Chapter 3 : The Bloody Breakfast
The morning sun felt like an insult. It poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dining hall, illuminating the dust motes dancing over a table that could seat thirty, yet only had four place settings.
I had dressed carefully. A high-necked, vintage lace dress in cream. I looked like a Victorian doll—pure, untouched, and utterly deceptive.
XERXES was already at the head of the table, reading a digital tablet. He didn't look up when I entered. He didn't need to. He simply pointed to the chair at his right hand.
"Sit, Vesper. The coffee is getting cold."
I sat, my spine straight, the lace of my sleeves hiding the slight tremor I forced into my fingers. "Where are the others?"
"Zion is likely nursing a hangover or a woman, and Kylo..." Xerxes finally looked up, his steel-gray eyes cutting through me. "Kylo is a shadow. He appears when there is something to haunt."
He pushed a plate of fruit and poached eggs toward me. It looked artful. It looked like a peace offering. I knew it was a test.
"Eat," he commanded.
I took a small bite of a strawberry. It tasted like copper. "What happens today, Xerxes? Am I to be kept in the East Wing like a trophy?"
"Today, you become a Blackwood," he said, his voice dropping into that low, authoritative register that made my skin crawl and my pulse spike. "The lawyers are arriving at noon. We sign the marriage certificates. All three of them."
My fork clattered against the porcelain. "All three? At once?"
"It's a joint contract, Vesper. Don't act surprised. You read the Will."
"I read it. I didn't think you'd actually go through with the... shared aspect of it."
Xerxes leaned forward, his large hand covering mine on the table. His skin was hot, his grip firm. "Do not mistake my pragmatism for weakness. I would marry a devil if it meant keeping my empire. And you? You're far more interesting than a devil."
"Is that a compliment, Xerxes?"
"It's an observation," he murmured, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. "You have a way of looking at people as if you're measuring them for a casket. I find it... stimulating."
The door swung open, and ZION sauntered in, looking entirely too awake for a man who had been stalking hallways at 3 AM. He was wearing a silk robe, his hair messy, his eyes bright with mischief.
"Is the honeymoon starting early?" Zion asked, sliding into the chair opposite me. He reached over and snatched a piece of bacon from my plate, winking. "You look delicious this morning, Vesper. That dress makes me want to be very, very bad."
"Zion, behave," Xerxes said, though there was no real heat in his voice. "We are discussing the legalities."
"Legalities are boring," Zion sighed, leaning back and stretching. His robe slipped, revealing the jagged scar on his ribs—a mirror to the one Kylo had seen on me. "I'm more interested in the sleeping arrangements. The Will says 'one roof.' It doesn't say 'one bed.' But I think we should vote on it."
I felt the heat climb my neck. "There will be no voting on my bed."
"Oh? And who's going to stop us?"
The voice came from the shadows behind me. I jumped, nearly knocking over my coffee. KYLO was standing there, his hood up, his hands shoved into his pockets. He hadn't made a sound.
"Kylo," I breathed, my heart hammering. "You need to stop doing that."
"Doing what? Existing?" Kylo walked to the table, but he didn't sit. He stood behind my chair, his presence a cold weight on my shoulders. He leaned down, his voice a ghost of a whisper that only I could hear. "Did you sleep well, Executioner?"
I froze. The others didn't hear him, but I felt the warning. He was testing my mask.
"I asked a question," Zion said, his eyes narrowing as he watched Kylo's proximity to me. The playful air was gone, replaced by a sharp, territorial tension. "Who gets her first?"
The room went silent. The air grew thick, the kind of heavy pressure that precedes a lightning strike.
Xerxes stood up, his chair screeching against the marble. He was a head taller than his brothers, a mountain of cold ambition. "No one 'gets' her. She is the anchor of the estate. She is to be respected. She is to be protected."
Zion stood too, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "Protected? Or hoarded, Xerxes? You always were greedy."
Kylo's hands came down on the back of my chair, his grip so tight the wood groaned. "She isn't a piece of land, Xerxes. She's a match. And this house is full of gasoline."
I sat in the center of the storm, my eyes downcast, the perfect picture of a terrified girl caught between three monsters.
But beneath the table, my hand was clenching the small, silver butter knife I had palmed when Xerxes wasn't looking.
Let them fight, I thought, my heart a cold, steady stone. Let them tear each other apart for the right to 'own' me. It only makes my job easier.
"Enough!" I cried out, my voice cracking with a practiced sob. I stood up, letting the knife slip into the hidden pocket of my lace dress. "I am a human being! Not a... a prize! If you want me to stay, if you want your billions, then treat me with some dignity!"
I turned and fled the room, making sure to let one tear fall as I passed Xerxes.
I didn't stop until I reached the library. I leaned against the door, breathing hard. The house was silent again, but I knew they were still there. Thinking. Wanting.
I walked to the far end of the library, to the shelf Silas had always kept locked. I didn't need a key. I knew the trick. I pulled a specific volume of The Divine Comedy, and the false back clicked open.
Inside wasn't the file. Not yet. It was a small, velvet-lined box.
I opened it. Inside lay a single, black-handled dagger. My father's dagger. The one Silas had taken as a trophy the night he destroyed my family.
"I'm coming for you," I whispered to the empty room. "One by one."
I tucked the dagger into my garter, the cold steel against my thigh a comfort. I was no longer the waitress. I was no longer the orphan.
I was a Blackwood now. And Blackwoods always got what they wanted.
Even if they had to kill for it.