Page 10 of Empire
I had him three nights ago, and I can still feel his nails down my back.
My mouth at his throat, whispering what I convince myself are lies when I don’t think too much about it. I love the way he flushes when he’s half pissed, and half turned on, trying and failing to be angry with me.
It’s later, when he finally slept, that I slipped out of his bed and knew I should leave. I should’ve put on my clothes, kissed his shoulder once—because I am already weak enough to do tender things like that—and walked out before I became something even uglier than a liar.
Instead, I stayed and walked over to where he draped his jacket over the chair by the writing desk. It’s an expensive dark wool thing with the inside lining half-exposed, where he carelessly tossed it before getting into bed with me.
I reached into the inner pocket, and my fingers brushed paper. Not a note folded once and forgotten—an envelope. Thick, cream-colored, the flap tucked in rather than glued—a hand-off.
My stomach tightened the second I pulled it out, because I already knew this was worse than overhearing something careless.
I stood there in the dark with his coat in one hand and the envelope in the other, listening to him breathing while the guilt crawled up my spine.
Some men deserve betrayal; Salvatore doesn’t. But that didn’t stop me.
I eased the contents out and scanned them, my eyes widening at the typed pages inside.
There was more than I expected; more than Salvatore should have left lying around, even hidden.
That should have made me think less of him, but it didn’t. It means that my mission is succeeding, because my enemy trusts me.
It means the sickness is spreading. I know exactly what kind of trust lets a man leave something like this in the same room where he sleeps beside someone he shouldn’t want.
When I returned the envelope to the inner pocket of his coat, I smoothed down the fabric as if that could erase what I had just done.
The memory cuts off as I step through the compound doors. One of the house staff takes my coat the moment I shrug it off, and I make my way to my father’s office without being announced.
Another thing power does—it teaches doors to open before you even touch them.
Viktor is already inside, standing near the fireplace with both hands clasped behind his back.
Our father sits behind his desk—a heavy slab of dark wood, scarred by years of rings set down too hard and knives used absentmindedly while listening to bad news.
A green banker’s lamp throws muted light across the ledgers and a crystal ashtray already crowned with half-smoked cigarettes.
He doesn’t rise when I enter; he doesn’t need to. Authority clings to him whether he moves or not.
Mikhail Dragovich is the kind of man who looks more dangerous sitting still than most men look with a gun in his hand.
“You’re late,” he says.
I look at my watch. “By two minutes.”
“That’s late.”
I smile faintly and take the chair opposite the desk without waiting to be told. “Then I’ll make those two minutes worth it, Pappa.”
Viktor snorts once under his breath. My father’s face doesn’t change, but I know him well enough to see the interest in his eyes. He likes my confidence as long as it’s useful. He likes it even more when it comes with results.
“Talk,” he says, so I do.
I give him the broad structure first, the things I know are safe to hand over because they can be sourced elsewhere if anyone gets suspicious.
Shipping concerns and internal friction among the Italians regarding expansion routes. Tension between old money families and newer American interests. Which council members lean cautious, which ones are impatient, and which ones are easier to flatter or threaten.
I speak calmly, with just enough irreverence to sound like myself and not a man reading from prepared notes. That part matters because my father trusts instincts more than he trusts perfection.
Perfection makes men look rehearsed.
