Dukes of Madness: Chapter 20

It’s hard to believe there was a time I told Nick his front in South Side was all for nothing, because I’m standing in the middle of something enormous. I’ve never been inside the Baron’s crypt before. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who’s been here before. A lot of people assume its very existence is a myth, but here we are, because Nick has access to this. He has access to the Avenue and the Lord’s brothels. He’s been inside the home of the Counts’ King and come out unscathed.

Nick Bruin has crouched himself into more of Forsyth’s hidden corners than possibly anyone alive.

And I’m about to watch him die.

The light is low, candles flickering against the shadows of his sharp face as he slips out of his leather jacket. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t flinch. He holds the gaze of the Baron King, faceless behind his bronze mask, and wordlessly holds out the jacket.

For some reason, my attention is fixed to his neck as I mechanically reach out to take it. The tattoo of my kiss print is raised, still healing, and I remember with such clarity the moment when I put it there. The intense hush of the crowd, the heat of his chest against my palm, and most clearly, the rap of his pulse knocking against my lips as I pressed my mouth to it.

I can’t stop shivering.

The King doesn’t look bothered by Nick’s offer to replace me. If anything, he adjusts in his throne, more intent. This is all just theater to him. Dinner and a show, something ‘romantic’ to orchestrate. Ridding himself of a potential King is a bigger score than taking out the disgraced daughter of another Royal. Nick’s just done him, and every other King, a favor.

My stomach does a violent flip.

The King tells Nick, “Have a seat.”

“Nick,” I whisper, but I’m not sure what to follow it with.

We don’t have to do this? I’d rather it be me? Your life is worth more than the truth?

I’m not sure I could make it sound sincere, and the slow, knowing look he slides my way tells me he’s aware of this. He jerks his chin at the King. “Can I have a second with my Duchess?”

He settles back in his seat, waving a gloved hand. “Make your arrangements, say your goodbyes.” I bet if that mask weren’t covering his face, we’d see him licking his lips excitedly.

“This is insane,” I hiss, pulling Nick aside. “That man is insane.”

Nick’s hair has grown since leaving South Side and a thick strand slumps in front of his eye. He never shaved after I released him from the cage, his beard thickening over his jaw. The two combined make him look less pretty, but still devastatingly handsome.

He looks down, reaching into his pocket. “We always knew there’d be a price.” I stand, paralyzed, as he presses his keys into my hand. He keeps his voice a low, intense whisper. “Tell Sy there’s a storage building on Krembly Street. It’s between East End and Killer’s boundary line, a territorial dead zone. Building 44. Have him take what’s inside and burn it.”

“Nick.”

He pushes the strand of hair away, eyes blank and hard. “Give my laptop to Remy. Tell him the password, show him the files.”

“Nick.”

Flames flickering in his blue eyes, he rushes on. “The coordinates for the guy I killed can get you out of here, so listen carefully.” He pushes the words into my ears—some warehouse in West End.

“Nick, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” he insists, his voice snapping me back to reality. “Listen to me, Little Bird. My dad knows everything I know. If you ever need to find another weak spot inside the Royalty, he’ll help you.”

It’s not that.

A couple of weeks ago, I would have been happy to kill him. Maybe I’m not enough of a Lucia to have felt jubilant about it, but there would have been relief, a sense of justice to his suffering, a rightness to knowing that he’s flickered out of existence the same way he came into it. I try to find it now, to remember the cold way he looked that night as I got on my knees and begged him to save me. I call up the image of him above me, forcing himself into my body, the searing intensity of his anger as he took a piece of me for himself, clawing his way inside. I remember the night he hit me, the sting of his palm against my face, and the years—Jesus, years—of him coming to my motel room, the basement, always locking the door behind him on the way out, one more captor.

The anger is there, maybe even the hatred, but I can’t feel it as easily or as acutely.

For some reason, I just keep seeing the happy, charming boy I’d seen in the photo he has taped to his gym locker. I see what Nick could have been and I see what he could still be, because the man standing before me, willing to give his life to offer mine some kind of closure, isn’t the monster I’ve come to know.

This is a selfless act.

That means somewhere, buried deep under layers of Daniel Payne and the stench of death, Nick Bruin actually cares about something more than himself.

Nick must see something in my expression because his own stone mask flickers. It’s barely a blink, the way his eyes flash with something soft and sorry. “Fifty-fifty shot, Little Bird. I’m not dead yet.” He covers it with a cocky grin that’s too sharp to be convincing. “Just need a little luck.”

“Yeah, we have a lot of that.” It’s meant to sound sarcastic, but my eyes are fixed to that tattoo on his neck and it’s driving me so fucking crazy that the words come out empty, dull. Why would he do that? Why does he take everything I give him and turn them into these immortalized miseries?

I know the answer.

I just don’t like it.

The next time I raise my gaze, he’s staring at my mouth. I remain still as his hand snakes around my neck, cold fingertips prickling my nape as he tips my head up. I’m expecting the request as distinctly as I’m expecting him to not bother asking. A kiss for luck, one for the road, truly his finest manipulation yet—a cruel coda. Wouldn’t deny a dying man a kiss, would I? I watch the impulse tighten his features, and then I watch it bleed away, something in his face collapsing in defeat.

I stare at him in confusion. I would have let you take it.

He stares back with a sad grin. I know. “Remy and Sy will keep you. They’ll take care of you. If you let them, they’ll—” A word catches in his throat, and for a moment, I think I might be watching Nick give up on something.

Life?

Being a Duke?

Me?

When he tips down to press his forehead to mine, his scent covers me just as tangibly as the leather jacket he pulls around my shoulders. I give myself a moment to memorize the smell, the cool of mint gum, the warmth of the spicy deodorant he uses mingling with something harder to place. He smells like West End; leather, stone, and the sharp edge of metal.

“I know my love isn’t worth anything to you, Lavinia.” His other hand brushes mine where it hangs, limp at my side. “But maybe theirs will be.”

My voice is caught in my chest, caged within my lungs, fluttering as wildly as the little bird he’s always accused me of being. I set it free to tell him the truth. “I’m not worth it. I’m not worth any of this.”

His fingers grasp, squeeze, eyes piercing through mine. “You’re worth more.”

Nick loves me.

I can see it in his eyes when the mask wavers, but mostly, I just… know. There’s a good possibility he has for a long time, and the trouble is, I couldn’t take it. I understand that now. It settles over me, the knowledge that I’d rejected it because it didn’t make sense to me. I wasn’t made to be loved. Worshiped. I was made to be hidden—shoved into dark, hidden holes and left there. I was made to be alone. I was made to be lonely.

What he feels for me is twisted and selfish, but maybe I could have shaped it into something that didn’t hurt so fucking much instead of starving it to shrink into this angry, bitter want. I simply don’t know how.

I don’t know how to be loved.

He gives my neck a little squeeze, fingers lingering in a slow drag as he pulls away. But the second the connection breaks, he’s turning, marching to the chair. He snatches the back and drags it closer to the table, dropping into it with a hard expression.

Just like that, he’s the soldier again, chin up, eyes dark and piercing. I press my fists into my diaphragm as if it could hold in the storm building in my gut.

Nick reaches over the table to take the gun.

The King’s voice shatters the air around us like glass. “William,” he says, flicking a hand. “It’s time.” Will emerges from the shadows with something blue wedged under his arm. He shakes it out like a bedsheet, bending to arrange it around Nick’s chair.

A tarp.

“Oh, my god,” I breathe, pressing my palm to my forehead. “Oh, my god…” This is all going too fast. I need to think, I need to—

Nick opens the cylinder, holding the King’s eyes as he gives it a spin. With a jerk of his wrist, he closes it, thumb cocking the hammer, and suddenly I know that I can’t do this.

I can’t watch Nick die.

It soothes something inside I wasn’t aware of until now, a fear so secret that I’ve been pushing it down. Locking Nick in the cage, playing with my victim until his brains are splattered willingly on the floor…

That’s the part of me that belongs to my father.

And I’m better than a viper.

“Stop.” My voice rings out sharp and sure, the stone floor solid beneath me as I cross the distance between us. “Forget it. Let’s go.”

I never make it.

One of the Barons slipping out of the darkness gets to me first, grabbing me with hard hands, one covering my mouth. I fight against him but, in the second before I reach Nick, his hand darts up, pressing the gun to his temple.

The room stills to just the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

And then he pulls the trigger.