Ambition, page 5
And it’s as if Cosmo can see all of this between Von and I because he shrugs and says simply, “One day the both of you might regret using us as crutches.” Then he flips his lighter in his hand and brushes by me with a small smile.
“You know they’re doing that…thing tonight, right? The uh…” Karia snaps her fingers in an adorable way, and I smile tightly at her, waiting for her to get to the point. She wandered in not long after I left her with Von and Cosmo in the living room and changed into shorts. Von said he had a call.
Fuck him and fuck his call.
But when I actually think about what Karia is saying, I remember. Solemn. “The ritual,” I say. “The bonding one, for the old dudes.” I glance past her, ensuring Cosmo isn’t lingering in the hallway. Another thing he can’t know that she can.
She laughs, bright and easy, and I hate that I kind of like her. Actually, I don’t hate that. I just hate Von, right now. For this moment only.
“Don’t worry, Cosmo is on another smoke break. And yeah, Solemn, right?”
I nod once, yanking out my dirty clothes from my Tumi suitcase. The red dress, underwear, silk PJs. Theo has a thing for red, and it definitely looks good on me. I toss it all into the black laundry basket in my walk-in, making every little shot. When I’ve nearly gone through everything and made it to my skincare and makeup bag, I glance up at Karia, perched on the edge of my bed.
“Did you need something or…” I trail off, waiting for her to get to a point.
She clasps her hands around her shins, tucking her knees to her chest as she glances at my hardwoods. “Von is pissed about something. Before the call, he was…mad.” She lifts her eyes to me. “Cosmo couldn’t even make him laugh. What is it?”
“You mean Von’s acting like an asshole?” I shrug once, pulling out my silver makeup bag and sliding the golden zipper open. “That sounds like regular Bentzen to me.”
“Yeah.” She laughs but it’s forced. “But also he’s…not talking. So it’s just me and Cosmo sitting in awkward silence while Von seems to sulk.”
I glance up as I walk over to my vanity, positioned perfectly so the morning sun beams down on my face as I’m applying my makeup in the morning. I start pulling out foundation, highlighter, mascara, and lip liner. “Probably best that way,” I tell Karia, her eyes catching mine, but only for a moment. “You both can leave. He deserves to have y’all desert him.”
She frowns as she looks at my bedroom floor.
The thing is I don’t think she’s in love with him or anything. But she has this hopeless crush. She’s like a puppy following him around. I get it. He’s one year older than her, much higher in rank, he’s tall, in great shape, has good hair, those stupid fucking eyes, and even though I’m not sure he knows it, he is phenomenal in bed. He makes me feel like everything I do turns him on. Like I’m immaculate
He’s probably the same with Karia. Because she is immaculate. And she’s got this innocence I think Von could eventually fall in love with. She certainly wouldn’t be fucking a drug dealer for secrets. Wholesome. He needs that.
I swallow the bitterness in my mouth from that thought and focus back on arranging my makeup in its proper, diamond-encrusted brush holders, accidentally jostling a few perfume bottles in my frustration. I glance at the scent of Curses—yes, really; it smells like sex in a gothic cathedral—and try not to remember it’s Von’s favorite.
Yeah. I fail, obviously.
“I just wondered if you knew how I could cheer him—”
“What are you doing in here, Karia?” Von’s toneless voice cuts through her question and I look up at him, standing fully in my doorway, hands in his pockets. He might have asked her the question, but he’s staring at me.
“She was chatting while Cosmo smoked. That a problem?” I plunk my last brush away, then toss the makeup bag on the vanity table and fold my arms, turning to face him fully.
His eyes dart from me to my makeup and perfumes, and back again. I wonder if he’s remembering how he made that little moan one of those nights after the warehouse, when he dipped his nose to my neck and inhaled the Curses scent and it’s like he wanted to eat me alive.
Now you’re thinking about it, Isadora.
“Well, I know you’ll probably want to get cleaned up so…” He says it like an insult.
We both know that.
But Karia has no idea where I was or who I was with last night and I don’t plan to tell her, considering discretion is pretty fucking important to my entire career. As Von knows.
Then he glances past me, at Karia, and jerks his chin. “Come sit with me,” he says, his voice different from how he spoke to me, his gray eyes focused on her.
I hear Karia slide off my bed and a moment later she’s walking past me, her slim hips swaying as she does as he bids.
I roll my eyes and head toward the door too, eager to get in the shower and put distance between me and Von, with running water and heat and something to dissolve my thoughts and the tension in my muscles, and aches throughout my body from last night.
Without thinking, I wince as I rotate my neck, my throat sore and all the tendons tight.
Karia walks past Von tentatively, turning right down the hall to head to the living room. I intend to brush by him too since he doesn’t move and instead just stares me down, but when I turn to angle past him, he turns, too.
I have to tip my head up and his body is grazing mine in the small space of my doorway.
He stares down his nose at me. “You good?” he asks quietly, glancing at my throat.
I bite the inside of my cheek and fold my arms to put a little distance or something between us. “Great.”
His hands are at his hips, but he glides his fingers over my thigh, bare from changing into my gym shorts.
I breathe in and try not to let that little touch affect me.
“You sure?” he presses, grazing his fingertips up and down my skin.
Goosebumps form along my body and my nipples tighten, aching and pressed against my forearms from where they’re crossed over my chest. “Are you setting this false concern up to say something nasty?” I lift my chin. “Go ahead. Get it over with.”
His short nails scrape lightly on my thigh and a small smile curves his full lips. “No,” he says softly. “I don’t think I will. I think I’m just getting started.” He keeps brushing against my leg. “But for now I have to go put these,” he clamps his hand along my muscle, “inside her.” Then he walks away, whispers of his fingers along my thigh as he leaves.
I’m not content with him having the last word though. Fuck that. I step into the corridor and face the back of his head, his hair a mess since his hat is off now. “I wonder if she knows you’ll be wishing it was me instead.” He stiffens and stops, like I hit him. But without waiting for a response or for him to turn around, I head for the shower.
The music makes my chest tighten and my head hurt. It feels like the epitome of hell in here. This is what the poets write about. The thing the Christians disdain. The jarring cymbals and discordant notes, this is where people burn. Red lights glow in something demonic along the faux walls of the space and I huddle my knees to my chest as I bow my head, closing my eyes and trying not to hear.
It’s impossible, of course. But maybe my lifelong love of metal and rock will pay off as my eardrums ache and my throat is tight and it is like nails digging beneath my skin, all the way to bone.
Halloween is tonight. Today, maybe, though I don’t know what time it is.
A hotel party on the thirtieth. That’s what put me here. Hotel No. 7.
A stupid fucking thing that my parents only agreed to let me attend because Von would be there and Von would protect me, and our private school friends have a lot to lose too, and no one expected a man to enter the room with a forged key card. No one expected everyone to be so drunk that none of us heard him come in. Tiptoe to the first bathroom in the suite, where I had fallen asleep on the floor and the boy I blew was dead to the world in the tub.
Von… I don’t know where he was. I told him to leave me alone. To let me fuck London, an older guy, one who didn’t go to our school but got invited through a mutual friend. It was such bad sex. I did all the work, and I didn’t orgasm.
And I sent Von away.
I sent him away.
“You know it’s not you they want,” the guard in my room says, yelling over the music. I don’t know how he can stand it but when I lift my head and meet his dark eyes, I see it then. Beige earplugs in his ears, visible from his cropped hair, his temple pink due to the reflection of the red lights.
He isn’t smiling at me, gun on his hip, arms folded.
I don’t speak as the music assaults us both.
He comes closer then, bends down so his hands are on his thighs. I lift my chin and don’t shrink away, my nostrils flaring and catching the scent of his sweat.
Or maybe it’s mine.
“It’s the redhead. Mads’s son. Mads has deeper secrets than your parents, love.” He glances at my white T-shirt. I’m not wearing a bra beneath.
I hug myself tighter, trying to shield what I can.
“But you probably have something just as deep, don’t ya?”
I freeze, the music screaming around us and the man still doesn’t smile.
“Don’t worry though. You’ll be okay. Your friend though…” He shrugs, sighing as he straightens. “I don’t think he will.”
Then the bastard turns his back to me.
Because he thinks I’m safe.
Because he doesn’t know I’m going to kill him.
Using me as a pawn is one thing.
But Von…
Last night he grabbed my wrist so gently, tried to tug me away from London. “Isa, you don’t even know this guy,” he said, gestured with his free hand toward the bathroom. “Not in a hotel. Not here—”
“It’s a five-star suite, Von.” I snatched my hand back. I watched his eyes go round and sad.
I turned my back on him.
I left him there.
Now, I tear my eyes away from the guard, scanning the space between the erected wall and the concrete floor.
And I see something glinting under the red lights.
I see metal prongs.
Sharp.
A pitchfork. How fitting.
I emerge from the bathroom to find Von sitting on the floor of the opposite wall, spine pressed to it, knees bent, forearms resting atop them.
I clutch the towel around me with one hand and my other drifts instinctively to my shower caps, fingers fluttering over the waterproof material of two, because one isn’t enough for the sheer amount of my hair even when it’s clipped up like now. I take pride in my curls and my routine is extensive, but I don’t wash it every day, hence the caps.
Steam billows out behind me and I frown in the darkness of the hall.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my pulse drumming harder as he lifts his head, gray eyes that make me feel like falling peering into mine.
He’s still in his navy blue sweats and socks, and nothing else. His abs are tense, tight lines, muscles in his shoulders rigid. He looks like he’s a statue. A gorgeous one at my feet. “I know why he wants you there tomorrow,” he says quietly, his voice raspy like he hasn’t slept much in the past twenty-four hours either.
Or maybe Karia made him moan so loudly while I was showering he’s just lost his voice. Perhaps Cosmo watched and got off on both of them.
I frown, then wrap my arms around myself, keeping the deep red towel in place on my body, water gliding down my thighs, over my knees, my calves. I step further into the hall, the chill of the place drifting over my collarbone, marble flooring like ice against my soles. An upscale apartment in Alexandria has nice touches like that, but only one shared bathroom, of course. Which is why I thought he was out here; waiting for it or something before he ran back to Karia.
“Why? And how did you find out? And where’s Karia and Cosmo?” I already relayed most of what Cain said to Von when we met up in the hallway at Nox, before our drive, and he had little to say.
The mask was back in place.
Even now, as he studies me with frigid gray eyes, sitting on the floor like a guardian outside of the bathroom door, I see his detachment, so different from how he kissed me in the training room. I liked that kiss, aggressive as it was. He wouldn’t usually do something like that and I liked how he did, even if, like I told him, it didn’t change anything.
Even if he invited our friends over immediately after to prove a point.
“Dad came by. Before his little ceremony, you know.”
My stomach swoops. So I missed Mads, who is my adviser for this job. If I had known he was coming, of course, I would have waited. But as it was, jumping into the shower as soon as I disentangled myself from Karia and Von and Cosmo was first on my list of things to do today. Taking a nap and ensuring dark circles didn’t deepen under my eyes was another. Now, I’m not sure I’ll get around to that one, depending on Von’s words.
“And he didn’t wait for me?” I ask, not bothering to hide the annoyance slipping into my tone.
Von tilts his head back, exposing the strong column of his pale throat as he stares up at me. “No. He didn’t.” He smiles snidely.
“Stop fucking gloating,” I snap.
He shrugs, not remorseful. “Anyway, another shipment—all the worst stuff—is due to arrive next week. The 6 want Writhe to subvert it, but first they need the information on who and where it’s from. They only know it’s coming.”
“Yes, and Theo mentioned to his guard, Lenox, that next week was tight. Schedule wise. I think it’s arriving in a plane. He said it right in front of me. Tomorrow night, I might be able to get closer to finding out exactly what that means and—”
“Tomorrow is Friday. They don’t have time for you to get closer. They need you to get it.” Von practically snarls the words and I narrow my eyes. “Who. And where. Both pieces of intel.”
“Okay. So I will. I’ll get it.”
“Yes, with Cain’s help. He has a contact inside Sancte’s compound. He’ll be able to find out precisely where any information on meetings like these is kept, and you can access it based on his intel.”
At this, I laugh. “You think Theo Sancte simply writes down his shipment dates in a ledger? If that’s how all of us are conducting business these days, well, I missed that memo. Somewhere beneath Writhe’s echoing commandment of Do Not Write Anything Down. Ever.”
Von shrugs one shoulder, muscles flexing along his arms. I can’t help staring at the freckles there, on his shoulder cap. A circle of them. Like a dainty crown.
“It’s digital, Isa.”
“And likely protected by at the very least a passcode. Besides, if Cain has a contact, why would that person not relay the information? Why send me?” Mads never gave me a date. Never mentioned an upcoming shipment. He only wanted me to find out what I could, get a feel for how Theo ran his operations from the inside. It was a general assignment, I thought, about the supplier. A test, to see how well I could do. Now, the pressure burns through my limbs and I know napping is absolutely not in the cards, and likely, neither is sleep later tonight. Everything is ramping up in a way beyond my control; I didn’t even get to speak to Mads and texting him about an assignment is out of the question. Irritation eats at me as I stare at my best friend, on the floor at my feet. If Karia and Cosmo weren’t here, if Von wasn’t trying to make me jealous, would anything have changed? Would I have delayed the shower? Gotten to speak to Mads myself?
Just before I snap at Von, I see his eyes catch on my toes.
I glance down at the emerald-green polish from my last pedicure; only two days ago, a necessity when escorting to Theo Sancte. Von’s throat rolls as his gaze travels up to my ankles, my shins. The barest hint of my thigh, before the towel covers the rest of me from view.
“Because that person is invaluable.” Von says, and it takes me a second to realize he’s finally answering my fucking question. “A contact on the inside.” Von speaks the words slowly, articulating every syllable. He has always spoken that way and I think it makes him sound both snotty and smart. I usually kind of like it, although I’ve never said as much, preferring to tease him instead. His eyes flick up to mine, locking there for long moments before he adds, “They can’t be caught; they can’t die. You, on the other hand, are disposable.” Slowly, he stands to his feet, the movement lithe. He towers over me, stepping closer in the small width of the hallway.
His eyes never leave mine as he stares down at me, a snarl curling on his plush top lip. “They do not care if you die trying to gather the information. If you slip up after sucking Theo’s dick.” His cheekbones, lifted and sharp, turn the slightest shade of pink in the anger I can feel from him.
It reflects back inside of me. He is belittling me all in the name of now-concealed jealousy. Fuck him. Fuck Mads for not waiting for me. “I beg to differ. My parents would care very much, and so would Mads.” Even if I hate him right now. “They either believe I can do it, or they trust me to know when to pull out if necessary.”
Von’s cheek lifts in a smirk. “Does Theo know how to do that? Did he last night?”
“Fuck off, Von.” I tighten my arms across my chest. “Get out of my fucking face. I don’t know why you’re inserting yourself into any of this. It isn’t your job. Get back to fucking Karia and stay out of this.”
He stares at me a moment, his body curving towards mine. For a second, I wonder if he will tell me to make him get out of my face. If we will spar right here.
And I have to ask it, the anger pushing through my own poorly hidden feelings. “Is she still here?” Was she here when Mads came? Did Von send her away? Of course he did, but out of the condo? Back home? And why don’t I ask about Cosmo? Why do I make this a thing?
Von’s lips tilt into a soft smile. “Why don’t you get dressed…” He flicks his gaze up and down my body. “And come find out?”
