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“I can.”
And I do.
“All the while she’s out there, I’m left here waiting for her to come back.”
“She isn’t coming back,” he replies curtly. “She’s been gone seven years. What’s she coming back to exactly? A used throne and a dirty name?”
“She won’t care.” I gaze out at the city.
London used to be home. Now it’s my kingdom.
Or so I’ve been mentally telling myself, as if I’ll shift some switch and make myself believe it. I used to run these streets in good suits with bad morals and dirty sins, but it’s as if my life has turned on a dime. I’m still meant to run these streets in good suits, but with worse morals and dirtier sins.
These more by force than choice.
I’m also meant to make men follow in my footsteps, create them in my image, but I’m not sure how I do that when the greater picture I have in mind is a selfish one.
Most of the men in The Company want lined pockets and power, but I only live for one thing. Revenge.
We are a league of men with corrupt morals but good game. The Company is the umbrella name we live under in London, but people know our reputation. We run in high-flying circles, slum in lower ones, and pay handsomely those who will ultimately benefit our ever-changing agendas.
All my life, I’ve shaken hands with diplomats, politicians, billionaires, drug dealers, hitmen, expendables.
There is no one in the world The Company hasn’t conspired to befriend.
Natalia knows the very bones of our heritages. I’m not stupid enough to forget that.
“You forget I know how she works.”
“I hadn’t forgotten. Quite the opposite, actually.” Sebastian moves from his place by me, but I don’t follow his motions. “If I know her well enough, she’s lying low, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.”
He’s pacing. He has no fucking need to pace. Nothing he has in life is on the line because of one person. If anyone, I should be pacing until I wear the floor away.
“This was meant to be her perfect opportunity!” I bellow, smacking the railing of the balcony just outside the window, and I turn away from the skyline. “Today was the day, Seb.”
“And tomorrow’s another one.” Sebastian shrugs. “You didn’t seriously think she was going to make this easy, did you?”
Sardonically, I had hoped she’d be predictable. When I woke up, I had this clear idea of my day, and it all ended with my hands wrapped around the prettiest throat this city ever did see.
Natalia Abernathy’s, to be precise.
I have more than one debt to claim from her, and I want to take each and every one of them with a gentle squeeze of her windpipe, pried from her alongside the fear of death. I want to cause her pain, commit the look in her eyes as she finally fears me to memory, and throw her in the same grave we had thrown her father in only days ago.
“I know you want her dead, but is that worth it?” Sebastian asks, standing before me, stance matching mine, his eyes brazen with that task. “I know you’ve wanted answers for a long time now, man, and I’m not about to tell you how you don’t deserve them, but killing her?” He blanches a bit as he says that. “It’s just so quick. So final.”
“Sebastian, are you playing devil’s advocate, or are you on my side?”
“Look, I grew up with you both. I know how bad you both could be, but I’m just saying, if what happened is what happened, then she deserves so much more than a quick death.”
Silence laps in like a wave to a shore. It’s comforting but leaves room for my thoughts and feelings to fester.
“And really, the prophecy before that one is a bigger crock of shit,” Sebastian mentions almost sympathetically, cutting the silence short. “The original one stated you were meant to marry her.”
That was the one I had been pretending never existed. I didn’t want to imagine a life with her by my side anymore, not after all she had taken from me. Not after the years of deceit. I knew, the first very moment I learnt the truth, that I was going to do this alone, and I would search every corner of this Earth to drag her out of the dark kicking and screaming. I had plans, and not one included Natalia Abernathy sitting pretty anywhere but six feet under, but I’m only human, and patience was never a strong suit.
Apparently, now I’m in the place I need to be, my tolerance is much thinner than it has ever been.
I’m forever a powder keg of dark desires and anger, waiting for one spark to light my fuse, but now I’m at the head of The Company. Now I have men at my feet, I want to tear this world to shreds to find her and really move on with my life.
