit, the deep charcoal not far off the colour of my trousers.
“You made him my concern the moment you sent Arabella for him.”
I see it in his eyes. He truly believes my tunnel vision has overlooked what I walked into. He’s so calm and sure of himself and my cool demeanour that he takes sturdy steps to where I’m standing, so close I can smell the smoky caramel in his breath from the Welsh whisky stocked in the wet bar.
My hands tighten around the knob, pulling as it cuts into my palms.
“Follow the rules, Christopher.”
“The rules are dead. The Russian is dead, and if you so much as breathe in my wife’s direction again…you will die too.”
“Don’t be a savage, son. Remember the hand that raised you. Remember who put you where you are. I’m not one for clichés, but you really should remember that the fall from grace is hard and perilous.”
Smiling, he takes a step back, casually checking the time on his bespoke, disgustingly expensive timepiece.
“Tomasz Vassily stays alive until he is no longer needed. Understand?” Directing himself to the globe bar by the small balcony, he pours himself another measure of whisky.
Sitting the crystal tumbler in his palm, he sniffs the liquor. He inhales deeply with a hum of appreciation, and as he tilts and rounds it in his hand, he says, “All great things need time. Patience. Fortitude. They rot and ferme
nt before they become something extraordinary. Something worthwhile and worthy of greatness.”
I am worthy, and I’ve proved it with blood and life. With the most heinous sacrifice of all.
“Spare me the bullshit, Benedict. You went too far. You used your own daughter to get what you wanted. You preyed on her vulnerability. You deliberately separated us to manipulate the situation to your goals. Patience would’ve told you to be a father. Fortitude would’ve had you hold her and strengthen her. You did neither of those things, and that is why you will never be worthy of greatness. It’s why Stanton has always beaten you.”
Laughing, he tips the entire dram of whisky into his mouth. Cool, calm, and collected. Yet, his actions give his demons away.
“Burns to be second fiddle, doesn’t it? To be the one in reserve. The just in case…” Letting go of the doorknob, I wander over to him. Without removing my gaze from his, I pull the vodka decanter from the chilled half of the globe and pour myself an overly generous measure. “He’s got another…what? Six maybe seven years left in him. Maybe longer. Walpole managed twenty years. You know how these things can drag. Look at your Liberal Gladstone—William managed twelve years.”
It’s the laugh that stems from deep in his eyes, soul-deep almost, that confirms Leo’s suspicions. Something is going on, and it runs much deeper than we suspect.
“Do you know what your grandfather always said to us?” he asks.
My heart goes from its steady pounding thrum to a violent race at the mention of my grandad. The ache and hunger for revenge inside me roar, and although I try to douse it with the contents of my glass, they gurgle their poisonous screams through it.
