Ambition, page 7
Yes, Von.
He can take care of me. He can handle me. And he knows every bad thing I’ve ever done, and he loves me in spite of it.
I open my mouth to call out his name but at the same time he slips his hand to my jaw and turns my head toward him. He spits in my mouth, and I whimper as he kisses me and I’m tilting my pelvis to fuck his hand and I’m…
“Fuck, Von, I’m coming.”
“Oh, such a good girl for me,” he says in my mouth, his forehead pressed to mine, his hand gently cradling my throat, so different from Theo’s touch last night. Everything about this moment is. There’s safety in this release, with Von, even with an audience.
I clench and release and he pushes his fingers deeper in, slipping up to his knuckles and I’m pulsing around him and wetness rushes out between my thighs and my chest is heaving and everything is so hot and drenched and I can feel how warm his body is underneath me, how much he wants me.
“You feel good, Isa?” he asks me against my cheek as I slowly float down, my hips still tilted up, keeping him deep inside me.
“Yeah,” I say, eyes kept closed. “Yeah. I do.”
“Gorgeous girl,” he whispers, voice soft and words sweet in a way he reserves only for moments like these. Stolen, ripped apart from Writhe, snatched from our real lives.
But as my breathing evens out and my pulse slows a fraction, I open my eyes.
They find Von’s, automatic, gray edged out by his large pupils.
And I see her, beyond him.
Karia.
A moan leaves her lips as Von’s fingers are stuffed inside of me.
I slowly lift my gaze.
Cosmo is staring down at her in some sort of awe as he makes her come. And watching them, shame rolls through me. Not from the odd thing we just did, but knowing even though she is getting fingered by Cosmo de Actis, she didn’t sleep with Theo Sancte last night. She didn’t disappoint Von the way I will again tomorrow night.
And she doesn’t have the drive I do, not when it comes to Writhe.
When I turn my head, Von is looking at me like I’m sacred, holy, but we both know I’m not. And I have to break this bubble, ruin this illusion, because if not, tomorrow night will kill him all over again.
“Von.”
His eyes glisten but it’s his mouth that recognizes the way I said his name. Too heavy. His lips press together but he doesn’t move. “Don’t,” he whispers, knowing I will.
“I can…” I swallow, shifting a little on his lap. “I can return the favor if you want me to—”
“Return the fucking favor?” He pulls out of me then, releases my neck, then he pushes me. Not hard, but enough that I stand, the blanket falling, and I straighten my shorts as I turn to face him, aware Cosmo and Karia are now staring at us.
He’s glaring up at me with hard eyes, hands on his thighs. I see the outline of his erection, the taut muscles of his body, but I realize he does not want me on him. Not now.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, voice low, jaw set.
I feel kind of dirty, which maybe I should, but when I left Theo’s so early this morning—he had a day trip, early flight—I didn’t feel like this.
I glance at Karia and Cosmo. “Or maybe you’ll get them to finish you off.” I whisper-snarl it and I know it’s fucked up but I don’t understand why he asked them here anyway except maybe to prove a point or—
“Fuck you, Isadora.” He can’t look at me as he says it though. He turns his head, running a hand along his jaw. “Fuck you.”
“Right. Well. I have to go—”
“Anyone know the time?” Cosmo’s too-cheerful voice cuts me off.
Von flinches, like he forgot they were here as he drops his hand to dangle with his other in his lap.
I take a step back from him, my arms over my chest.
Karia slowly sits up, blanket slipping down to her hips, her eyes sleepy as she flicks her gaze from me, then to Von, and Cosmo is staring at us both, too. She glances down at Von’s lap, and I know she sees he’s hard and I kind of want to snatch her eyeballs from her head for it but I know that’s highly unfair.
She frowns. “Sorry, perhaps we shouldn’t have…done that.” She shakes her head, then rubs a fist over her eye and looks up at me, glancing briefly at my shorts. Her mouth opens, then closes, and I decide she has a use for me after all that has nothing to do with adding to the sexual fucking tension.
Then again, to piss Von off, maybe I should ask the other one for a ride to see Mads and find out what he couldn’t wait around to tell me. “Cosmo, can I get a ride from—”
“No. You fucking can’t,” Von cuts in, glaring up at me.
But when my eyes find Cosmo, he’s smiling softly. “I rode with Karia, so if she’d like to drive us both?”
“Isadora,” Von snarls.
I don’t look at him as I jump my gaze to Karia and she laughs nervously and says, “Of course you can get a ride with me, Isadora.” She looks at Von as he turns to her, frowning. “Sorry,” she says, “but I didn’t get much sleep last night with Cosmo, and you called me so early, I should probably stop being lame sleeping on your couch and head back to bed after I drop Isadora off.”
“Great,” I say, and I turn away before Von can catch my eye again and I wonder if he knew she was fucking Cosmo when he called her over.
ISADORA
The music is an assault.
The music is an asset.
My mind flips the thought just like that. The guard does not watch me carefully. Where am I supposed to go? The walls are temporary; erected partitions. So I could run past them; I’m not in chains. Two people brought me kicking and screaming to this spot, but a gun in my face had kept me right here on the floor.
Likely unintentionally, the guard gave me a gift when he told me the truth. They took me to get to Von, and in turn, to get to Mads for whatever money or information or stolen power they wanted. Mads is the Duo of Writhe, and the leader, Stein, almost never lets his own son leave their house, so Von is the next best thing.
I’m not anything valuable in my kidnapper’s eyes, but even most professional criminals at least hesitate before a homicide. And killing me would ensure Mads gave them nothing.
I don’t look at the guard dead on.
Only out of the corner of my eye, in brief glances. The pinpoint focus of slyly taking in his face gives me something to concentrate on that isn’t the music. It feels as if my eardrums are bleeding and my temples are throbbing, but my brain doesn’t have to zero in on the discomfort.
I sweep my gaze to my right, glancing at the few inches of space between the black partition and the granite concrete.
There is a thick handle beside the pitchfork, maybe to a shovel. I don’t know why the weapons are within reach. I don’t know where I am. But places like this usually come crashing down in smoke and flames after the crimes are committed.
I take a deep breath.
I imagine where I will bury those five tines on the guard’s body.
Another sly glance.
He is looking at his fucking phone.
Another inhale.
An exhale.
Then I spring up and sprint over toward my salvation.
“So that was weird, yeah?” Cosmo’s voice floats from the back seat of the BMW and I have to smile a little as I press my legs together on Karia’s passenger side. “I mean, I’ve seen the aftermath of you and Von years ago, but I’ve never heard him make you—”
“Can we not?” Karia interrupts, glancing at Cosmo in her rearview mirror.
I hide my smile with my hand and turn my head to look out her tinted window. The sky is dark plum, streaks of gray clouds heavy with rain. The paved driveways all wind up and back, homes set into the clutches of forest as Karia drives down the private street all of Writhe lives on.
Despite the fact the houses are hidden, I know what most of them look like.
This is what crime will steal for you.
One day, I want to move back to this street, in my own home. As it is, we pass my childhood house, and I don’t spare it a glance. There’s nothing to see but dark pavement anyway, but I don’t want to think of the ways my parents have coddled me since the kidnapping.
As if I didn’t get myself out of there.
But maybe they think that was Von.
Perhaps they’re scared of what I could do if I unleashed myself once again.
“He’s in love with you,” Cosmo continues in a low voice from behind me, but despite the words to me, I wonder if he’s talking more to Karia, the way his tone is almost faraway-like. “If you didn’t know.”
Karia shifts in her seat. “He does look at you like you hung the moon, Isa, I’m not gonna lie.”
I say nothing about that and instead focus on what I’m here for. “I’ll run in,” I tell Karia, folding my arms over my chest and sitting up straighter in the passenger seat. I’m in gray sweats, a cropped black sweatshirt that’s baggy and hangs to just under my ribs. Maybe I should have dressed up, but I feel most like myself in these clothes.
Both Karia and Cosmo are quiet for a moment as she continues driving around a curve, trees swelling up on either side of the road. Ritual Drive goes far back, the way all of Writhe and our colleagues need so much space for their homes that are more like compounds.
Pop music plays in the background of our silence, and I force myself to focus on what I’m going to say to Mads when I get there.
Von shouldn’t get my assignments. He shouldn’t have the intel. Even when you brought this to me initially, you should have spoken to me in private. I could have told Von as little or as much as I wanted.
Now, he knows everything and his attitude about it has landed additional stress on my shoulders.
“Cosmo,” Karia says sharply, glancing in the rearview. “Cover your ears.”
I frown, turning to glance at him, hunched over in the small back seat, but he takes out AirPods and puts them into his ears, then busies himself on his phone.
“Um, is this about your uh…assignment?” Karia’s timid voice breaks through my thoughts as I straighten in my seat.
I glance at her pointedly. “What do you mean?” Surely neither of the Bentzens would be so stupid as to speak about my task in front of her and Cosmo, who isn’t even in this life.
She flexes and curls her fingers around the wheel, both hands as she stares straight ahead, proceeding forward at a slow crawl.
Von used to race his first car—a Supra—down this street at fatal speeds. I would be right there in the passenger seat, grinning my face off and egging him on.
Karia nor Cosmo ever went with us on those adventures.
Usually when it comes to danger, it’s Von and I against the world.
Now, it feels like something has snapped in our friendship.
“They went to the patio, outside,” Karia says. “I was just in the kitchen and Cosmo was on the couch. I heard snatches of conversation. Von saying he wanted the assignment but Mads was telling him no.”
I tense in my seat, grinding my teeth together as I stare at the side of Karia’s head. “And did you hear anything else?” I press, fucking furious at Von all over again. He tried to steal my job from me right before he got me off. Motherfucker.
Karia glances at me and shakes her head once. “No. I went back to the couch after I got a water bottle from the fridge.” She smiles a little, cheeks rising as she does. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Mads left kind of angry. Didn’t say two words to me or Cosmo. I’m sure Von didn’t sabotage anything.”
I’m still staring at her but I’m not really seeing her. I’m thinking about how obvious it is to everyone around us that Von would do anything to keep me bubble-wrapped and it does not make me feel cocooned. Instead, I’m claustrophobic.
I want to hack his bubble wrap to fucking pieces.
“Even my parents talk about you,” Karia continues, smiling still. “Say Mads has spoken highly of you taking his place one day.”
Despite my irritation with Von, a thrill of warmth trails up my spine. “Really?”
Karia nods once. “Dad says you have your head on straight and Mom says you’re tough as nails.”
I relax marginally into my seat, turning my gaze to the drive. “All true,” I mutter.
Karia laughs a little and I smile myself as Cosmo hums a song only he can hear under his breath.
Slowly I descend into the basement of the Bentzen home.
I have probably spent half of my life here, but most of it on the third floor, in Von’s room. I slowly glided his fingers inside of me when we were teenagers, and he was trembling and I was aching for him. I crawled down his body and pulled off his pants to take him in my mouth under this roof.
But I have rarely ventured down here, and never the day of a ceremony.
It is extremely dark and Lora, Von’s mother, directed me this way as she conducted an orchestra of organizing catering in the form of food, wine, and something that looked curiously like blood in a mason jar.
Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what it was.
I swallow tightly, one white sneaker after another tiptoeing down the stairs as I grip the iron railing. Unlike the curving, curling double staircases in the rest of the house, this one is dingy, drab, and the stairs are only wood, the railing set against a gray brick wall. All of the irritation I had about Mads speaking to Von instead of waiting for me and Von trying to ruin my job fades marginally as I inhale and catch the scent of damp grass, heavy rain. It reminds me of running through a cemetery once under the night sky with Von, both of us drunk and dazed and one week from graduating high school, our hands linked together.
But this doesn’t hold that same promise.
This feels…more somber.
And the deeper I go, the darker it gets. The colder too, a chill curling over the back of my neck.
I keep going, straining my ears for any sound, any indication Mads Bentzen is truly down here like Lora said he was. There was a mass of people upstairs, Lora and her staff, but none of the men of Writhe.
Are they all down here?
Will I be confronting Mads with his posse flanking him?
When I called him, he told me he would have a few minutes during the day he could talk to me. That was it. A clipped conversation; he is colder and brisker than Von, all the time. Sometimes I wonder if Lora likes fucking a statue, but then again, I know how good Von is in bed so…
I shake my head, clearing the thought as I reach the last step.
I face a wall, the only way to go is right, and I know there’s a short corridor that then leads to an open space, about the size of my entire kitchen and living room combined at the condo.
But it takes me a minute to want to slip deeper into the dark. There are light switches; I’ve seen this place illuminated. It’s surprisingly not entirely finished; just gray brick, panel lighting in an exposed ceiling overhead, and cement floors. Yet I don’t reach for the switches because I think for Solemn it’s supposed to stay dark; no electricity and only candlelight. I’ve heard the superstition but I’m not entirely sure of it.
Who knows the truth?
I’ve never been invited to a Writhe ceremony; Von has gone to one and he said it was mostly boring. Despite the advancements Writhe has made in terms of equality, they are still archaic and sexist in many ways.
Case in point, the fact Lora isn’t down here.
Fuck that. When I’ve earned my way to the top, the women’s attendance will be required and the men can prepare the offerings, including the food.
I take another breath, catching that cemetery scent, then step off into the gloom, turning right and slowly walking down the hallway. It feels more narrow than usual, like it might close in on me, and I reach my hands out a little ways in front of me so nothing can freak me out by surprise.
The further I walk, though, the more I notice a flickering light ahead, in the main space of the basement. Candlelight, pale orange and yellow, illuminating the drywall and the stone cement floor.
Some of the tension leaves my muscles and I lower my arms by my side, but my pulse still beats out a wary rhythm.
And as I come to the archway leading into the candlelit room, I see shadows flickering along the wall. Skeletal, long and lean and lacking…substance. The head isn’t quite right. Something is bulbous about it; inhuman.
I pause, chewing the inside of my cheek. Shit. Maybe I should just let this go. Von told me what they discussed, and Karia doesn’t seem to think he swayed his father in any way and he never has before so… Maybe I should leave.
The shadow moves, like it's twisting around. Turning to face the entranceway.
Me.
I have about three seconds to decide if this is worth some kind of freak show that I don’t want a ticket to but before I can bolt, someone else steps through the doorway.
Not the shadow.
Someone I know of though.
Tall, lean, dressed in all black, his dark brows pulled together, a scowl on his asymmetrical mouth.
He stops where he is, gazing at me in a way that feels dangerous, his eyes flicking from my shoes up to my hair, but it doesn’t seem as if he’s checking me out. More like he’s plotting my death.
Cold, devilish blue eyes focus on mine.
His hands are by his sides, and I see a black ring on his finger.
Lace-up, blacked out shoes that look like Chucks but I think they’re something else and shit.
I don’t know why I’m taking in his clothes, but his presence is fucking eerie.
You don’t want to stare down Lucifer Malikov for long.
I have no idea why he’s here but perhaps he had a message for Mads or a blessing to give over the ceremony or… I don’t know. The leader of the Unsaints does whatever he wants I guess.
After a moment, he looks past me, dismissing me. Then he continues toward me, and I shuffle over, not wanting any part of his demonic presence to brush against me.
A snotty smirk curves his lips, but I don’t feel like snapping at him about it. And when he’s just about to pass me and I kinda want to run toward that shadow which doesn’t seem half-bad now, he says, his voice raspy and rough, “Mads is in there waiting for you. Good luck, Isadora.” Then he keeps walking and when I turn to track his movements, unable to stop myself, I see him pull up the hood of his hoodie over his curly black hair before he disappears into the dark.
