For years under a thumb they despised, looking for the long lost boy, the only one who could potentially get them out.
And free them all.
But at what cost?
They were free, and now I was the one behind the bars, the crown heavy on my head as I watched them for the first time in what seemed like days actually smile.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, the readout showing unknown. “Yes,” I answered.
“It’s done.” The voice was cold as expected. “I’ll contact you depending on how the next few days go. There will be fights. Blood. And there will be retribution, but you must—”
“I know.” I interrupted. “I know what I have to do.”
“We all have choices.”
“Not me.” I lowered my voice. “Not me.”
“The crown is only heavy because it’s new, you’ll get used to the ache, and then you’ll yearn for its power. Trust me.”
“I do.” I sighed. “Trust you, that is. Otherwise—”
“—Otherwise, this would have ended badly.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s not herself,” he said after a few seconds. “I thought you should know.”
I let out a bitter laugh. He was joking, wasn’t he? “How the hell would anyone be okay after that news?”
I wasn’t okay, and I was used to this.
“It’s the mafia.” His simple clipped answer as if it made everything better like a Band-Aid you put on a mortal wound and wonder why the person’s still bleeding out.
I mentally rolled my eyes as another SUV pulled up. My heart stilled in my chest. “It’s her, I’ll talk with you later.”
I quickly made my way inside so she wouldn’t see me. After all, if she was going to be mine, if she wanted to be the princess in the high castle, she had to choose it in her own timing.
And tonight was not the night.
Death and rebirth rarely happen in the same twenty-four hour period.
I waited in the shadows as she attempted to hold her head high upon entering the mansion. Her cheeks were stained with tears, her eyes swollen. Never had I wanted to touch her more, hold her close, kiss away the sadness that I would never be able to fix.
Because this was my fault to begin with.
And if she knew that—she’d reject me—and I wasn’t sure I could handle that sort of death, the death of love, the death of hope that she put there when she kissed me last night.
She moved through the house like a ghost, slowly she took the stairs even as Sancto offered her a glass of champagne.
That wasn’t going to get her through the night or last longer than two minutes. She was grieving.
And I hurt for her, so far inside my chest that no matter what I did, it burned.
“Sir.” Sancto appeared behind me. “Your mask.”
“It’s only until she trusts me until she sees me and not the scars.”
He frowned. “The scars on your thighs?”
“The ones on my soul.”
“Ah, those ones, yes, I see those too. They’re ugly and beaten to a pulp, those scars, but some might say they made you what you are today.” His brown eyes bore into me.
I sighed. “And what’s that?”
“A leader.” He bowed, and then he was gone, his footsteps light enough to make him more spy than butler.
I donned the red and black mask one more time, hoping it would be my last as I took the stairs, following her familiar scent, the one that haunted my dreams, my nightmares.
She was in our room.
The bathtub was running.
And under the noise of water filling the tub as a toe peeked out from the room, I heard the sobs.
Sobs for a man she’d loved.
Sobs for a chance she would never get again.
Sobs for a life that was forever altered by one choice.
Choices.
I was out of them.
Now I was living through them.
And it hurt like fuck.
Slowly, I rounded the corner. She didn’t even see me as I knelt next to the bath, reached for the body wash, pouring it onto the loofah as I slowly washed her.
She said nothing.
She didn’t cover herself.
Just stared straight ahead as I washed her back, her neck, between her perfect breasts as water trailed down the middle.
“He’s gone,” she whispered.
“I know.” My voice caught. “I wish I could take this from you…”
But all of us had our burdens, and this, this moment would be hers, and then I would take it from her when I could. But she would need to mourn Breaker Campisi. He at least deserved that much.
My throat threatened to close up as I dipped my hands in the water, cupping it and spreading it all over her smooth skin.
I loved her curves.
Her heavy breasts.
The small mark beneath her chin from fencing class that day I had watched by the tree.
“I will be ready.” She finally looked at me, her blue eyes locking with my gaze in precision that I’d only ever seen in my enemies. “I will be ready for you to say yes, to this… to all of this, but I need—I need just one night where you tell me a story, where you let me cry.”