“Right.” I was already exhausted, and we’d barely started. The fact that he told me about the game before it even startedwas strange. Then again he’d always been strange, and he was probably afraid I’d turn her down flat.
“Have a good night, Louis.”
“You too, Cassian,” I murmured.
His dark chuckle was all that filled my ear as he whispered, “May the odds ever be in your favor. Drink up, puppet.”
“Go to hell.”
5
TEMPEST
Hell is other people. –John Paul Sartre
Imiscalculated.
I would die before admitting it, but the math was wrong, completely off if you asked me. He was supposed to be weak. This was supposed to be a way to keep my family safe, get me out of trouble, and also far away from the families’ watchful eyes and stupid tendencies to marry us off into other bloodlines.
Okay, my dad would never unless he was desperate.
And yet, it kept happening with every cousin.
Maybe we were sadists.
Maybe we liked the suffering of losing control with each other and watching ourselves bleed together. There was something sickeningly comforting about someone understanding your pain on a basic level that made existing next to them almost spiritual.
It’s also why I loved dating apps and stayed far away from any sort of hook up with any of the made men, bodyguards, and or cousins a billion times removed.
Dating within the mafia families gave you trouble because you didn’t just marry the name—you married the ego that went along with it, and Louis? All he had was the ego.
I was the one who carried the name.
The identity.
One that was teetering on getting crapped on if Cassian had anything to do with it. Damn it! Why did he have to be a good kisser? Manipulating son of a bitch from the worst family ever. Shit!
In a past life, I would have respected his game and asked if I could play.
Now I wanted to set the little chess pieces on fire.
Louis was supposed to be an easy mark.
Was, being the keyword.
In my head.
Before I knew him.
Before he taunted me back.
What was Cassian playing at? Had he known all along that there was more to Louis than met the eye?
I viewed him like a broken little lamb who’d sacrificed everything for my twin, including his own love, only to see her ride off on the wrong horse, toward the wrong sunset and screwing with his enemy in the wrong castle.
Ouch.
And desperation? It had a certain look about it, he had it written all over his face, what changed? What shifted?