The scanner picked up its first device embedded in the entertainment center’s speaker. Greyson marked its location mentally and continued his search.

  They were now prisoners in a glass cage, every word and movement monitored.

  The scanner picked up two more devices—one behind the mirror in the hallway, another embedded in the kitchen’s exhaust vent. Greyson marked each location in his mind, creating a map of his father’s surveillance network. There would be more.

  “You should—”

  “Don’t fucking speak,” Greyson snapped, cutting Shadera off as his eyes flickered from the scanner to her face.

  She stared back at him for a long moment, her features hardening even as understanding dawned on her face.

  She was a fucking cunt, but she wasn’t stupid.

  She stayed silent, pressing her lips together in a tight line as she gestured for Greyson to continue. Another device, tucked into the window’s black metal frame.

  “Actually, fuck you.”

  I take it back. She is fucking stupid.

  “Your Daddy should hear when I make his perfect little prince squeal in pain,” Shadera said from behind him.

  Greyson’s head shot up, eyes locking on to hers as annoyance flared in his chest. Shadera’s back straightened.

  “Put the fucking mask back on, Serel. Taking it off is what landed us in this shit situation.”

  Greyson couldn’t hide the exasperation that washed over his face. “You trying to assassinate me is what got us into this situation. And why should I? We’re already as good as married according to mask law.” He turned away from her, moving along the wall as the scanner light turned green.

  Shadera scoffed, the sound sharp enough to cut glass. “I’ll never marry you.”

  She moved past him toward the kitchen, her gait slightly uneven from whatever damage the Veyra had done to her. Greyson tracked her movement peripherally while keeping the scanner steady. She opened the first cabinet—empty. The second held crystal glasses he’d never used. The third—

  “There we go.” She pulled out a bottle of vodka, made before the city’s partition. Worth more than most Boundary residents saw in three years. She twisted off the cap and drank straight from the bottle, no wince, no hesitation. Just a long pull that made her throat work in a way that drew his attention before he forced his eyes back to the scanner.

  She was actually insane.

  Nine devices so far. Another one in the entrance to the bedroom hallway.

  “Fuck, that’s smooth,” Shadera breathed, wiping her mouth and inspecting the bottle.

  “My father doesn’t care what you want,” Greyson said, circling back toward the living area. He would inspect the bedrooms last. “Or what I want. The law is the law, and now that we’ve seen each other’s faces, there are only two options. Death or the Vow.”

  “You’re all riding the law like it’s a dick,” she said, perching on one of the kitchen island stools like she already ran the place. Another pull from the bottle. “Your own dick, I might add, since you made them. How does it feel to get fucked by yourself?”

  “I didn’t write any of these laws, my father did,” Greyson snapped back, his patience with her childish remarks growing exceedingly thin.

  “Oh, so incest. That’s pleasant. Tell me, little heir, what’s Maximus packing? Seems like maybe two to four inch—”

  “Do you ever shut the fuck up?” Greyson finally hissed, cutting her off. “We don’t have a choice, so either deal with it or prepare to be executed beside me.”

  Greyson had no intention of dealing with it, or being executed in the square. He did, however, have every intention of finding an open window and shoving her from it. They couldn’t blame him if she died trying to escape.

  A horrible accident, an unfortunate mistake.

  She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “There’s always a choice. You could have kept your mask on. You could have let me kill you instead of whatever dramatic surrender that was.”

  “Would you have?” he asked, turning to face her. “Killed me if I’d kept the mask on?”

  Her green eyes met his over the bottle. “Without remorse.”

  He believed her. There was something clean about that, something honest. She would have ended him and felt nothing but satisfaction. No guilt, no second thoughts. Just another Heart elite removed from the world.

  “Then you shouldn’t have hesitated,” he said, returning to his search.

  Ten devices. Another one behind the ventilation grate in the main room.

  Shadera slid off the stool, bottle in one hand, and moved toward the small table near the entry where mail accumulated through the automated drop system. Her fingers reached for the stack of papers.

  “Don’t touch my shit.” The words came out as a bark.

  Greyson crossed the room in three strides, snatching the papers from her hand before she could examine them. Supply manifests from the Cardinal, coded but still dangerous if someone knew what to look for.

  She smirked, that particularly infuriating expression that made her split lip pull tight. “Our stuff now, My sweet, spineless heir.” She took another drink, eyes never leaving his face.

  The insult landed precisely where she’d aimed it.

  Spineless.

  It was the word he whispered in the dark, the word that festered beneath his skin, that fed on his cowardice. He was too weak to stand up to his father. Too weak to stop the abuse of his mother. He lived in both worlds, smuggling for the rebels while carrying out executions that tore at his soul. Each death a fracture, a silent scream, another piece of himself lost. But Shadera wasn’t an innocent. She was a Daggermouth.

  And Daggermouths deserved to die.

  “Call me whatever you want,” he said, voice dropping low. “It won’t change the situation.”

  “No?” She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the vodka on her breath mixing with the copper scent of dried blood. “Then what will? Because I promise you, I’m not spending the rest of my life shackled to the Heart’s favorite murderer.”

  The scanner in his hand beeped. Another device, hidden in the kitchen island’s underside. Right where she’d been sitting. Greyson showed her the display, watching her eyes narrow as she studied it.

  “Eleven so far,” he said. “Everything we say, everything we do, is being recorded. So maybe think about that before you announce your plans to kill me.”

  She tilted her head. “I think everyone already knows that’s my plan. Seeing as I’m the reason you can barely stand. That wound is bleeding through your uniform.”

  He glanced down. She was right—a dark stain had spread across the fabric where the staples had torn. The pain had become background noise, static compared to the relentless screaming of his current reality.

  “I’ve had worse,” Greyson retorted.

  It wasn’t a lie.

  Though he had never been shot or even stabbed, the scars his father had inflicted on his body had been much worse, and those came at a greater cost.

  “Sure you have.” She took another drink. “Let me know how that works out when infection sets in. I’ll be sure to tell the President you died very bravely.” She turned toward the hallway to explore the rest of the apartment.

  Greyson watched her go, noting the way she favored her left side, the careful way she held her shoulders to minimize pressure on what was likely a fractured collarbone.

  “You know what your problem is?” Shadera started again, turning back to face him. The words carried a different weight now, something dangerous threading through them.

  Greyson set the scanner on the counter, already exhausted by whatever insight she thought she had about him. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Please, enlighten me.”

  “You have no respect for life. Not even your own, since you practically begged me to kill you.” She moved closer, her gait still uneven but predatory now. “Day after day you murder innocent people while hiding your face, and somehow you think it makes you noble. You think standing on that platform makes you better than the rest of us.”

  The rage that surfaced was immediate and volcanic. “I am better than you,” he growled, his hands curling into fists. “You’re a Daggermouth. You kill for credits. I kill for order, to keep this fucked-up city from falling into chaos. How many people have you killed to fill your pockets?”

  The proximity of her body sent warning signals firing through Greyson’s nervous system. She was dangerous, injured but still lethal.

  “The difference is I don’t pretend it makes me righteous.” She was close enough now that he could see the individual bruises on her throat, purple-black fingerprints where the Veyra had grabbed her. “I kill because I’m good at it. Because every contract I fulfill keeps medicine in the clinics, keeps families in the Boundary from starving even for just a few more days. You kill because Daddy tells you to.”

  The words barely left her mouth before he moved. Not a conscious decision, just his body reacting to the insult, to the truth of it. His hand shot out to grab her wrist, to force her back, to make her stop fucking talking.

  She twisted away faster than he’d expected, using his momentum against him. Her elbow caught him in the ribs—not hard, but enough to make pain burst from the center of his wound. He turned toward Shadera just as she swung the vodka bottle, aiming for his head. He ducked under the blow, his shoulder slamming into her midsection and knocking her to the floor, the bottle shattering beside them.

  Shadera’s knee connected with his groin as he tried to pin her, the breath whooshing out of him in a pained grunt. She followed with a fist to the jaw, snapping his head back, then rolled out from under him, coming up in a crouch a few feet away.

  Greyson surged to his feet, his eyes blazing. “You fucking bitch,” he snarled, spitting blood onto the floor.

  Shadera grinned at him, a feral flash of teeth. “What’s the matter, Executioner? Can’t handle a little foreplay?”

  Greyson charged her again. This time, he caught her around the waist, lifting her off her feet and slamming her back against the refrigerator. Magnets scattered, clattering to the floor like metallic rain.

  Shadera drove her fist into his kidney once, twice, three times, but Greyson clenched his jaw through the pain and tightened his grip, one hand digging into her hip as the other closed around her throat.

  Her hand slid between their straining bodies, finding the bandage on his stomach, and dug her fingers into the wound.

  The pain was exquisite, white hot, obliterating. Greyson’s grip on her throat loosened as he gasped in agony, vision going dark at the edges, and Shadera used the moment of weakness to shove him backward. He stumbled, his back slamming into the island, and she was on him in an instant, her forearm pressing down on his windpipe.

  For a moment, they just stared at each other, both of them panting, their faces inches apart. Her green eyes were wild, her pupils blown wide with adrenaline and rage.

  Greyson’s hand shot up, his fingers closing around her fractured collarbone and squeezing. She didn’t bite back the scream that tore from her throat as her knees buckled and Greyson kicked her back against the counter opposite of them. He pinned her there, his body pressed against hers, his hand still tight around her collarbone.

  “Not so tough now, are you Daggermouth?” he growled, his lips brushing her ear. “Without your knives and your guns, you’re nothing. Just a scared little girl playing at being a killer.”

  Shadera snarled wordlessly, bucking against him, trying to throw him off. But Greyson was bigger than her, stronger, and he had the advantage of leverage. He ground her down into the marble, his hips fitting perfectly against hers.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked, locking her in place with his body weight as her eyes connected with his. “To fight until one of us is dead? If it is, I’ll be sure to make it slow—to savor it.”

  “Is that what gets you off, little heir?” she breathed, taunting him as he pushed his chest closer to hers. “Do you like it rough? Like inflicting pain?”

  He fucking loved it rough.

  Greyson shook the traitorous thought from his head as a charged silence grew, both refusing to be the first to break.

  “Mr. Serel?”

  Chapman’s voice from the doorway shattered the moment like a bullet through glass. Greyson shoved away from Shadera so violently he nearly fell, keeping his back to Chapman so he wouldn’t see his face.

  “What?” The word came out as a snarl.

  Chapman stood perfectly still in the doorway. His mask on, hands clasped behind his back in his typical pose as he took in the destroyed kitchen—broken glass, scattered papers, blood on the counter.

  “I apologize for the intrusion,” Chapman said, his tone professionally calm. “I rang a few times, but the President ordered I enter to help Ms. Kael settle into her rooms.”

  Greyson’s jaw worked, fury and annoyance fighting for dominance beneath the pain. Behind him, he heard Shadera push off the counter, her boots crunching on broken glass.

  “Fine,” he bit out. The word was insufficient, too small for everything boiling in his chest, but it was all he could manage.

  He needed distance. Space. A locked door between him and that fucking animal. Without looking at either of them, he strode toward his bedroom, his gait slightly uneven from the reopened wounds.

  “Mr. Serel,” Chapman called after him. “Should I send for medical—”

  “No.” He didn’t turn around, couldn’t look at them. If he did, he might do something stupid. Like show another person his face.

  The bedroom door slammed behind him with enough force to rattle the bed frame. He pressed his back against it, chest heaving, and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor. Blood seeped through his fingers where he pressed against the wound.

  Through the door, he could hear Chapman’s measured voice, asking Shadera if she required medical attention. Her response was too low to make out, but the tone suggested threats of violence if he came any closer.

  Greyson closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the door.

  His father wanted them to destroy each other, and it seemed he might just get his wish.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN DAGGERMOUTHS DON’T CRY

  THE BATHROOM DOOR CLICKED shut behind her, and Shadera stood in the marble silence, breathing through her teeth. Everything gleamed—obsidian tiles, porcelain fixtures, a tub deep enough to drown in. The kind of luxury that could feed a Boundary family for a decade.

  Her reflection stared back from three different mirrors, each angle revealing new damage. Blood had dried in abstract patterns across her skin, some hers, most not. Veyra blood. The prisoners’ blood. All of it caking together into a second skin she needed to shed.

  Her fingers found the hem of the prison tunic, and she pulled upward. The movement sent lightning through her ribs, sharp enough she stopped halfway, arms trapped above her head, fabric bunched around her shoulders. She breathed shallow, counting to three, then yanked it the rest of the way off. The shirt dropped to the pristine floor just like the prisoners had—crumpled, bloody, forgotten.

  The pants were worse. Bending forward made her vision swim, made the fractured collarbone grind against itself. Made blood rush to the stab wound in her side. She worked them down her hips with trembling hands, leaving blood smeared down her legs. When she finally kicked free of them, she caught herself on the sink’s edge, knuckles white against the marble.

  Every injury screamed at her from the mirrored glass. Purple-black bruises mapped her torso like territories of pain. The swelling around her left eye had spread down her cheek, turning half her face into something unrecognizable. Her collarbone sat wrong beneath the skin, a visible ridge where bone had separated. The places where shock batons had seared her flesh were already blistering, angry red circles that would scar.

  She braced herself and pressed her nose. A crack, a knife stabbing through her skill—she groaned, riding the pain until it ebbed. The collarbone was next, a grueling shift of bone beneath her skin. She sucked in a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut as she pushed the fracture back into place. This time she screamed, a guttural sound filling her ears. She breathed through it and waited for the agony to dull.

  Blood dripped onto the counter from the split in her lip. She watched it for a moment, watched it spill over as another drop landed atop it and slid over the marble. Finally she pulled her eyes away, turning toward a black porcelain monstrosity that could have held three people. The shower hung above it, one of those rainfall heads that could only be found in luxury—water cascading from the ceiling like they owned the sky itself. In the Boundary, water came in rations. Here, it fell like it would never run out.

  Shadera pushed the shower door to the side and twisted both handles to their limits. Steam erupted instantly, filling the bathroom with heat that made her shredded skin sting. She didn’t adjust the temperature, didn’t temper it with cold. She let it burn. Let it scald away everything she’d witnessed in that prison.

  The tub began to fill as the shower pounded down. Wasteful. Excessive. She stepped over the rim, and her knees nearly buckled. The water was molten against her feet, climbing her ankles as she lowered herself by increments. Each inch down brought new protests from torn muscles, from broken bones, from flesh that had taken too much damage to heal properly without medical intervention she’d never accept from the Heart.

  When she finally sat, when the water rose to her chest and the shower hammered against her skull, something inside her cracked. Not bone this time. Something deeper, something that had been clawing its way to the surface.

  The first cry surprised her. It tore from her throat without permission, raw and broken. Her hands came up to cover her face, and that’s when the rest came—great heaving sobs that made her broken ribs scream, that sent fresh blood trickling from split skin.

  She saw them behind her eyelids. Saw every single one of them. A silent choir of the dead. The woman with the swollen eye, voice raised in trembling song until that single shot turned everything to chaos. The man with no legs, spine straight against the floor, chin lifted in one last act of defiance. The young one, too young, handing away his gruel with a smile before they’d painted the walls with his blood.