Page 101 of A Love Most Fatal

“I heard about your project,” Maxim says after we look quietly over the city for a few moments.

“Was it you?” I ask.

Maxim sighs, shakes his head. I believe him. I knew it wasn’t, there was something personal about last night’s attack. Hitting us where we were down, then going for Nate and Mary.

“I will be clear, and I expect the same from you,” I start, and when he inclines his head, I go on. “I will not guarantee love. I cannot.”

He leans on the rail and turns towards me. In this position he is almost the same height as me.

“Nathaniel,” he says.

I give him the same honesty I expect from him. “Yes.” My voice doesn’t wobble nor crack. “But I will be loyal to you, and I would expect the same in exactness.”

“You do not choose him?”

“I choose for him to live.”

Maxim does not question this, and I am grateful. He runs a hand across his jaw, the shadow of a beard beneath his palm.

“I agree to those terms,” he says. “Are you very cruel?”

I give the question the thought it deserves. Beneath us, a couple emerges from the dive bar across the street, giggling and hanging all over one another.

“Some would say I am,” I say. “Though I would prefer fair.”

He looks to understand the sentiment.

“Are you? Cruel?”

He considers this as his eyes travel over the skyline, a sea of lights twinkling beyond.

“My father taught me to be very cruel. Exacting.” He examines his hands, the backs of which are marred with smooth scars on his flesh. “But my mother was different. She was forced into a marriage with a horrible man who tortured her relentlessly, lacked control in every area of her life, but she held her own rebellions. Tiny ones, in our rooms at night where she taught us to be kind.

“So yes, I have been all manner of cruel in this life, enough for ten lifetimes. But I do prefer to be kind.”

Good enough. Better than most, even. “What do you seek to gain?”

“Same as you. An heir and more bodies to protect them, and if not love, then companionship. Someone smarter than me who will tell me when I’m being an asshole.”

Two months ago, this would have been music to my ears. He is everything I wanted in a match. But now the words only serve to remind me what the arrangement will not be and who it will not be with.

Same as you.

If Nate can live a peaceful life, I will have gained much more from the arrangement.

“Someone has been after me,” I say. If he knows who it is, his lack of reaction is compelling acting.

“The rat Mary mentioned. At the gala.”

“Yes,” I say. “I’ve been trying to handle it, but last night went too far. They hurt my family.”

This catches Maxim’s attention, a part of the story he didn’t hear. We pay out the ass for discreet hospital staff, and it’s good to know that’s paid off.

“Mary,” I say, “My little sister. She was shot.”

“Is she—” Maxim’s eyes are wild at the news, just a flash, but enough to confirm my suspicions.

“She’s fine,” I give him a wry look. “Maxim, I will never ask again but tell me now if you’re in love with her.”

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