Chapter Six
951 Words
The office felt way smaller tonight. Voss sat by the floor to ceiling glass, watching Marseille flicker like a dying nervous system. In his hand, he held a glass of 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti he hadn't touched. Across from him, Rino leaned against the doorframe, watching his friend with the kind of heavy silence only brothers can understand.
“The ring,” Rino said, breaking the quiet. “Thr look on that collector's face in Bastia is still fresh in my memory. He thought he had found a long lost and homeless relic or sort.”
Voss’s thumb traced the gold crest on his pinky. “ Didn’t he? He just didn't realize the Emperor wasn't dead yet.” He gave a faint smile that faded too quickly.
“It took us months to track that piece of gold,” Rino mused, a grim smile tugging at his lips. "When the alert hit our system, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a trap. Imagine a V-Lord signet appearing in a pawn ledger in a back alley shop. Someone might be dangling bait to see if you would crawl out of the Mediterranean.”
Voss closed his eyes. He could still feel the weight of that day. He had been back in Marseille for a week, operating from the basement, his body itself together by spite and Amelia’s careful stitching. When Rino had walked in with the ring, what he felt wasn't relief, he felt a cold monumental shift in his soul.
Rino mentioned something about the collector. “He swore it was a girl who sold the ring. His voice came out all rough and broken when he said it. She did not even try to haggle or anything, she just took the money and left.”
“That sounds like it sealed everything for you,” Rino said in a low voice. “Like the last piece that fit. She was not only giving away your spot, but she sold off that ring, the one thing that meant your whole family. All to get out of there, and that is why you kept moving forward, right, without turning around.”
Voss stayed quiet. He really could not say a word. Thinking about the ring just brought back all that anger, holding it in place like nothing else could. It proved the whole time in Bonifacio was just some deal, not anything real or lasting. Kind of makes you wonder how deep that cuts.
Rino kept going anyway. He glanced at his watch quickly. “And get this. The teacher of the year is waiting in the lobby of the district office. She’s been there for three hours, Voss. She wants to see the man behind the foundation. She wants a meeting.”
A muscle jumped in Voss's jaw. The urge to see her to see if the light in her eyes had finally faded, to see if she still smelled like ink and salt, that hit him like a physical blow. He wanted to stand over her, to let her see the monster she had created.
But he wasn't Adrian anymore. Adrian was the man who had been gutted on a dock. Voss was the man who survived.
“No,”Voss said, his voice flat, drained of any color. “I will not be seeing her. Not yet.”
Rino raised an eyebrow. “She looks like trouble Voss. She told the foreman that she would sleep on the pavement before she let the bulldozers near that school.”
“Then let her sleep on the pavement,” Voss replied, turning his chair back toward the dark expanse of the city. “Stall her. Tell the guys to give her the run around for three more days. Let her sit in waiting rooms until the air feels like metal. If she doesn't sign the waiver by Friday, pull all the plug. Every grant, every bit of city funding her school relies on, put some weight on them or get rid of everything. I want her to come to a realization that in this city, I am the air she breathes. And I can stop whenever I want.”
Rino nodded, a shadow of hesitation crossing his face. “You are playing with fire, brother. Revenge is a blow out, but it is easy to choke on the bones."
“I have been choking for six years, Rino,”
Voss whispered, finally taking a sip of the wine. It tasted like a complex symphony of truffles, dried roses, blackcurrant, spices, and earthy notes, featuring a silky, velvety texture that belied its immense power and incredibly long finish. “It’s her turn to be gagged.”
As Rino exited, the silence rushed back in. Voss looked down at his ring. It sparkled, cold and indifferent. He told himself he was stalling because he wanted to break her spirit, but deep down, in the place where Adrian still lived, he knew the truth.
He was afraid.
He was the V Lord, the shadow of Marseille, but he was terrified that one look at Amelia Hart would turn his obsidian heart back into the soft, bleeding thing she had once held in her hands.
“Just three days," he muttered to the empty room. “To remember why i hate your entire existence."
Outside, the wind off the Mediterranean picked up, howling through the canyons of the city. Voss gripped the arms of his chair until the leather groaned. The war had not yet started, and he was already losing his grip on the peace he had built out of ruins.
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