Page 5 of Bound By Blood and Lies
Silence settles around us as her weight presses into my side and the promise we made earlier burns in my mind like a live coal I refuse to let die. My ribs ache. My skin stings. Every inch of me is bruised and battered and bone-deep tired.
But I realise something.
They can hurt our bodies. They can bruise us, cut us, bleed us until the floor forgets its own colour. They can try to strip us down to nothing but skin and survival, but they will never understand the most dangerous thing about us…
We chose each other and that choice is stronger than anything they can take.
CHAPTER 2
ROMAN
Amonth is long enough for the world to start pretending nothing is wrong.
The house wakes at six. Coffee brews in the kitchen. Victor runs at stupid o’clock, Atlas works from three screens at once, Riggs checks his weapons religiously… Felix, though? Felix is the only one who is as lost as I am. His skin is pale and his eyes are hollow, like he really did lose part of his soul when she left.
There is space in every room now and it follows me.
I haven’t slept properly since she vanished. The only time I do is when my body completely surrenders. Forty minutes here, an hour there, it is enough to keep my brain functional and soften the edge of exhaustion but not enough to provide any real rest. One minute I’m lost in a fog and the next I’m honed like someone dragged a blade across stone and decided not to stop.
She was on her way to Quinn and never arrived. That’s the last fact I have.
When Atlas told me she left, he said she seemed fine although rattled from our argument. Was it me? Was she off her game because I walked out? Fae is always nothing short of focused and determined that I never once thought someone could get the upper hand over her. The problem is there’s beennothing. CCTV is non-existent here, phones have been wiped clean, and her car tracker stayed at the barn but there has been no sign of the actual vehicle.
This is Robyn all over again.
Whoever did this knew what they were doing.
Just how Fae knew Robyn had not run, I know she hasn’t either. She is not a coward and she wouldn’t leave Felix in this purgatory; I know that in the very depths of my soul. Regardless of what she said to me, regardless of our last words, she would have sacrificed her happiness and watched from the sidelines before she ever disappeared without a trace.
This wasn’t random, random is messy. No, this… this was designed, which means there is someone who designed it.
And I will find them.
I sit on the edge of my bed with my elbows braced on my knees, staring at the open panel in the wall where my weapons room hides behind polished wood and silence. Inside it, everything is aligned. My knives are laid flat, vials are labelled and powders are sealed. There are poisons here that could still a heart in under thirty seconds. It gives me some sort of peace, some sort of control that I lacked at Fae’s. I couldn’t bring myself to stay there. Every room had a memory too raw to live with. I knew if I was going to bring her home, I needed control, I needed cruelty, I needed ruthlessness.
Nothing about Fae’s flat was that to me.
‘Work Songby Hozier’plays low from the speaker on my dresser. The ice in my whiskey glass knocks gently against crystal as I tilt it and the sound feels too sharp in a room that otherwise feels suspended in time. I take a slow sip, letting it burn down my throat. I fall back against the mattress and stare at the ceiling with one arm thrown over my eyes like that might block out the weight of expectation pressing down from every direction.
Right now, I’m meant to be getting ready for dinner with Quinn. Another performance. Another carefully curated display of unity whilst my father measures my compliance in the set of my shoulders and the length of my silences. I can still hear his voice from earlier, calm and infuriatingly reasonable.
“As things stand, we cannot allow instability to affect the upcoming ceremony. Quinn remains prepared.”
I scoff into the empty room as I drag my hand down my face. I meant what I said. Fae is the only woman I will ever marry. There is no version of my future where I stand beside Quinn and call it destiny. If they try to box me in, if they think duty will outweigh devotion, they have fundamentally misunderstood the man they raised. I will burn my own inheritance before I let them rewrite my life. If I have to spend the rest of it exiled to the compound, stripped of title and expectation, then so be it.
I would rather live caged with my integrity intact than free beside someone who isn’t her.
And… if they push me one more time when she is still missing and I don’t even know if she is breathing… The glass tightens in my grip. I won’t just punch him. I will dismantle everything he built. He thinks I’m allowing emotion to cloud my judgement; the irony is I am allowing love to keep me alive. Love and hope. They are the only two things I have right now.
At least mum is on my side.
I probably wouldn’t have survived without her. She’s been coming here under the guise of dropping food off for us but I know she’s worried. The last time she was here she just sat beside me without speaking. Just rested her hand over mine like she used to when I was a child and pretended I did not need comfort. She didn’t mention marriage or Quinn or responsibilities. She simply said, “You’ll find her.” I didn’t answer. The truth is, not finding Fae isn’t an option. The only worry I have is how she will return to me.
Broken? Feisty? Hurt? God forbid, dead?
It doesn’t help that Fisher has gone off the radar. Victor has been trying to track him for weeks. With Atlas’ help, they’ve tapped into traffic grids, burner networks, satellite pings. Yet there is nothing. His car hasn’t triggered a single camera. His home stands hollow, his bedsheets were stripped and his wardrobe half-emptied but not in a way that suggests panic. His usual rotation of prostitutes are complaining about cancelled arrangements and lighter pockets, like he simply stepped out between appointments. The problem is men like Fisher don’t just evaporate.
They indulge.
