Page 38 of Sweet Venom

“I won’t publish something that’s just “good”. He looked at me for a moment, his expression never changing. “Come back when you’ve got something better. Something that makes even me believe in love. Because what you sold there sure doesn’t.”

His words are sharp, like a slap to the face. The irritation builds in me, but I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to make things worse.

“You’re talented,” he added, almost reluctantly, as if saying it begrudgingly. “But this? Not it.”

I stood up a little too quickly, feeling the burn of disappointment and frustration mixed in my chest. I was about to say something but I caught myself. Instead, I grabbed my iPad and closed the case with a snap.

“Fine,” I said, my voice a little too forced. “I’ll come back with something better.”

I started to leave, but then I stopped myself. I glanced back at him, and for a second, our eyes met. There’s something in his gaze—something deeper, darker—that I can’t quite place. But I don’t have time to figure it out right now. I have a million things to fix.

“Thanks for the feedback, boss,” I muttered, a little too sarcastically for my liking, and then I was out the door before Icould make a bigger fool of myself, but not before I heard him say.

“Anytime, Poetry.”

Poetry…

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

There goes my stupid…foolish heart.

Chapter

Twelve

TREATS AND THORNS

Azariel

“Cupid can take the day off. I’m perfectly content with my snacks and solitude.” – P

Months Earlier

It was three in the morning, and I was scrolling through her email, reading every rejection email she had received after she bravely put her words out there for publishing houses and literary agents to judge and decide if she was good enough. She was. They had no idea about the mistake they’d made when they made her feel like she wasn’t with their pretentious rejections.

They’d soon realize what a big mistake they had made.

I quickly typed a text message to my account and shot another message to my father.

Me: I want this place in ruins by the end of the week.

I then attached a screen capture of the publishing house who had sent her the first rejection.

Instead of replying, my phone buzzed in my hands. I stared at the phone screen. Incoming call from my father. Vitali Solonik. The Bratva’s prince. The man who hadn’t known about my existence until I was nine years old and the man who alongside Mom showed me that love and madness can go hand in hand and can be beautiful too.

I believe it is like a religion because only then can I explain why I was sitting in the darkness plotting the immediate downfall of the publishing house who rejected her— Poe and asking my father to help me move the process along.

My beautiful inconvenience had surely become a madness I couldn’t, and I wasn’t willing to shake.

Dad’s voice came through the line smooth and soft, like it always did, even when it’s coated in darker. “Son,” he said, his voice a low hum. “How are you?”

I leaned back in my chair, letting the darkness of the room swallow me. “I’m fine,” I said, the words slipping out like they meant something, even though I knew they didn’t. There’s no point in pretending with him.

He already knew. I don’t sleep. I stay up at night plotting what I’m going to take for myself next and those are the times when I’m not out hunting for my next victim.

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