Page 33 of Empire
His love. Mine said back. The sound of it in the steam.
The ruin of it.
And for the length of one impossible night, with the hot water pouring over both of us and his mouth against mine again, I make the worst decision of my life and call it everything I’ve ever wanted.
Salvatore
Take Aim – Sleep Token
Ruslanisasleepforexactly eleven minutes before I start thinking about killing him.
That’s the kind of sentence that should belong to another man. Someone colder or simpler. Not someone lying half-naked in the bed of the only person who has ever made me feel understood and hunted in equal measure. But I’ve learned by now that nothing in my life gets to be simple.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Lucia’s face.
Not how she was before I left for the summit, but how she looked when I got home after my father pulled me into that meeting and gave me an ultimatum.
I see the badly hidden bruises on her face. I see the haunted look in her brown eyes and how she tried to smile, but winced at the split in her lip.
So, no, my father didn’t touch me. He had an example made out of the one person I would gladly die for.
And therein lies the lesson. He knew I would understand it better if the pain landed somewhere I couldn’t dismiss. Men like him know exactly where to press.
You can survive a blow to your own ribs and call it discipline while filing it under the usual cost of being a son. But watching your little sister trying to hold herself upright because of your sins?
If I ever have children, I will make sure they don’t end up as each other’s weaknesses. They won’t even love me—that is my fucking vow.
I should leave.
That thought has been circling me all night, useless as a prayer. I should leave this bed, this apartment, this fucking city, and this man.
Instead, I’m lying here watching the man I love sleep, while my father’s ultimatum sits in my chest like a second heartbeat.
My father stands behind the conference desk, evidence of my ruin laid out before him, while I can do nothing but stare.
Then he looks up at me, but there’s nothing in his gaze—no fury, no disgust, and no shouted accusation. That would have been easier.
“Interesting,” he says in the same tone he might use to comment on the weather.
I keep my face still. “Father—”
I shut up when he glances back down at the photographs and adjusts the edge of one with a gloved finger, making it line up precisely with the rest.That, more than anything, unsteadies me—the casualness of it.
“I’ve been noticing details slipping out of Vieri orbit,” he says. “Small things at first—route changes repeated too quickly, discussions reappearing in rooms where they should never have reached. Timings adjusted before the proper men are informed.”
He doesn’t look at me while he speaks; he looks down at the photographs.
“Someone inside the Five Families’ structure is leaking,” he continues. “That in itself isn’t remarkable, as most structures leak eventually. What interests me is the nature of the information.”
At last, he raises his eyes to mine. “It’s yours.”
I say nothing again, because what answer would I have? Denial would be insulting us both, and confession would be suicide.
“The compromised details originate in conversations and files only available to my heir and me,” he says, tilting his head. “Meaning either I am losing my edge, or you are losing your discipline.”
“I haven’t given anyone anything.”
It’s the truth…sort of. Not directly. Not with an intention clean enough to state that way. I have not sat across from Ruslan and handed him ledgers like a lovesick idiot.
