Page 103 of Souls and Sorrows

When Ermes rips the ring from my finger, I don’t even feel it or the skin it shreds from my knuckles.

Instead, I let the sea of doubt take me under.

31

“Remember when you were just a lawyer?”Zephyr asks, leaning against my desk as I hold up two ties in the sunlight from the window.

They’re different shades of wine red, though my assistant insists the differences are minimal, and I’m the only one who will notice.

“A lawyer who did cool things, like attending court and not making his assistant do it when she’s not technically allowed to practice yet?”

I give her a flat look, deciding on the tie in my right hand. “Jesus, Zephyr, it’s not like I threw you to the wolves. You have two other bar-certified attorneys there with you in the courtroom. I just send you there to take notes because Stinsky and Holland are notorious for leaving it up to the reporters.”

“Yeah, but greenhouse gasses are yourthing,” she says, her hair bouncing as she speaks. “Don’t you miss arguing with the local governments over their impact?”

“It’s not like I’ve left the practice. I’ve missed two hearings. You missed more than that last year when you had your wisdom teeth taken out.”

“They got infected—”

Holding my hand up, I cut her off and then sling my tie around my neck. “Don’t care. Point is, stop trying to create problems where there are none. I’ve not taken a day off in the years I’ve been at Cupid. I think I’ve earned this.”

She sighs, relenting finally. “You’re right.” Pausing, she takes in my outfit as I complete the Windsor at my neck. “And you look… awards-show ready.”

“Well, don’t hesitate before you say that. It makes me think you’re lying.”

Rolling her eyes, Zephyr pushes off the desk and walks to the door. “Someone’s nervous about meeting his wife’s friends.”

I don’t deign her with a response, leaving before she can start getting mushy on me because I can already tell it’s coming. I’ve been getting comments from my siblings and her all week about how they’ve never seen me look so relaxed and how I must be hitting it nightly because the skies have been totally clear.

As if my moods control the weather.

Case in point: when I step outside the office, it’s pouring rain.

Still, I don’t want to let it put me in a mood before the awards ceremony, so I ignore the bad omen and head home.

Parking in the garage, I sprint up to the penthouse, shaking off my umbrella before stepping inside. The place is quiet, and I prop the plastic tool against the wall in the foyer, glancing around.

The quiet doesn’t bother me. Most of the time, when I get home, Ariana’s either reading dirty fan fiction on her phone or taking a bubble bath in the tub upstairs, so I’m used to the serenity.

But there’s something off about it too.

Something that sets me on edge.

I walk slowly through the apartment, peeking into rooms as I creep along. Passing by the den, I reach inside for one of the pistols locked in a cabinet by the door, unlocking the safety and keeping it tucked to my thigh.

Drastic measures perhaps, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is very, very wrong.

I don’t find anything downstairs, so as my unease mounts like concrete in my stomach, I take the back staircase, avoiding steps that creak with applied weight.

Starting with our bedroom, I kick the door open, half-expecting Ariana to throw her phone at me for scaring her. But she’s not here either.

Growing frantic, I sprint into the hall and begin shoving open the other doors, each time coming up empty. When I go back to our room, I take stock of its state, noting that all of her jewelry, perfumes, and clothes are still here, where they’ve been for months.

The comforter on her side of the bed is turned down, and a bowl of half-eaten grapes sits on the nightstand, so she must have been here after Gloria, the housekeeper, left. Her phone is here, too, which stirs alarm in my mind, because now I’m starting to think she’s left of her own accord.

Somehow, that seems more likely than the odds of her being kidnapped, now that Vitus is out of the picture.

Confusion and apprehension make a toxic cocktail in my chest, and I sit on the edge of the mattress, pulling my phone out to see where the tracking device I put in her thumb pings at on the city map.

---