Kingmakers, Year Two

4. Zoe

4

ZOE

I ’m surprised how much I enjoy coming back to Kingmakers.

I never intended to attend a mafia school, but I can’t deny that what we learn here is complex and fascinating. Who wouldn’t want to know ancient secrets handed down through generations of criminals?

Well, maybe Cat . . .

She looked like she was on death row when I hugged her goodbye at the Barcelona airport. I feel so guilty that she got roped into coming here along with me, all because of that sadist Rocco.

I know he only wants her here so he can use Cat as leverage against me—one more weapon in his arsenal. What fresh tormen t he’s dreaming up, I can only imagine. That’s the worst thing about him: the constant unease, like knowing there’s a viper in your house without actually being able to see it. Hearing it slither around inside your walls. Never able to rest in case it wriggles out from under your chair and bites you on the ankle.

I hope Cat is settling in as well as can be expected.

It’s difficult for me to check in on her, since we’re not in the same division or the same year. I’m an Heir, in name at least, even if my father never intends for me to take over his business. That means I room in the Solar with the rest of the female Heirs.

Cat, on the other hand, has apparently been stuffed down in some basement with an Icelandic vampire as a roommate. I’ve yet to meet this roommate, who Cat thinks is named Rakel, but can’t be certain because the girl refuses to speak to her.

I don’t have to worry about a roommate. I’ve got the same little broom cupboard as last year. It’s barely big enough to squeeze inside between the bed and the dresser, but I’ve got a nice big window and I don’t have to share it with anybody.

My two best friends are right down the hall. Anna and Chay get on with each other pretty well, except for the times when Chay has an interesting dream and decides to wake Anna up in the middle of the night to tell her all about it .

I’m thinking that’s what happened last night, because Chay comes down to breakfast already chattering away a mile a minute, while Anna looks barely conscious and thoroughly grumpy, twisting her silver-blonde hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, and wearing a school pullover that’s more holes than sweater.

Chay has on a full face of sparkly makeup, she’s prancing around in a brand new pair of knee-high white leather boots, and she streaked her hair bubblegum pink over the summer. She looks like Jem from the Holograms.

“GOOD morning!” she chirps, dropping a tray loaded with an obscene amount of bacon and sausage down onto the table.

“Chay. . .” Anna groans. “Inside voice before nine in the morning, please.”

“Is that what you’re eating?” I ask Chay, eyeing her pile of protein.

“I’m on keto.”

“You’re gonna get scurvy,” Anna tells her, sleepily stirring several teaspoons of sugar into her coffee.

“And you’re going to get diabetes,” Chay replies sweetly.

I see Cat hovering uncertainly over by the chafing dishes. I wave to her so she can see where we’re sitting. She hastily fills a plat e with fresh fruit and scrambled eggs and comes to join us.

“This is Anna Wilk and Chay Wagner,” I tell Cat, as she sits down beside me.

“Hello,” Cat says shyly.

“You’re so little!” Chay says cheerfully. “I thought you’d be tall like Zoe.”

“No.” Cat blushes. “I’m not.”

I can tell she’s embarrassed, because honestly, she looks like a little kid compared to everybody else at Kingmakers. It doesn’t help that Cat always leans toward oversized clothes that drown her petite frame. She looks like she’s wearing hand-me-downs even in her brand new uniform.

“Doesn’t matter!” Chay adds quickly. “I’m pint-sized myself. I still hold my own. Puts you right on level to give somebody a good punch in the balls if you have to.”

“Great,” Cat says weakly. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“You’ll settle in here soon,” Anna says kindly. “Everybody is intimidated their first week.”

“Really?” Cat eyes Anna with disbelief.

Anna does not look like she has ever experienced intimidation. Even just rolled out of bed, she has that indefinable air of no-fucks-to-give. Maybe it’s her inch-thick eyeliner, or her icy stare, or her low voice that always sounds mildly threatening, even when she’s trying to be nice.

“Really.” Anna nods. “I wanted to come here all my life, and I was still overwhelmed at first. You’ll settle in. Zoe will be here to help you. We’ll all keep an eye on you.”

She smiles at Cat across the table. I feel a warm flush of gratitude that I have a clique of ready-made friends for Cat. It’s the least I can do, after getting her into this mess.

That lasts about five seconds until Rocco sits down next to me, with Dax Volker and Jasper Webb right behind him.

Dax and Jasper are his favorite henchmen. Dax because he’s a nasty brawler—thickly muscled, with a square, blocky head and a bulldog jaw, and Jasper because he’s almost as cruel as Rocco himself. He’s tall with a slim build and long, dark red hair. Beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt, I can see tattoos running down both hands, mimicking the bones beneath like a skeleton superimposed on the skin.

Rocco sits right next to me, while Jasper drops down beside Chay and Dax flanks Cat, so all three of them hem us in like a Bermuda Triangle of assholes. There’s no need for any of them to share our table—there’s plenty of open space in the dining hall. This is obviously Rocco’s first foray into expanding our “intimacy” at Kingmakers .

The temperature at the table drops twenty degrees, and the friendly conversation amongst us girls hardens into stony silence.

I hate having Rocco next to me, but I’m even more conscious of Cat’s discomfort as she cringes against me, trying to shrink down to nothingness so she doesn’t accidentally brush up against Dax’s melon-sized shoulder or the tree-trunk thigh straining the bounds of his trousers.

“Thanks for saving me a seat.” Rocco gives me a thin, chilling smile.

I can’t describe the antipathy I feel every time he invades my personal space. Every cell in my body screams at me to get away from him. There’s something so off-putting in the way he moves—either holding too still or making swift and unpredictable movements that make me want to jump out of my skin.

However, unlike Cat, I refuse to move away from him. I hold perfectly still, trying not to let him see how much his proximity bothers me.

“I didn’t.”

Rocco makes a disappointed tsking sound.

“Oh, Zoe,” he says quietly. “I thought we discussed this. Is this really the attitude you want to take as we begin another year of school?”

Jasper leans his elbow on Chay’s shoulder, his skeleton fingers dangling down just above her breast. Chay has no problem staring him down even with their faces inches apart. She went to boarding school with both Rocco and Jasper, and she is well familiar with their tactics.

“Nice breakfast, biker bitch,” Jasper says to her. “I always knew you liked sausage.”

Chay picks up one of the brats in her fingers and takes a ferocious bite off the end, chewing loudly in Jasper’s face.

“I only like big, thick sausages. From what I hear, you’ve barely got an Oscar Meyer weenie.”

“Big enough to choke you when I shove it down your throat, you fucking whore,” Jasper hisses, his nose almost touching hers.

“Fucking try it and see what happens,” Anna says furiously from Chay’s other side.

Rocco’s hand closes like a pincher on my upper thigh, squeezing so hard that his fingertips dig into my flesh.

On the other side of me, I can feel Cat tense up as if it’s her leg in a vice grip. Her eyes are big and round, and I think she’s scared to even breathe, caught in the middle of this sudden conflict that blew in like a hurricane .

“Are these really the types of girls you should be associating with at school?” Rocco says to me, looking coldly between Anna and Chay. “An incestuous goth and the school bicycle? What would your father say . . .”

His fingers are tense as steel. They feel hard enough to punch right through my skin. It takes every ounce of strength I possess to sit stiff and upright, while my thigh is shaking with pain.

“He’d say there’s nothing in our contract about who I’m allowed to have as a friend,” I hiss at Rocco. “So kindly fuck off and leave us alone.”

Rocco’s fingers clench all the harder, until I can barely keep from crying out. Then he abruptly releases my leg.

“You disappoint me, Zoe,” he says quietly. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“We have nothing more to discuss.”

“Oh, my love,” Rocco says, reaching out his slim, pale hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “That’s not up to you.”

He stands up from the table, slipping out of his seat with unnerving grace. Dax follows him.

Jasper lingers a moment longer, still engaged in his silent stare-down with Chay. He cracks his knuckles single-handed, using his thumb to pull down each eerily-flexible joint. Chay w inces at the off-putting sound. At last Jasper gives a slow, lazy blink, like he never cared at all, and pushes away from the table as well.

Only after they’re all gone can I let out a full breath.

“One more second and I was gonna stab my fork into that walking skeleton,” Chay says, gripping said fork in her fist.

Anna shakes her head, slow and angry.

“I hate sitting by like that, doing nothing. But I don’t want to make things harder for you, Zoe.”

She knows as well as I do that antagonizing Rocco could have long-term consequences for me. It’s not like I can irritate him into canceling our engagement. He thrives on my resistance—it only fuels him to worse behavior.

Anna doesn’t stop frowning until Leo Gallo drops down next to her, throwing his arm around her shoulders. Anna and Leo are indeed cousins, as Rocco snidely pointed out, but it’s only by marriage, not by blood. After a tumultuous first year at school together, the two of them have apparently decided to be lovers as well as best friends, and they’re now openly dating. Or at least, as open as you can be at Kingmakers where we’re not technically supposed to date.

Watching Anna with Leo is like watching a flower open under the light of the sun. She instantly relaxes against him, the stress leaving her body like a sigh. Her face brightens, and she becomes twice as talkative.

I could be jealous of Leo and Anna. Leo is everything that Rocco isn’t—handsome, warm, decent, genuinely affectionate . . . But it’s impossible to see the two of them together with anything but a sense of rightness. They so clearly belong with each other, like salt and pepper, or sea and sand. Besides, I never expected to have anything like that myself.

Miles Griffin and Ozzy Duncan deposit their heavily-laden trays next to Leo’s. Miles is likewise Anna’s cousin, and Ozzy is his best friend. The two of them are the biggest troublemakers at school. Ozzy loves to get in fights, and Miles is the prime procurer of contraband for anyone who needs it.

Miles makes me distinctly uncomfortable, since my goal in life has always been to follow the rules as carefully as possible, while he seems to break every single one for fun.

He has the privilege of that type of behavior since he’s the son of an Irish mafia boss turned mayor of Chicago. I expect he’s been able to get away with pretty much whatever he likes all his life.

I don’t particularly like him. There’s something amoral in the way he’ll sell anything to anyone—like an arms dealer, with no questions asked .

Not to mention the fact that he applies his particular brand of sarcasm like a switchblade. If he sees the opportunity to make a joke at your expense, he’ll cut you without warning.

That being said, there’s a marked difference in the mood at the table with these three boys as our dining companions instead of the three that just left. Chay and Ozzy cheerfully trade bacon for a fried egg, and Leo says, “Was that Rocco Prince that just left? He’s a creepy fucker, isn’t he? No offense, Zoe.”

“You could only offend me by complimenting him.”

“Then consider us on permanent good terms,” Leo says, grinning.

“I don’t know…” Miles takes a swig of orange juice. “He’s got his charm. If you ever wondered what it was like to meet Ted Bundy.”

“I never wondered that,” Cat says quietly.

“Holy shit!” Miles does an exaggerated double-take and pretending to peer over the top of the table at her. “There’s a kid there! Is it ‘bring your daughter to school’ day, Zoe?”

“That’s my sister, Cat,” I say coolly. “She’s a Freshman.”

“They get tinier every year.” Ozzy shakes his he ad in wonder.

Cat’s face is flaming. This is a joke that’s gonna get real old, real fast for her.

“Alright, knock it off,” I say, “she doesn’t want to hear it.”

“It’s okay,” Cat mumbles.

She looks so beaten down already, just from one encounter with Rocco and some mild teasing from friends. My stomach sinks lower than ever. I really don’t know how Cat’s going to survive here. It’s her first day of classes, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. She’s got Stealth and Infiltration, Counterintelligence, and Combat, and that‘s all before dinner.

I put my arm around her to give her a sideways hug.

“You’re gonna do great today,” I tell her. “I better get going—I don’t want to be late for Professor Graves, or he’ll slam the door in my face.”

“Tell him I said hi,” Miles says.

“No thanks. Out of the whole student body, you’re at the top of the list of the ones he hates, and I think I might be in that tiny minority he can actually tolerate.”

“That’s because you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” Miles says, with that insulting edge to his voice. “You’d never upset that pompous piece of shit, would you? You just keep smiling and being polite, no matter how big an asshole he is. ”

I look Miles in the face, really look at him, which is difficult to do, because his steel-gray eyes have a way of fixing on you like he’s stripping you bare. It’s a nakedness of the soul, not the body. Miles Griffin can look right inside you and see all your insecurities, all your flaws and weaknesses. You can tell he’s tallying them up, finding the most vulnerable spot to hit you next.

“Not all of us get to be a rebel without a cause.”

Miles keeps his eyes locked on mine, his face unsmiling.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of causes.”

I stand up from the table. As I do, the bruised flesh of my upper thigh gives a painful twitch. My knee buckles under me and my first step is more like a limp.

I recover quickly, straightening up and pretending like nothing happened. But I know Miles saw it. His eyes narrow for just a second before his face smooths out again in placid indifference.

“See you in Psych,” I say to Anna and Chay.

I spend the morning in Finance, a class mostly full of Accountants. Last year we focused on international banking, this year we’re delving into domestic money launde ring.

Professor Graves stands at the front of the class in his typical lecturer’s stance, hands clasped behind his back, belly thrust toward us, straining the buttons of his tweed vest. He’s had his silver beard freshly trimmed for the start of school, and he’s looking especially pleased and pompous.

Professor Graves is one of the less-popular teachers at the school, because he lacks the humor of someone like Professor Howell or the fascinating lecture style of Professor Thorn. Graves is strict and fastidious. He hates being interrupted even by valid questions.

On the other hand, no professor at Kingmakers is anything less than an expert, so there’s still plenty to be learned in his class. I’ve managed to stay off his bad side. So all in all, I’m in good spirits as I take notes on the three stages of washing money.

“Placement, Layering, Integration . . .” Professor Graves intones, pacing back and forth in front of our neat rows of desks. “Placement comes first. You take your illegal earnings, and you introduce them to a legitimate financial institution, perhaps through a shell company, smurfing, or trade-based laundering.”

“What do you mean by trade-based laundering?” Coraline Paquet inquires from behind me. She’s a slim, dark-haired French girl, friends with the Paris Bratva .

Professor Graves gives a long, irritated sigh that simultaneously conveys his hatred of digressions and his disdain that any of us might require clarification.

“ Trade -based laundering,” he says, “as the name would imply, exploits the mechanisms of cross-border trade. Over-invoicing or under-invoicing, misrepresentation of quality, and so forth.”

He glares around the room as if daring anybody else to ask a question. When we all keep our mouths shut, he continues:

“Once you’ve introduced the funds into the legal banking system at a vulnerable point, then you move into layering or structuring. This is when you cut the funds into smaller transactions so they can be transferred into more difficult jurisdictions without triggering reporting requirements.”

While Professor Graves explains this process, I feel someone watching me. I turn my head and see Wade Dyer leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed over his broad chest. He’s not bothering to take notes. I don’t think he’s listening at all. He’s just looking at me.

Wade is blond and clean-cut, pleasant-looking, but that doesn’t fool me for a second. I know damn well that he’s from Hamburg just like Rocco Prince. They’re friends. Anybody who enjoys Rocco’s company has something wrong inside, no matter how benign they look on the outside .

Wade smiles at me, showing dimples on both sides of his mouth.

I don’t smile back at him. I face Professor Graves as he talks about Integration, the final stage of money laundering.

“At this point, the funds become eligible for use,” Professor Graves says. “They can be used to purchase assets—goods or property—which won’t attract attention.”

I glance back at Wade.

He’s still watching me. Deliberately, he looks me up and down from head to foot. Not that there’s anything to see—when Daniela’s not picking my outfits, I always cover up. I hate being leered at. Right now I’m wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt buttoned to the neck, a knee-length skirt, and thick black tights. Wade can’t see shit unless he’s got a knuckle fetish.

I turn my head forward, determined not to look at him anymore for the duration of the class.

The minutes seem to slip by slowly under the awkward sensation of scrutiny. I can hear Wade tapping his pen rhythmically on the top of his desk. I think he’s trying to attract my attention.

I’m sure Rocco told him to watch me, and to make it obvious .

He wants me to know that he has friends everywhere on campus, that I’m not safe from him just because we don’t have any classes together.

Well, I don’t give a shit. Wade has nothing to report except that I filled up four pages with notes. I hope Rocco finds that fascinating.

Still, as soon as class is over I snatch up my notebook and stuff it in my bag.

I hurry down the stairs of the Keep, heading to my next class on the south side of campus. I’ve got Artillery with Professor Knox, who teaches in the old forge attached to the workshops where the original inhabitants of the castle used to make metal utensils, horseshoes, armor, swords, and pikes.

I can hear heavy footsteps following behind me. A quick glance over my shoulder shows Wade Dyer striding along behind me, hands tucked in the pockets of his trousers.

What the fuck is he playing at?

He’s not in my Artillery class.

I debate whether I should turn around and confront him, or just ignore him.

As I’m passing the large octagonal tower the male Heirs use as a dorm, I see something even more unpleasant: Rocco and Jasper coming down the stairs .

Before Rocco can spot me, I take a hard right turn, shooting the tree-choked gap between the tower and an elevated platform that might have been used for weapons training once upon a time.

I spent a lot of time in my Freshman year learning the secret passageways and shortcuts across campus so I could hide from Rocco Prince. I’d never claim to know them all, but I did find a hidden door behind these orange trees that leads up to the ramparts. From there, I can walk across the top of the wall and come down on the opposite side of the forge.

I pull open the rusty, squeaking door, then hurry up the narrow staircase enclosed within the wall. It’s always chilly as a tomb inside the stone walls of Kingmakers, even in the warmest parts of the year. When I emerge on the top of ramparts, the sunlight blinds me and the wind buffets me, twice as strong as in the protected cove of the castle.

I head down the long, narrow walkway that runs between the Octagon Tower at my back and the tall, spindly Library Tower straight ahead of me. I like being up here on my own. It’s one of the best views in the castle, with nothing but open ocean to the north. I pause for a moment to look over the edge of the ramparts, down the dizzying drop of the limestone cliffs to the dark water below.

The waves hitting the cliffs are probably eight feet tall, though from this height, they barely look like frothy wrinkles on the water .

When I straighten up again, I see two figures blocking my path: one dark-haired, one red.

Rocco and Jasper.

Fuck.

I turn to run back the way I came, but now Wade Dyer is standing there, smiling his charming, dimpled smile.

They close in on me from both sides, swift and silent as wolves.

Wade wasn’t following me. He was herding me. Right where Rocco wanted.

I could scream, but it would be pointless. No one would hear me up here. If they heard anything at all, it would sound like a seagull screeching over the water.

Jasper grabs my right arm, Wade my left. They pin me against the ramparts, lifted and tilted backward so I know they could tip me right over if they wanted, sending me plummeting down to the jagged rocks below.

Rocco stands in front of me, hands clasped behind his back just like Professor Graves when he’s about to start a lecture. He looks happier than I’ve ever seen him, his eyes gleaming with malice .

“Oh, no,” he says softly. “What a predicament you’ve gotten yourself into, Zoe. You thought you were a tricky little mouse, didn’t you? Always slipping away through stairs and passageways. You forgot that I’ve been at this school longer than you.”

My heart is hammering hard against my chest at such a rapid pace that it’s skipping every third or fourth beat, stumbling and then squeezing harder than ever to make up for it.

This is very, very bad.

Rocco leans close to speak directly into my ear. With my arms pinned, I can’t shove him away. I can’t protect myself. He could take a bite out of my cheek and there’s nothing I could do to stop him.

“You only get away when I let you get away,” he whispers. “You’re a bird with a chain around its ankle. You can fly in circles all you want. But you’re bound to me, Zoe. I can take hold of you whenever I want. Soon, very soon, I’m going to close you in a cage. If you want food, you’ll eat it out of my hand. If you want water, you’ll drink it from my lips. If you want rest, you’ll sleep with your head in my lap. And you’ll never fly again.”

He pulls back just far enough to look me in the eyes.

Looking into those black pupils is like looking down into a well. There’s no reason in them. No mercy. Just an empty black hole .

He means every word.

When I marry him, I’ll be his slave. He’ll never tire of tormenting me. Until I’m broken in my mind, body, and soul.

“Never,” I say quietly.

“Never is a long time,” Rocco says. “You’ve taken Torture Techniques, haven’t you? With the delightful Professor Penmark? You’re a good student, Zoe. I’m sure you were listening when he told you that it’s possible to withstand torture for a time. Days, weeks, months . . . But in the end . . . everybody breaks.”

Jasper and Wade have an iron grip on my wrists. I look between them, trying to decide if either of them has the tiniest spark of humanity. Jasper’s face is cold and expressionless, his green eyes as pale and translucent as sea glass. Wade is much more animated, struggling to hold back his grin.

I turn to Jasper.

“Let go of me,” I plead.

Jasper’s eyes meet mine and perhaps for a fraction of a second he considers it, but his fingers never loosen on my wrist, and his lips remain tightly closed.

“He’s not going to help you.” Rocco laughs his strange laugh that’s little more than an exhale. “Nobody can help you, Zoe.”

He takes a knife from his pocket and flicks open the blade. The steel dazzles in the sunlight—it looks like it’s on fire .

“Hold her steady,” he says.

The boys hold my wrists and upper arms, shoving me against the stone so I can barely even wriggle. I wouldn’t dare thrash around. The knife is too close.

Rocco points the blade directly at my right eye. He brings the knife closer and closer, until its pointed tip presses into the flesh at the corner of my eye.

“I could cut your eyeball right out of its socket,” he says. “Then you couldn’t give me that insolent look anymore. You could still do everything I require with one eye.”

Now I do feel Jasper’s fingers twitch around my wrist. He’s not completely comfortable with this, probably because he’s scared of the Rule of Recompense.

“You can’t,” I say to Rocco, to remind him.

“Why?” Rocco says, still poking me with the knife. “Why can’t I?”

“They’ll do the same to you.”

That’s the laws of Kingmakers. If you damage another student—break their arm, cut off their hand, slit their throat . . . the same will be done to you. It’s to prevent war from breaking out between families. It’s the old law. An eye for an eye.

“That’s true,” Rocco says softly. “Except . . . you belong to me, Zoe. Your parents already signed the marriage contract. So anythi ng I do to you . . . it’s like I did it to myself. There’s no recompense.”

I don’t know if that’s true or not.

But I really don’t want to find out.

It’s clear that Rocco believes it to be true.

“Beg me to stop,” he says. He starts to dig the knife into my flesh.

My lips are pressed tight together.

I won’t beg. I’ll never beg.

The blade bites into me and I feel something warm and wet run down from the corner of my eye, like bloody tears.

The knife feels like a hot brand. I can feel Rocco twisting it, angling the point toward my eyeball . . .

“Stop!” I cry.

“That’s not begging,” Rocco hisses.

“Please stop!”

Now I am crying actual tears. They run down both sides of my face, stinging and burning when they hit the cut on the right side.

Rocco pulls back his knife. My blood glistens on its tip .

“That’s better,” he says.

He slashes open the front of my shirt, being none too careful with the knife. It leaves shallow cuts on my chest and the tops of my breasts. He cuts my bra open too, so my tits spill out.

Now both Jasper and Wade are intently interested.

“Holy shit,” Wade says. “Who woulda thought she had a porn-star body under those nun clothes.”

“I knew,” Rocco says, in a tone of deep satisfaction.

Three pairs of eyes crawl over my bare flesh. I’ve always been ashamed of my breasts. Ashamed of my body. Not because I think it’s ugly, but because of the way it betrays me, drawing the attention of the men I least want to notice me.

“Go ahead,” Rocco says to Wade. “Touch them.”

Wade scans Rocco’s face, like he thinks it might be a trick. “You sure?”

“I’m giving you permission,” Rocco says in his soft, hissing voice.

Wade doesn’t care about my permission. He stares at my tits. All intelligence has left his face. His cheeks are flushed and there’s nothing but dull, hungry lust in his eyes .

He cups my breasts in both hands, lifting them and then dropping them. My stomach is churning. I’ve never been more humiliated.

“Fucking hell,” he breathes. “You’re gonna have so much fun with these, Rocco.”

Seeing that Rocco won’t stop him, he squeezes my breasts hard in his hands, then pinches the nipples, making me gasp.

He’s watching Rocco the whole time. He doesn’t give a fuck how I react to this.

“Jasper?” Rocco says, offering his other friend to take his turn.

Jasper considers, his face impassive.

“I’m good,” he says at last. He’s still holding my right wrist, but not as tightly as before. I don’t think he’s enjoying this as much as Wade. Not that he’s doing fuck-all to stop it.

“What now?” Wade says, his tongue darting out to moisten his lower lip.

“Now Zoe pays her debt,” Rocco says, looking at me with his head tilted slightly to the side. In the bright sunshine, his blue eyes with their flecks of black look like panes of shattered glass. “The night of our engagement party, your stepmother promised me something, Zoe. Do you know what that was? ”

I try to swallow, but my mouth is too dry. The cut at the corner of my eye still burns, and my breasts ache everywhere Wade touched them. I slowly shake my head.

“She agreed that I was free to consummate the marriage…” Rocco’s eyes boring into mine. “Anytime I wanted.”

Through numb lips, I say, “We’re not married yet.”

“Close enough.” Rocco moves to close the gap between us. To seize me and cut off my skirt, I have no doubt.

Jasper releases my wrist, stepping back to give him space. Wade isn’t holding me at all, having let go so he could grope me with both hands.

I have one brief second of freedom.

Rocco swoops down on me like a vampire, teeth bared in his version of a smile.

I act on instinct, without thought or plan.

All I know is that I have to get away from Rocco. I’ll never grovel for him again, I’ll never beg. I’ll never let him touch me.

He says I’ll be a caged bird—well, I’ll fly one last time at least.

In that moment of madness, I fling myself over the ramparts.