Page 103 of Goldsin

“Julian.” He takes a step closer. The ocean blue of his eyes ripples with emotion. “You haven’t been protecting Mom. You’ve just been sharing the pain together.”

His hands capture my face, framing it, as he closes the distance between us, pieces of broken ceramic cracking under his foot. Our eyes lock onto one another’s.

I can’t remember the last time he was tender with me.

“You need to stop getting in the way of Father’s anger.” His voice is grave, low. “Compared to Mom and Aurelia, you’re disposable to him. He would never kill Mother, because she brings joy to his sickness, but you? You’re nothing but a thorn in his side. One day, he’ll pluck you out.” He whispers, “And I don’t think I’ll be able to survive seeing you go. Do you understand that?”

Adrian shakes me.

My throat’s dry, a lump forming in the middle of it.

I’ve never seen Adrian stripped raw before now. But I can’t. I can’t do what he’s asking me to do. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe I’m the shittiest brother in the whole world.

But I’d prefer for Lucian to kill me with his bare hands than to face a life without the girl I’ve loved for my entire life, or one where my mother continues to slowly die with each finger he lays on her.

Last time he played smart. He brought someone else in to do the touching while he focused solely on me. But next time ... Well, there won’t be a next time, but if there is, it might be the day I finally let Emeric join in and punch the man to death.

I nod as I watch the faintest smile curve Adrian’s lips.

It’s a lie. A white lie that will let him sleep at night.

It’s the least I can do.

He takes a step away from me, and just as he’s about to leave, he places a folder on the table, tapping it with his index finger. “The information you asked me for on the owner of Lavish Eden.”

With a heavy sigh, I open the folder and skim through it.

There’s no real reason why I asked Adrian for information on the new member of the Inferno Consortium. I don’t know the guy, but I loved using his club. Without it, I wouldn’t have felt Aurelia’s body writhing beneath mine.

I flip over the pages.

Lorenzo Mancini.

There’s a full biography on the guy, but no picture. Nothing interesting. He’s lived a pretty normal life—if you consider being a billionaire normal.

He’s the son of the Mancini family. I’ve heard of them before. They’re the richest family in Italy, owners of various hotel chains, some of which the Inferno Consortium uses for business events.

Lorenzo, on the other hand, seems to own a series of strip clubs and restaurants across Italy, France, Spain, and Norway. And since he just opened one here in Seattle, I guess he’s expanding his empire in the United States too.

And he’s achieved that by joining the Inferno Consortium.

They offered to make him a member for free in exchange for the use of his estates for meetings or dealings, and he got the green light to open his business in our territory.

I close the folder.

Reading about every single meeting he had with the Inferno Consortium and my father is making me nauseated.

Heading back to my room, I close the door behind me and throw the folder onto my bed, moving to the bathroom to take a shower. I’m stripping off my pants when I catch sight of the art piece Aurelia left on my chest last night.

So much has changed. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact she kills people. I always knew she was special, a missing piece of my soul. And if my soul is dark and depraved, then she can’t be sunshine and rainbows.

But the truth is, we made her the way she is today. My family did.

Lucian did.

The thought jolts me to realize, through the havoc of these past few days, I forgot to ask her how it went with Marcus Whitman. Not how she killed him or if she did, because I heard every symphony she sucked out of him, but how it all turned out afterward.

Grabbing my phone, I send a quick message to Valentine.

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