She’s My Queen

5. Marked

5

MARKED

CRISTINA

I second-guess my decision to tell the truth about how I feel about Severio’s arrival on the island and how it affects my plans, but he seems to be a walking lie detector. Either that or I’m a bad liar. Probably a combination of both.

But my answer doesn’t anger him or affect him in any way. He seems indifferent.

“What did you do with Nicolas, the Greek?” he asks.

“My mom sat him down in the kitchen, gave him a couple of antianxiety meds with a glass of water, and sent him away.”

Severio’s watching me the way a spider watches a pinned butterfly. “The man drove away from your house?”

I nod. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“He’s dead.”

My hand covers my mouth. Oh no.

“You’re moving,” Gordon reminds me. I totally forgot he was there, the buzzing of the tattoo gun becoming background noise for Severio, who takes up all my bandwidth.

Severio continues, “I’m sure you can deduce what happened to him and who ordered it or even did it. My uncle enjoys a good kill.”

“I get the impression the same could be said about you.” Huh. I never thought I had a death wish, but maybe I do since I keep answering him in a way he could find displeasing. Luckily for me, Severio cares little about my opinion of his character.

“Mmhm,” he agrees. “You’d be wise to remember that since your father didn’t have a position in the Order, and neither did you until tonight.”

I’m afraid to ask about my position in the Order. I’m sure it’s a punishment of some sort, and I’ve plateaued on the amount of bad news I can handle for the year. While I sip my wine, Severio continues.

“Your family would’ve been well off in the Order. Had you gone through proper channels.”

“It wasn’t my dad’s fault. Gio made it sound like he was authorized to recruit.”

Severio shakes his head. “Your father was an ambitious man.”

“He wouldn’t have left my mom and me penniless.”

“You’re right. That was all Gio, the man you offered yourself to.”

“I didn’t offer?—”

“Never mind,” he bites out. “We won’t be discussing that.” He returns to the topic of the Order, even though he’s the one who brought up my relationship with Gio. “When Gio introduced the Serpentine Order to you, were you under the impression he led it?”

I swallow. “At first, yes. But one time, he used the term ascend in context in a way that made me wonder if there was a throne he aspired to ascend to.”

“And you didn’t think to ask for clarification.” It’s not a question. A statement.

“I had a feeling he’d get upset if I asked. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say.”

“Are you a cat?” Severio asks.

“Well, no.”

“Are you afraid of my uncle?”

Maybe. “I didn’t want to poke the bear.”

“You’re poking me.”

“You’re not a bear.”

Severio leans back, again brushing his thumb over his lower lip, seemingly considering the animal analogies. “You’re right. I’m not a bear. Nevertheless, if you asked, Gio would’ve told you about tonight. You arrived here with no knowledge of the Order’s rites or rituals, and with the presumption I’d assault you. As if.” Severio snorts, an unexpected sound from him, then he pierces me with those intense blue eyes. “Gio’s been laying the groundwork for his coup d’état,” he says.

Gordon stops the buzzing gun and removes his gloved fingers from my upper back.

The air in the room changes, becoming charged with what I can only describe as anger. Severio’s, I’m sure, as his lips are pressed together and his teeth are grinding. He reaches behind his back and pulls out a big silver gun. “And you are complicit.” He rests the gun on the bar.

My gaze is glued to the weapon. “I didn’t know there was a coup,” I rush to say. Having grown up in a house where parents rarely argued and everyone was a “bird,” as the Order members would say, the guns dangerous men carry around like I carry my lip gloss take some getting used to.

Severio watches me in a way that makes me want to kneel and beg for forgiveness. Maybe that’s what I need to do. “Please.” I make praying hands. “I had nothing to do with any coup.”

Severio narrows his eyes. “My uncle told you he’s ascending, and he robbed you of your substantial inheritance. This means you knew he wanted to usurp me and that he stole from me, since your family assets are tied up in the Order.”

“I didn’t know it was you he was usurping.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“It’s the main point,” I argue, because Severio isn’t taking his hand off the gun. Tears gather in my eyes, and I beg him again. “Please, show mercy.”

“I am.” He flicks his gaze toward Gordon, indicating the tattoo work he’s done on my skin.

I can’t take my eyes off the weapon. “Please.” Severio might spare me if I prove loyal to him.

“Gio will flee the country tonight,” I sputter. There, I said it.

Severio’s blue eyes are striking in their intensity, especially when he’s told something of this magnitude.

“He told you this?” He takes his hand off the pistol and closes his fingers over my praying hands. His touch is cold, his skin soft, his grip hard.

I shake my head, my body shivering.

Gordon stands next to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Steady now,” he says. “Nobody here will hurt you.”

When I look up, his gaze is on Severio, but Severio’s focus seems transfixed on the place where Gordon is touching me. Lazily, he drags his gaze up and looks at Gordon towering over the pair of us.

“Tell her nobody will hurt her,” Gordon orders, an edge to his voice.

“Are you asking me if I will hurt her or telling me I can’t?” Severio asks.

They’re locked in a staring contest, and the tension between them, mainly the alpha-dick measuring, could save my life. This is good, except when I told Severio that Gio planned to skip town, I effectively betrayed Gio and now have zero chance of survival if he finds out. I must lie in bed with Severio now and to the bitter end. In a coup, you pick a side and pray you picked the winning one. After twenty minutes with Severio, I pick him.

“I overheard Gio speaking with Peter Monroe, who is a retired pilot.”

Gordon squeezes my shoulder, comforting me. He grabs two beers from behind the bar and returns to stand beside me. He pops the caps open and hands a bottle to each of us.

I take mine.

Severio refuses.

Gordon starts drinking it. “And?”

Severio makes a strangled noise, almost hissing like a snake.

“And Peter said the plane will be ready at five.”

Severio checks his watch. “About four hours from now.”

“What do you want to do?” Gordon asks.

Severio grabs his gun.

I tense.

He rests it on his thigh and starts tapping the barrel with two long, masculine fingers. “I’ll finish with her, then decide.”

Oh my God. “No, no, no, please no…”

“Shhhh.” Severio presses the side of the weapon’s barrel against my lips. “You must stop begging.”

Wide-eyed, I stare, the cold weapon still pressed against my lips.

Severio nods at Gordon, who exits the villa.

Wait what? One moment, Gordon’s firmly defending me, and now he’s gone. I’m as good as dead. The last good knight has left my castle, and I’m in the chamber with the villain.

Seconds stretch. Time drags as my heart pounds, my eyes locked with his blue ones. I’m pleading, silently, telling him I’m a good girl who told him about Gio now. Spare me, please.

Severio sets the gun back on the bar.

You’d think I’d be relieved the weapon was away from my face, but I’m not. I can’t take my eyes off it, and he does that thing again where he touches my jaw and forces me to look at him.

“Do you know that when you keep eyeballing my Walther, it makes me think you want to take it?”

“Oh, I hate guns. Weapons in general. I’m a peacemaker.” I make praying hands again. “Amen. Namaste.”

“I end people who take my things.”

“I understand.”

Severio holsters the weapon behind his pants. “I don’t have a lot of opportunity to spend time with birds.” He reaches for the tray Gordon used, which puts his shoulder and the side of his neck right in front of my face. As he’s moving things around on the tray, his cologne tickles my senses. He smells good.

Severio pulls the tray to his side, picks up a pair of clean gloves, slips them on, then starts to clean the top of my chest. When he turns on the gun, I lean back.

“Stay still,” he says.

“Do you have to do the front?” I ask.

“Yes.” Sounds like he might’ve suppressed an eye roll.

“That’s… Can I ask that you make it so it doesn’t show when I wear a V-neck?”

“Should’ve thought of that when you betrayed me.”

I thought we went over this. “I never betrayed you. Until you showed up at my wedding, I didn’t know you existed.”

“Mierde,” he curses in French and starts tattooing near my collarbone.

“You didn’t numb it,” I say.

“You’ll like it better if I don’t.” The pricking of the needle reverberates over my collarbone, and he’s right. I like this strange pain that arouses me.

“Go ahead and ask what you’re wondering about. Your head seems preoccupied.” His face is close to mine, his voice low, intimate, a deep tenor one might describe as his bedroom voice.

Unwilling to tell him how much his tattooing me turns me on when it should repulse me because I don’t like him and he’s ruining my life, I swallow. “I’ll keep my musings to myself, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind.”

“That’s too bad, because I won’t tell you,” I say playfully, peacefully, so he doesn’t get offended and shoot me.

Blue eyes glance up, then fall back to what he’s doing. Now partially dry, his hair falls over his forehead, and my fingers itch to move the strands.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me about Gio’s departure tonight?” he asks, clearly wanting to talk only about Order business.

“I don’t know anything else.”

“Is your mother leaving with him?”

I frown. “No. Of course not. Why would she be leaving with him?” Weird.

“No reason.” Severio leans in closer and closer, his eyes focused, lips slightly pursed. I wonder what it’s like to kiss those lips. Are they soft?

“Is what soft?” he asks.

Horror. I said what I was thinking out loud. “Nothing. Have you decided what to do about Gio leaving?”

“I won’t let him leave.”

“Right, but what will you do?”

“I’m deciding on that now and would appreciate some quiet time while I mark you and think.”

“Marking sounds like you’re urinating on a tree.”

The buzzing stops, and Severio looks up. “Really, Cristina?”

Embarrassed, I clear my throat. “Sorry. Please continue.”

“Thank you,” he says mockingly and resumes the work until he’s finished. He patches me up and instructs me on how to care for it. He slips off the gloves and checks his watch.

“What time is it?” I ask

“Three thirty. Are you tired?”

I cover my yawn.

“There’s my answer,” he says. “Before I decide what I’ll do about your tip on Gio, I want to know if you understand that Order business is personal business for me. That leading the Serpentine Order is all I’ve ever known, and taking it from me will only happen once I’m dead.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Then you also understand you committed treason.”

“We’re back to that, are we?” But this time, I’m exhausted. If he wants to end me, there’s no stopping him. I yawn again and walk to the couch, where I sit down but can’t keep my body upright. I topple over on my left side, rest my head on the decorative pillow, and lift my feet.

Severio appears at the foot of the couch.

He looks displeased, like I’m a dirty rag someone left on his furniture. When he grabs my ankle, I think he might drag me off the couch, but his fingers start unlooping my sandal straps.

“You can ask me anything,” he says, sounding sincere. “Particularly about the Order. A man who makes you feel like you can’t ask him a question is a man you should run from.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t run from you?”

He slips off my sandals and tucks my feet back on the couch. “You asked me a question.”

With that single reply as his answer, Severio walks onto the terrace. At the iron railing, he picks up his phone and turns from the view of the moonlit sea. He leans against the glass, crosses an ankle over the other, and watches me.