Chapter 19: Chapter 19

No one answers for a long moment.

Marcus bangs on the door again, harder this time. I know he didn’t want to come here, but now that we’re outside Victoria’s place, I get the feeling he’s not gonna leave until our business is done. He’s not about to back down and let her win.

A few seconds later, the door swings open.

Victoria cocks an eyebrow, her green eyes narrowing. Her auburn hair is piled on her head in a messy bun today, and although she still carries herself with a sort of elegant, swan-like grace, she’s replaced the extravagant evening gown with a pair of carefully distressed jeans and a thin t-shirt that clings to the curves of her body.

“Marcus.” She smirks a little as the surprise fades from her face. “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon. Did you miss it? I’ve still got your room made up if you want to stay a while longer. Or did you come to discuss wedding colors? I really can’t decide on the perfect color palette.”

“Go fuck yourself, Victoria.” Marcus steps forward, pushing the door open farther. “Ayla wants to talk to you. And then we’re leaving. Both of us.”

It’s a testament to Victoria’s strength that she doesn’t give way before the force of Marcus’s wrath. He’s towering over her like a predator about to strike, but she doesn’t back up or quail. Instead, she shifts her gaze past him to focus on me, an assessing look flitting across her face.

“Does she, now?” she murmurs. Then she nods. “All right. Come on in.”

I keep my own face hard and blank as she ushers us both inside. Marcus’s gait is still stiff, and I can tell he’s refusing to show any weakness, but Victoria purses her lips as she scans him up and down.

“While you’re here, you should have Doctor Brenson come look at you,” she tells him.

“I’ve got my own guy.”

She chuckles dryly, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She’s barefoot, I realize, with toenails painted a deep red. Everything about her looks casual and unforced, and I wonder which version of her is the real one. This one, or the woman I met last night?

Or maybe they’re both lies.

She’s clearly a good fucking liar.

“I’m sure you do have your own guy, but Brenson’s been taking care of you since day one. He knows how far along you are in your recovery, and he told you to book a follow-up with him anyway. So do it now.” She tugs her phone out of her pocket and taps out a message. “I can get him here in five minutes.”

Marcus’s jaw clenches. I grab his arm and shoot him a look. I’m sure this is some kind of power play on Victoria’s part, but after all the things Marcus has done in the past twenty-four hours, I really would feel better if a doctor checked him out.

He stiffens under my touch, then nods once, a sharp jerk of his chin.

Victoria smiles, then sweeps her arm out in an inviting gesture, indicating we should move deeper into the house. We follow her through the space, and my gaze darts around, cataloguing everything I see.

The inside matches the outside—understated and clean. There are a few hints of wealth here and there, but they’d be easy to miss if I wasn’t looking for them.

“Luca wasn’t particularly happy the three of you left the party early last night,” Victoria notes, leading us down a hallway before stepping through a door into the back yard. She catches Marcus’s gaze. “I made an excuse for you, but you better be careful. He doesn’t like any hint that people are disrespecting him.”

“I can take care of myself,” Marcus grunts.

Victoria’s smile makes my stomach tighten. “Oh, I’m counting on that.”

The back yard is much larger than the front yard, and this is the first sign I’ve seen of Victoria openly throwing her family’s new money around. An Olympic sized pool takes center stage in the yard, bright blue water glinting in the sunlight. It’s not all that uncommon for even middle-class people to have pools in Halston, but they sure as hell don’t look like this.

Victoria catches me looking at it and shrugs. “I swim almost every day. It’s heated so that even when the nights get colder in the winter, the water stays warm. It relaxes me.” Her phone buzzes, and she glances down at it before catching Marcus’s gaze. “Doctor Brenson is here. You can let him in and he’ll give your injuries a check.”

Marcus doesn’t even bother responding to her with words. But his hand closes around my elbow, and he tugs me toward him, dropping his head as he murmurs, “Last chance, angel. You say the word, and we’re out of here.”

I shake my head adamantly. “I’ll be good. Go. I’ll only take as long as you do, so once the doc is done checking you out, we’ll leave.”

He nods, seeming mollified by that. He gives Victoria one last piercing look before striding back into the house.

As soon as the door closes behind him, her demeanor changes. The air she had earlier of a hostess giving a tour of her house at a dinner party evaporates, her expression turning cool and calculating as she levels her gaze on me.

“So, did you come here to beg me not to do it? To let him go so he can marry you instead and whisk you off to his castle for a happily ever after? Because it’s not gonna happen.” She laughs humorlessly. “People like us don’t get happily ever afters.”

My stomach gives a weird little flutter at the words “marry you.”

That’s not what I came here for. I haven’t even considered the thought of marrying Marcus, or his two closest friends either. What we have seems so much bigger than that, so much more chaotic and meaningful and intense. Marriage seems like too small a word to fit the thing that exists between us.

“I’m not really big on begging,” I say carefully, falling into step beside Victoria as she begins to walk along one side of the long pool. She’s still barefoot, but the marble slabs that border the pool are pristine and smooth. “I’m just trying to understand what you want. Maybe there’s something we can offer that you want more.”

“Are you sure you want to be a part of this?” she asks suddenly, cutting a glance my way. “You do realize that once you’re in, you’ll never get out, right?”

“Yes. And I don’t care.”

Her vivid green eyes are impossible to read as she shakes her head. “I think you will. When you finally realize what you’ve signed up for.”

“Why do you want to marry Marcus?” I ask, shifting the topic back to the reason I’m here. I get the feeling she’s trying to put me off-balance, and even though it’s working a little, I refuse to let her see that.

Victoria stops, turning to stare down into the clear water of the pool as she crosses her arms. “I don’t want to. I need to.”

We’re standing side by side, so I can only catch her profile when I glance over at her, and her expression is still hard to read. But there’s something in her voice that sounds almost sad.

“Why?” I press.

She shrugs a delicate shoulder. “Why do you think? I think he’s going to win, and if we’re married, that means I win too.”

“So you’re planning to just sit back and let him fight it out with the other men, then swoop in and claim the prize alongside him?”

I can’t hide the disgust in my voice, and Victoria looks over at me sharply. “No. I’m not planning to ‘sit back’ on anything. I’ve been holding my own in this game, and I’ll keep fighting.”

My skin chills a little. It’s hard to imagine this willowy, long-necked girl with bare feet firing the bullet that ended up in Carson’s head, but I know she’s the one who did. She’s capable of a lot more than she looks like, and I need to remember that.

“You killed Carson.” It’s not a question.

She hesitates for just a second, then nods. “Yes.”

“Did you help him plan that whole thing out? Did you help him plan to kidnap me?”

Her hesitation lasts longer this time, as if she’s weighing her answer. Then she shakes her head. “No. He was trying to sweet talk me into an alliance, but I draw the line at using people’s loved ones against them. So when I found out what he was planning, I told him no.”

“Then how did you know where he was? Where we were? How did you find us at the warehouse district?”

“The same way Carson did.” She smiles, although her eyes stay sharp and serious. “He put a GPS tracker on you, Ayla. In your clothes somewhere, probably, or your shoes. And I followed it just like he did.”

“So your plan all along was to kill Carson? To blackmail Marcus into agreeing to marry you?”

She scoffs. “Of course not. You can’t make plans like that in this game. The ones who try to do that are the ones who die. All you can do is stay alert, be smart, and take advantage of every opportunity that crosses your path.”

“And that’s what Marcus was? An opportunity.”

My voice twists around the last word. Victoria looks over at me, her brows pulling together.

“You really do love him, don’t you?” she murmurs, although the question sounds almost rhetorical.

I don’t bother answering it, because I don’t know how to. “Love” feels almost as inadequate as “marriage.”

I’m not sure there even is a word for the obsessive, soul-deep craving I have for Marcus.

Victoria’s eyes narrow as I remain silent, but her perceptive gaze scans my face. Then she shakes her head. “You’ll never get it to make sense, so don’t even bother trying.” She gazes down into the pool again. “It’s not fair. I know that. One day, Marcus and I will either be married or six feet under, and you’ll be left holding on to a faded memory of love, convincing yourself with every passing day that maybe you just imagined the whole thing.”

“I didn’t imagine it,” I snap, bristling. Her words are like a blade slipped between my ribs, making my heart sting.

“No.” She lets out a humorless laugh, staring so deep into the pool I’m sure she’s seeing something else entirely. “Neither did I.”

My brows pull together as I shoot her a look. Is she talking about Marcus? Is she, or was she, in love with him? It’s clear as fucking day that her interest in him now is purely political, but was it ever more than that?

I have the sudden urge to reach out and shove her into the pool.

To jump in after her and hold her head underwater until she drowns.

The violence of my reaction shocks me a little, and I clench my jaw, trying to focus. But before I can press her to explain her words, she looks over at me sharply.

“Tell Marcus to put some pressure on Michael and Gabriel. Their families have both been weakening over the past couple years. From what I hear, there’s a new player on the scene, someone called the Viper, and he’s been making their lives hell.” She rolls her eyes. “Of course, it doesn’t help that they’re both too busy playing against each other, forging and breaking their alliance over and over, to keep their guards up against an outside threat.”

I frown. “Why are you telling me this?”

Her green eyes glitter as a smile curves her lips. “Because Marcus won’t listen to me, but he might listen to you. And I told you—I want him to win.”

“So you can marry him.”

She shrugs. “All’s fair in love and war.”

My hand clenches as the earlier impulse to throw her in the pool rises again. It’d be a stupid idea for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the fact that she can probably swim better than I can. But I don’t quite know what to make of her. She’s obviously not interested in negotiating or bargaining over her engagement to Marcus. She’s chosen her tactic and is sticking to it.

But she did just give me a useful piece of intel. I’m not sure where she picked it up, but it’s not something that either Ryland or Theo seemed to be aware of. In all our war meetings, they made it sound like Gabriel and Michael were well-positioned, like they wouldn’t be easy targets.

Of course, Victoria only gave me the info because she obviously hopes I’ll tell Marcus, and that he and the other two men will act on it. She’s trying to get them to do her dirty work, pointing them toward mutual enemies and assuming that it will benefit her in the end.

I don’t know what to make of this girl, honestly. She’s blunt and hard-edged, mercenary and ruthless—but she doesn’t seem to revel in cruelty for its own sake the way Natalie used to. She’s doing all of this as a means to an end, not as the end itself.

That doesn’t make her any less dangerous than Natalie though.

The door to the house bursts open, and Marcus strides out. His gaze glides quickly over Victoria before landing on me, and he stalks toward us quickly, wincing just a little as he does.

Before he reaches us, Victoria takes a step closer, speaking low under her breath. “Oh, and if you ever pull some shit like you did at the party last night, you’ll pay for it in blood, you understand me?”

My lips curl, anger burning through me. “If you don’t want me to fuck your future husband in a laundry room, maybe try marrying someone who actually loves you.”

The look Victoria shoots me is pure anger.

Looks like I struck a nerve.

I don’t have time to smirk over it because Marcus reaches us a second later. His gaze darts between me and Victoria, suspicion coloring the lines of his face. “She give you any trouble, angel?”

His arm wraps possessively around my waist as he speaks, and I see Victoria’s gaze track the movement. Something like pain—like jealousy—burns behind her eyes, then her features settle into a mask.

“Don’t worry,” she drawls. “I wouldn’t fucking hurt her. Even though she’s not technically a part of the game, I’ve got more honor than Carson Purcell did.”

She grimaces as she says the name, then takes a step closer to Marcus. She’s an inch or so shorter than me, and she has to tilt her head up a little to meet his gaze, but somehow she manages it without losing her air of regal power. She rests a palm on his left pec, and Marcus’s free hand whips up like a snake, grabbing her wrist and forcing her hand away from him.

Victoria chuckles. “Don’t worry. I know what this is. I’ll never have your heart, and I don’t fucking want it.” She yanks her wrist from his grip. “But whether I have your love or not, you’re promised to me. I expect you to keep up your end of our deal. I saved your life—remember that.”

Marcus stares at her for a few seconds, and if looks had the power to kill, Victoria would be nothing but a scorch mark on the spotless marble. Then he turns away from her, not even bothering to respond to her words as he pulls me a little closer against his body. “You get what you need?”

I nod. I got something, at least, and I have a feeling it’s all I’m gonna get from Victoria.

“Then we’re out of here.”

Keeping his hold on my waist, he steers me around the auburn-haired woman and toward the back door. She makes no move to stop us, and she doesn’t even follow us inside as we make our way back through the house to the front.

There’s a man in a suit packing up a few supplies in the living room as we pass by, and I glance over at him quickly.

Doctor Brenson. It must be.

“How’d your checkup go?” I ask quietly as Marcus pushes open the front door and holds it for me.

“He said I’m not gonna die.” His gaze is dark as he glances toward the back of the house before following me outside. “At least, not from this.”