Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions novel Chapter 71

Chapter 70

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I stare at the city like it owes me something. Like if I watch the cityscape long enough, maybe I’ll spot the moment everything started to slip madness.

The office is too quiet, even for a Saturday. I’ve cycled through every document on my desk. Three times. A have been returned. And various reports have been approved with red slashes, which I barely glanced at.

My emails have been answered. All calls

It doesn’t help, though. Nothing does.

The silence stretches around me like a second skin I didn’t ask for. I try to tell myself it’s just anticipation. That once the gala’s over, I’ll sleep again and think clearly again. And I’ll be able to function without checking security feeds like a goddamn stalker.

But I know better.

She’s still in my bloodstream, and I don’t anticipate a cure or antidote will be found anytime soon.

I push back from my desk and pace. Again. The clock says 1:47 p.m. Too early to leave, too late to pretend I care about whatever’s waiting on my calendar.

1 step up to my expansive office windows and grip the edge as I watch the clouds drift by, slow and indifferent. Across town, she’s probably brushing past bookshelves, laughing with customers, and touching someone’s elbow without realizing she’s branding their soul. I wonder if she’s thought about me at all today. And if she’s as angry as I am restless.

I’m wasting time, so I grab my coat and leave.

Home is worse

I open

the liquor cabinet and stare at it like it might explain something life–altering to me. I pour a glass of something aged and vicious, but then

don’t touch it.

I sit. I stand. Then sit again.

My skin itches with something that has nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with absence.

1 pull the curtains aside, and my reflection glares back at me, tired and impatient. I look like a man unraveling in silk thread–expensive, invisible, and lethal. I don’t recognize myself these days. I don’t remember the last time someone made me feel this off–center. Maybe I never have.

Eventually, I drag myself to my room to get ready for this godawful gala I loathe to attend.

My suit is black–always black. But tonight it feels like feigned armor. Tailored to fit every angle of a man who used to know what control felt like. I run a hand down the lapel and exhale. This was supposed to be simple–show up, make a speech, shake hands, vanish into the night. But nothing about tonight feels simple.

I add blood–red cufflinks, an onyx watch, my sigil–emblazoned ring, and my metaphorical mask.

All perfectly in place.

And yet I still feel like I’m bleeding out under it all.

1,descend the stairs in front of my high–rise building like I’m headed to a war.

My car is waiting out front, but it’s not Mike behind the wheel. It’s someone I vaguely recognize–one of the backup drivers. He’s young and nervous, and I’m immediately irritated.

I narrow my e

eyes at him through the rearview mirror and ask, “Where’s Mike?”

1/2

Chapter 70

“Define urgent.”

“I–I wasn’t told, sir,” he replies, and my hackles go up tenfold. The kid’s pulse is fluttering like a terrified bird.

He’s in a navy–blue suit, and that stupid crooked smile that says ‘I’m about to make your life worse, but it’ll be fun for me.”

“Relax,” he says, waving a hand as if that’s ever worked on me. “I’m tagging along”

I arch a brow at him and ask suspiciously, “Since when do you attend events like this?”

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