Page 37 of Black Castle

Does she even know she is talking to someone else? That the man she has been giggling with over the phone is gone since last night? That she is now speaking to his wicked twin brother?

His fingers tighten around the phone, wishing it’s that delicate vein in her neck fluttering beneath the weight of his hold.

“Will you, um, ever intentionally hurt or kill anyone?” There is caution in her tone, hesitance masked in an attempt at casualness, like she is asking about the state of the weather and not if he is capable of murder.

Zev’s gaze floats back to the body the soldiers are finally hauling out of the room, then his eyes return to the red and sticky stain coating his fingers.

“Do you think I’d ever do such a thing?” His voice drips with mockery, silky smooth but wrong.

He hears her sigh. So fucking oblivious.

“Right? Kenji can be so out of pocket sometimes. He was like, ‘what if you’re in the Mafia and you know Mafias like to kill people, and I was like ‘geez, he can’t even hurt a freaking fly. I mean, he’s a soldier but still, he can’t kill people just like that—”

Her words begin to blur, stretch, and warp. A high-pitched ringing screeches in his head. Zev staggers.

“Boss?” A hand catches his shoulder, firm and grounding. His phone is ripped from his hand, and the sudden absence of weight in his palm infuriates him.

The scent of peppermint and smoke fills his nostrils. It’s Matteo Serrano—the person holding him. He is their third-in-command. Their half-sister’s son.

“I am—” Zev tries to speak, but his tongue feels swollen, his mouth heavy, wrong.

Then suddenly, the momentary paralysis. For a split second, he feels nothing.

He isn’t dying, for sure. But he knows this feeling. Lucan is still trying to force himself out.

Fucking again.

Zev’s body tenses, every muscle locking as rage floods his veins. His twin brother, that self-righteous bastard, is trying to smother him again like he is some plague, trying to erase him because of her. That fucking girl out of nowhere.

A woman.

A fragile, little thing.

Has Lucan really lost himself to some fairytale? And why is he so desperate to keep him away from this girl? Does he think that he is unworthy of her?

That alone snaps something inside Zev. A wire pulled too fucking tight. His fingers twitch with the phantom sensation of wrapping around someone’s throat.

He will not be discarded.

He will not be locked away like some unwanted memory, all because of a girl from nowhere. He will not be denied his right.

Since Lucan is so desperate to keep this girl hidden, Zev will have no choice but to meet her. After all, he never really did what his brother wanted in the past. He will not be doing it now.

Zev needs to meet her. If Lucan really thinks Zev doesn’t deserve to meet the girl, then he must meet her. That resolve alone twists his lips into something vicious. If she is the reason his brother is trying to bury him alive, then she must be deliciously dangerous.

His vision flickers, the word tilting. His mind thrashes against the pull, against the hands dragging him into the abyss.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Not yet—

Darkness. Then silence.

But not for long.

Zev grins into the void.

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