Текст книги "Daggermouth"

Автор книги: H. M. Wolfe

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Chapter twentyI Promise

The door clicked shut behind Chapman as Callum turned to face Lira. She stood in his entryway with the stillness of prey that had learned any movement might draw the predator’s attention, and rage ignited in his chest, white hot and blinding.

His hands moved before his mind caught up, reaching for her face, needing to catalog the damage. She flinched—barely, but he saw it, felt it like a blade between his ribs. Callum forced his hands to slow, to be gentle, telegraphing his movements as his fingers ghosted over the edges of her mask.

“Li.” Her name came out strangled, caught between fury and heartbreak that threatened to crack him open if he let it.

The split ran from her left eye to the corner of her mouth, the metal edges sharp enough to have carved into her skin. Blood had dried in rusty trails down her neck, disappearing into the collar of her dress. But it was the bruising that made his vision blur red at the edges—purple-black fingerprints wrapped around her throat already forming like a necklace of violence.

“Who?” The word scraped out of him, though he already knew. Already knew and was calculating how many pieces he could carve Maximus Serel into before death became a mercy.

“My father.” Lira’s voice emerged hollow, drained of its usual steady elegance. “At dinner. Family dinner.”

Callum’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. How many times had he watched Maximus destroy his children under the guise of family obligation? How many times had he stood by, powerless, bound by the same system that now had its hands around Lira’s throat?

“Grey tried to stop him,” she continued, and something in her tone made Callum go still. “He shot him.”

The rage crystallized into something colder, more dangerous. “Is he—”

“Alive. A shoulder wound. Shadera was with him when I left.” Lira swayed slightly, exhaustion bleeding through her rigid posture.

Callum moved, his arm sliding around her waist to steady her. She leaned into him for just a moment, her weight slight against his side, before straightening again. Always maintaining that distance, that careful boundary she’d drawn between them.

She pushed out of his arms and made her way through the entryway, navigating his house like she belonged there.

She did, Callum thought to himself. Belong there.

“You need to rest,” he said as she paused to steady herself against the living room wall.

She only nodded in agreement as he began guiding her deeper into his apartment. The space was deliberately sparse—all clean lines and muted colors, nothing that could be used as leverage against him. But he’d kept the guest room furnished, maintained it religiously, though no one ever used it. As if he’d been waiting for this moment, for her to need sanctuary.

His hand found the small of her back as they walked, feeling the tension vibrating through her spine. Every instinct screamed at him to take her to his room, to keep her close where he could stand guard, where he could hold her.

“You can stay in the guest room for as long as you need,” he said instead, pushing open the door to reveal the space he’d prepared. Neutral grays and soft blues—her favorite colors.

Lira paused in the doorway, and he watched her shoulders drop fractionally.

“I’ll run you a bath, and make you tea. You need something warm,” Callum said softly as she moved into the room.

Lira nodded, taking in the space as he forced himself to focus on his tasks. Turning on the bath, adjusting the temperature, laying out towels. Each movement kept his hands busy, kept them from reaching for her, from pulling her against him and promising things he had no right to promise.

“There are clothes in the wardrobe,” he said, not looking at her. “They should fit.”

He’d bought them years ago, telling himself it was just prudence, just preparation, not hope for a future with her. The lie tasted bitter now.

“Callum.” Her voice stopped him at the door.

He turned back, finding her standing by the window, silhouetted against the city lights below. Even hurt, even in pain, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The most beautiful thing he’d ever lost.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You don’t need to thank me, Li. Not ever.”

Something unspoken passed between them, that old thread tugging him toward her. He turned away abruptly before he could act on it, and fled.

There was no other word for the way he left the room, driven out by the weight of everything he couldn’t say. The hallway felt longer than usual, the walls closer. His apartment—his sanctuary, his refuge—had become haunted by his mistakes the moment she’d entered it.

Callum allowed his posture to finally break out of her sight, his shoulders slumping as he leaned against the wall. The rage ricocheting inside his veins threatened to erupt, to send him into the night seeking vengeance against a man who thought himself too powerful to touch.

He dragged a hand down his mask, before pushing from the wall and retrieving his tablet from his pocket. He typed in a code and the screen flared to life with security protocols. Three layers of encryption, two proxy servers, and a voice scrambler that would make him sound like static to anyone trying to trace the call.

The line connected after two rings.

“We need to meet,” Callum said without preamble.

“Tomorrow?” The voice on the other end was careful, recognizing the deviation from their usual protocol.

“Tonight. No—” Callum caught himself, glancing back at the guest room door. “Tomorrow night. Things have escalated.”

“I want an extraction—”

“Absolutely fucking not.” The words came out harder than intended, sharp enough to cut. “We stick to the original plan. There is no way to extract safely. Once the Vow ceremony is completed, we can talk new arrangements.”

“The plan didn’t account for—”

“The plan accounts for variables,” Callum interrupted. “This is a variable. We adapt, we don’t abandon.”

“Thane—”

“Listen to me,” he hissed, checking the hallway to ensure he remained alone. “Maximus has doubled security at every checkpoint. The Heart is crawling with his personal guard. Moving now would get them all killed.”

Quiet stretched across the connection, weighted with silent arguments. Finally, “She needs to know we’re trying.”

“I don’t give a damn about her if it fucks with my plan.” Callum sucked in a long breath, his jaw flexing before he continued. “Fine. I will make sure she is at the meet tomorrow. But you can send one person. One. They will be able to talk to her. But if they try to get her out, I will kill them. Nothing gets in the way of this plan.”

A pause.

“Two.”

Callum’s free hand clenched into a fist. “One. Any more risks exposure if I’m bringing her.”

Another pause. “Okay. Tomorrow night. The usual place?”

“No. I’ll send coordinates an hour before. And whoever you send better understand the stakes.”

“They will.”

Callum ended the call, immediately wiping the tablet’s memory. The device would show nothing more than a normal evening’s browsing history, carefully cultivated to maintain his cover.

He slipped the device back into his pocket and made his way to the kitchen, as his mind began to race with contingencies, with the delicate dance of betrayals and allegiances that had become his life.

The kettle met the stove with more force than necessary, the metal connecting with a sharp clang that echoed through the quiet space. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Not from fear—he’d long ago trained that response out of his body—but from rage so concentrated it seemed to have its own gravity, pulling at his muscles, his bones, his blood.

Maximus was cracking, pressure slowly breaking down the dictator. That meant their window was closing. Whatever he was planning, whatever was causing him to snap, was nearing. They had to strike first.

While the water heated, he measured loose tea leaves into a porcelain pot—chamomile and lavender, something to help her sleep. The kettle began to whistle, steam erupting from its spout in an angry plume. Callum removed it from the heat, pouring the boiling water over the leaves and watching as they unfurled, releasing their essence. As the tea steeped, he pulled out his tablet again, keying in a different set of security protocols.

This call connected immediately.

“Sir?”

“Bring Davish in,” Callum ordered, keeping his voice low. “First thing in the morning, to the interrogation room in my private residence.”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied without hesitation. “Any specific preparations?”

Callum’s fingers tightened around the tablet. “Make sure he arrives with all his Serel Industries credentials. I want his access.”

“Understood, sir.”

“And, Meras,” Callum added. “No trail, no records.”

“As always, sir.”

The call ended, and Callum set the tablet aside, pouring the steeped tea through a strainer into a delicate cup—a relic of his family line that had belonged to his mother before she passed. He added a spoonful of honey, knowing Lira’s preference for sweetness, and carried it toward the guest room.

Serel Industries was the key—the last piece of the puzzle he needed to understand what Maximus was planning.

Callum paused outside the guest room, listening. The sound of water lapping against porcelain told him Lira was still in the bath. He slipped into the room and made his way toward the bathroom door, careful not to spill the tea. It was partially closed, a small crack wide enough that he could see a sliver of her body through the mirror’s fogged reflection, hear the broken, muffled sound of her trying not to cry but failing.

His knuckles rapped against the door. “Li?”

“Come in,” she said so soft he could barely hear it.

Callum pushed open the door and met a wall of steam and heavy warm air. It all registered as background as his gaze focused on her and froze.

She sat in the tub like a child trying to disappear, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. She still wore her mask—that broken, bloodied thing as the water lapped at her waist. She made herself as small as possible, a defensive curl that revealed the trauma she never spoke of.

Her shoulders shook. Slight tremors that ran through her whole body, visible even through the steam. Each breath came ragged and wet, catching on sobs she was trying to swallow.

Something fractured in his chest at the sight.

“Your tea,” he said gently, setting the cup on the table next to the tub before sinking to his knees beside it. “It might help you sleep.”

Lira nodded but made no move to take it.

“Do you want to be alone? Do you want me to leave?” he asked, though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

She shook her head, a quick, almost desperate motion. “No,” she said. “Please, don’t go.”

“I made it how you like it,” he said, gesturing to the tea. An attempt to get her to drink. “Three stirs counterclockwise.”

She lifted her head slightly, but didn’t look at him. “You remembered.”

“I remember everything about you.” The admission slipped out, too honest, too raw.

Those words seemed to break something in her. The sob that tore from her throat was harsh, grinding. Her whole body convulsed with it, and then another, and another, until she was shaking so hard the water sloshed against the tub’s edges.

“I can’t,” she said, the words barely making it out. “Callie, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t survive him much longer.”

Callum’s heart shattered open.

Every barrier, every defense he’d built, every wall he’d constructed between his feelings and his actions—all of it crumbled at the sound of her pain. For only a second his hands hovered uselessly in the air between them, wanting to reach for her, worried that she wouldn’t want him to—

Fuck it.

He didn’t care about propriety or boundaries or fucking walls.

Callum moved.

He stood, stepping into the tub and dropping into the water fully clothed. His expensive suit soaked through instantly, but he didn’t care. Couldn’t care about anything except the way Lira immediately turned into him, pressing her face against his chest as her fingers clutched his shirt.

Callum’s arms encircled her immediately, drawing her into him, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other traced soothing patterns along her spine. His clothes clung to him, water seeping through to his skin, but he barely noticed. His entire universe had narrowed to the woman in his arms, to her pain, to the desperate need to take it from her.

“He’s—” She gasped between sobs. “He’s going to kill us. All of us. It’s only a matter of time.”

“No.” The word came out absolute. “No, he won’t. I won’t let him.”

A strangled laugh collided with her tears. “You can’t stop him. No one can stop him. We’re all afraid. All the time.”

The truth of her words settled into him, stark and undeniable. Fear was the currency of the Heart, the foundation upon which Maximus had built his empire. Fear of starvation and disease in the outer rings, fear of exile from the inner circles, fear of the execution platform and the man who wielded the trigger.

Callum pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, swollen and red-rimmed. His next words came without thought.

“Let me see you,” he whispered. “Please.”

The request hung between them for a moment, neither looking away from the other. Slowly, carefully, she tilted her head up.

His breath caught. The trust in that gesture, the intimacy of what came next nearly undid him.

Five years.

It had been five years since he’d seen her face.

His hand trembled as it rose, fingers finding the edge of her broken mask. She went still, holding her breath. The mask pulled away with a soft sucking sound, and Callum bit back a sound of pure rage.

The sight that greeted him sent a surge of fury through his veins so potent he had to fight to keep it from showing on his face. The mask had hidden the worst of it—the deep bruising along her jawline, the cut on her cheek where the mask had broken and sliced into her skin. A thin line of blood trailed from the corner of her mouth, and her left eye was beginning to swell, the delicate skin beneath it darkening to purple.

“Oh, my love,” he said, his breathing growing shallow as he stared at the violence that mapped her face.

Her eyes—those beautiful, intelligent eyes he’d been in love with for as long as he could remember—dropped from his, shame evident in the way she tried to turn away. Callum wouldn’t allow it. His hand came up, cupping her uninjured cheek, turning her face back to his.

“Don’t.” It was a command. “Don’t you dare be ashamed. This isn’t your fault. None of it is your fault.”

His other hand came up slowly, giving her time to pull away. When she didn’t, his fingers ghosted over the injuries, cataloging each one, filing it away in the ledger of debts Maximus Serel would pay. His touch lingered on the cut, feeling the heat of inflammation, the way she winced despite trying not to.

He leaned down, pressing his lips to the wound, a whisper of contact, a benediction. Not a kiss of passion but of promise, of reverence, of rage transformed into something almost holy.

Lira’s breath caught, her body going still beneath his lips.

“I’m going to make him pay for this,” he whispered against her skin, and his voice held no trace of kindness.

This was the real Callum Thane—the one who lived in the Heart’s shadows, who collected information like weapons, who had been planning Maximus Serel’s downfall since childhood, since the day he’d first seen the evidence of his cruelty on Greyson’s body. “For every mark, every bruise, every moment of fear he’s ever given you. I’m going to destroy him so completely that history will forget he ever existed.”

She shuddered against him, her hands fisting in his soaked shirt. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” He pulled back to meet her eyes, no longer hidden, no longer guarded. “With everything I am, everything I have. He’ll never touch you again.”

Lira was his, had always been his in some ways, even when he’d been forced to let her go. And anyone who hurt what was his would learn why even the dark recoiled from the man who owned the Heart’s secrets.

Chapter twenty-oneI Have A Plan

Morning bruised across the sky—dark purple bleeding into a sickly yellow as Lira woke to find her pain had crystallized into something sharper. Pure, distilled, clarifying anger that settled into her bones like mercury. Heavy and toxic but absolutely necessary.

Her face throbbed with each heartbeat, the gash on her cheek pulling with every small movement. She touched it gingerly, remembering Callum’s lips against the wound, the promise in his voice when he’d sworn revenge. But revenge wasn’t enough anymore. Revenge was reactive, defensive. What she wanted—what she needed—was change.

Her legs swung over the edge of the bed, her feet connecting with the cool marble floor as a heavy breath released itself from her lungs. The contact grounded her, a physical anchor in a world that seemed increasingly untethered from reality.

Callum had left a replacement mask on the bedside table and she stared at it for a long moment, a decision to be made. Here, in this house, she was safe. Safe to own her own face, not hide it away from the world.

For the first time in her adult life, Lira looked away from the mask.

She moved through the guest suite and into the main living area of Callum’s apartment and paused at the threshold.

Two men stood in the kitchen area, their postures alert despite the early hour. Security guards, part of Callum’s private detail. Their faces were bare, an act of rebellion on Callum’s part. He refused to live by the Heart’s rules in his own home, refused to make his men abide by them. Their eyes widened slightly at the sight of her unmasked features. In unison they both reached for the masks they discarded on the long kitchen table and Lira threw up her hands.

“Please,” she said softly. “You don’t have to hide. Not from me.”

The men glanced at each other before their eyes came back to her and nodded. She could see the battle in them, trying to force themselves not to focus on her ruined face.

“Ma’am,” the taller of the two said, inclining his head respectfully. “Mr. Thane asked us to inform you that breakfast is available whenever you’re ready.”

Lira nodded, her hand unconsciously rising to her throat. “Where is he?”

“Downstairs in his office, ma’am,” the guard replied. “He’s in a meeting but should be done shortly.”

“Thank you,” she said, moving toward the breakfast tray laid out on the counter. “I’ll wait for him here.”

The guards dipped their chins and retreated to their posts by the door, giving her space while remaining vigilant. Lira poured herself tea from the waiting pot, letting the familiar ritual settle her thoughts. The fine porcelain cup was warm against her palms, a small comfort in a world increasingly devoid of them.

She carried the cup to the window, looking out over the Heart spread below. From this height, the city appeared perfect—platinum spires catching the morning light, streets laid out in precise geometric patterns, everything ordered and controlled. The illusion of utopia, maintained at the cost of blood.

More innocent lives would be lost this morning. The media drones circling the platform where her brother stood like a statue behind two bound and kneeling men told her that. The red cord around their wrists, the red ceremony uniforms of the Veyra officers, seemed angrier today. The color more accusatory.

She’d spent her life standing at windows like this one, looking out at her father’s domain. Crafted press releases that painted the Heart’s brutality as necessary security measures.

Always the dutiful daughter. Always the obedient woman. Always the voice that smoothed over the regime’s crimes for public consumption.

She wouldn’t do it, not anymore.

Something shifted inside her chest, a tectonic movement of emotion that had been building for years. The fear that had been her constant companion since childhood receded, replaced by something hotter, something with teeth.

Rage.

Not the momentary flashes of anger she’d felt before, quickly suppressed beneath layers of training, of fear and self-preservation. This was deeper, more fundamental—a molten core of fury that seemed to burn away the fog she’d lived in for so long.

Lira’s hand tightened around the teacup, her knuckles whitening with the pressure. She watched her own reflection in the window, superimposed over the city below as the execution began. The bruises, the cut, the swelling—visible evidence of what had always been true but carefully hidden.

She was born from violence.

And she’d helped maintain the system that enabled it. She was complicit—had always been complicit.

Her skills, her intelligence, her gift for narrative—it had all been used as weapons in her father’s arsenal. Her position gave her access to information, to communication channels always used for his manipulation.

If she had the power to maintain the system, she had the power to undermine it.

Lira set the teacup down on a nearby table, her hand shaking from the decision she’d already made. She’d waited her whole life for power to be given to her, to be worthy of it, for permission to use the influence she already possessed.

No more waiting.

Lira reached for her tablet, another concession to her status—Heart elite were allowed personal communication devices, while lower rings made do with public terminals and limited access. Her fingers moved over the screen, navigating to a contact she’d never used but never deleted.

The call connected after three rings.

“This is unexpected,” a voice answered, cautious but curious.

Lira glanced to the doorway where Callum’s men stood conversing between themselves, then took a step closer to the window and lowered her voice.

“I have a plan.”

The heavy iron door had been installed thirty years ago, back when Maximus still believed in the possibility of redemption through suffering.

Now he knew better.

Suffering was not the path to enlightenment—it was simply the most efficient tool for maintaining order. His fingers found the lock’s familiar grooves, the mechanism clicking open as it registered his prints.

The corridor beyond stretched into shadow, lit only by sparse bulbs that created pools of sickly yellow light. This wing of his residence remained unknown to most—even his children believed it held nothing more than storage for old Serel artifacts. The lie had been necessary. Some aspects of governance were too pure, too essential to be diluted by outside observation.

Maximus reached the end of the hall and descended the stairs it connected to with measured steps. His knuckles ached from the impact of Elara’s lesson. She had created weak heirs, useless children. The thought of Lira, of Greyson’s pathetic attempt at rebellion—at his own table—reignited a flare of anger in his chest.

The boy had always been weak, too influenced by feminine sentimentality. Last night had proven it beyond doubt. Defending that Boundary trash, challenging his father’s authority in front of the women. The corruption ran deeper than Maximus had suspected.

Another lock, another door. This one newer, reinforced with titanium plating. The room beyond had been his father’s design, though Maximus had made improvements over the years. Efficiency was a virtue in all things, particularly in the application of corrective measures.

The scent hit him first—sweat and fear and the metallic tang of blood. Familiar, comforting in its consistency. Some things never changed, no matter how much the world pretended to evolve.

Elara stood in the center of the room, exactly where he’d left her twelve hours ago.

The metal mask encased her entire head, a masterwork of psychological and physical torment. The weight of it forced her neck forward, muscles straining against the burden. The chain connecting it to the ceiling allowed her to stand, but prevented any relief through sitting or lying down. He observed the spasms running through her calves and thighs as her legs trembled with the effort of remaining upright.

Her dress—the elegant cream she’d worn to dinner—hung off her body, ripped and bloody. Green and blue bruises mottled her exposed arms, proof of her betrayal and its consequences. One shoulder had dislocated during her lesson in obedience, he could tell by the unnatural angle, the way she held the arm slightly forward.

Maximus circled her slowly, his footsteps heavy on the concrete floor. Each sound made her flinch, minute movements that sent the chain swaying.

Good. Anticipation was half the lesson.

“My poor wife,” he said, letting false sympathy color his tone. The words were ritual, part of the process that had played out hundreds of times over their marriage. “Look what you’ve made me do.”

A sound emerged from within the mask—not quite a sob, not quite a word. The design muffled everything, reducing communication to its most basic elements. Another efficiency.

He continued his circuit, noting the drying blood in the beds of her nails, at the tips of her fingers where she’d torn at the mask trying to find escape. Such pointless struggle. She knew how this ended. She always knew, yet she persisted in these small rebellions that necessitated correction.

“Thirty-five years,” Maximus mused, stopping directly in front of her. “Thirty-five years of marriage, and you still haven’t learned your place. Do you know how that reflects on me? The President of New Found Haven, patriarch of the family, unable to control his own wife?”

The chain rattled as she swayed again, exhaustion making her movements increasingly erratic. He reached out, steadying her with a hand on her dislocated shoulder. She made a sound that might have been a scream if she hadn’t swallowed it.

“I wish you would stop making me punish you,” he continued, maintaining that same conversational tone while applying subtle pressure to the injured joint. “It’s tedious, frankly. I have more important matters to attend to than repeatedly teaching you the same lessons.”

Women were creatures of emotion, his father had taught him. They lacked the capacity for true logical thought, for understanding the complexities of governance and order. They required firm guidance, clear boundaries, consequences for transgression. Without these things, they became chaotic, destructive—like Lira last night, speaking out of turn, questioning his authority. Like Elara, teaching their daughter she had permission to be bold, an example of speaking out of turn.

The weakness spread through female blood like a disease. He’d seen it in his mother, that soft corruption that had ultimately required her elimination. He saw it in Elara, despite years of careful conditioning. And now in Lira, who’d somehow absorbed these poisonous ideas about equality, about women deserving voices in matters beyond their comprehension.

Elara was supposed to be one of the good ones. Maximus’s father had vetted her bloodline before they agreed to their Vow. All obedient. All submissive, all women that knew exactly where their place was kneeling at the feet of men.

His wife was the rotten apple.

“Do you remember your place now?” he asked, releasing her shoulder to resume his slow patrol around her trembling form. “Or shall we continue this lesson?”

The response was immediate—a frantic nodding that sent the chain into wild motion. Her legs buckled slightly, knees bending before she forced them straight again. The chain would hang her if she fell too far.

“Words, Elara. Use your words.”

The sounds that emerged were barely human, distorted by the mask’s interior design. But he’d had decades to learn this particular language of suffering. “Yes,” she was saying. “Yes, yes, please.”

“Yes, what?” He stopped behind her, close enough that she could feel his presence but not see him even if the mask allowed vision. “Be specific.”

More sounds, desperate now. Her whole body shook with the effort of remaining upright, of forcing words through the mask’s confines. “Know . . . place . . . know my place . . .”

“And will you speak out at my table again?”

A violent shake of her head, followed by strangled attempts at, “No, never, never again.”

Maximus considered extending the lesson. There was value in thoroughness, in ensuring the message had truly been absorbed. But he had other matters to attend to—Greyson, the rebellion growing in the rings, the approaching Vow ceremony, the reports from the military base that required his attention. Efficiency demanded he concluded this particular session.

He produced the key from his inner pocket, taking his time with the motion. Let her hear it, recognize it, feel that mixture of hope and dread that preceded release. The lock was positioned at the back of the mask and she went rigid as the key made contact, every muscle tensing.

The mechanism released with a soft click.

The mask came away like the jaw of a wild beast and Maximus pulled it from her head as he circled back to see her face.

She looked at him for one moment—just one—and he saw it there. The hatred. Concentrated loathing that no amount of training or punishment seemed to fully extinguish. It flickered and died as survival instincts reasserted themselves, replaced by the blank expression she’d perfected over the years.

Then her legs gave out entirely.

She crumpled to the concrete floor in a heap of torn fabric and damaged flesh, her body folding in on itself like a puppet who’d lost its crossbar. Her dislocated shoulder struck first, drawing a scream that she no longer had the strength to suppress.

Maximus stepped back, avoiding the sprawl of her limbs. She lay there gasping, chest heaving with desperate gulps of air. Her hands clawed weakly at the floor, trying to find purchase, trying to push herself up as training demanded. But her body had reached its limits. She could only lie there, shuddering with each breath.

He watched her struggle for a moment, cataloging the damage with detachment. Nothing permanent. Nothing that wouldn’t heal, nothing that would show beneath her clothing. He’d been precise, as always. Another reason for the mask. It was for her own protection, really, so her face would remain safe from her lessons. The bruises would fade, the cuts would close, the shoulder could be reset. By the time of the Vow ceremony, she’d be presentable again.