Page 38 of Ambition

I think I will fucking murder him. I feel like I could.“I’m going to fucking kill you,”I say it out loud. He has undermined me, blown my shot for something important.

“Before you do that,” Cain’s voice cuts through the madness inside my head, the two of us all over each other, a breath away from blood. “You can show me what you would have done for Sancte. You want the accolade so bad, I’ll watch and review. If it’s a job well done, I will give all credit to you. Writhe will follow suit, I promise.”

I turn my head to stare at the Unsaint. His arms are crossed now as he watches me, and I notice he is closer than he was before. Maybe he saw what I felt. Like I might actually murder Von.

But beneath me, Von only laughs against my ear. “You can throw yourself at me like you would have him. You can act like a pretty little slut, Isa, but I’m not fucking you. I never do want to,remember?”

I pull back, shifting on his lap.

He’s upright now, and his hands come to my hips like an instinct to settle me.

His lips are turned down into a scowl as he watches me, my hands on his chest, digging into the fabric of his hoodie.

“This was mine,” I say softly, eyes locked onto his.“This was mine.”

His grip tightens on my hips, his fingers splayed over the curve of my ass. He looks right at me when he says,“So were you.”

VON

LAST NIGHT

The conversation with Dad didn’t go well; when he stopped by the condo to debrief Isadora but she was busy. Initially, he tried to deny he knew any of the information Cain planned to give her. About the inside contact, where to look for intel, anything at all. He said he only wanted to give her a pep talk, to ensure she was ready since he would be busy later, with Solemn.

But I know my dad, and I knew there was no way he would let anyone, an Unsaint included, completely take over hisprotege’sassignment. Dad doesn’t lead Writhe, not yet, but the general consensus is that he will very soon. As the next in line, there are things he cannot do, and that includes letting his agent walk into a hostile territory without knowing precisely what she was there for, particularly when someone else did. Someone who was allegedly on their side, like Cain Bonavich.

Dad finally glanced at Karia and Cosmo, both sitting on the couch and scrolling through their phones, pretending not to listen to the hushed whispers at the far end of the kitchen.

“Why are they here?”he asked, like he had any right to.

“You know why.”The only answer I could give, and I saw Dad’s gray-blue eyes soften and I hated him for seeing me so clearly.

But he finally went very quiet in his denial, and I recognized the silence well.

It’s how I manage emotions myself. I distance my brain and my heart from Isadora every chance I get, and I do the same each time I go out on assignment for Writhe. I tried to enact that very playbook when I learned from Dad that Isa would be working as Theo Sancte’sentertainment. I put it into a locked box inside of my mind and I threw away the key. But every time I saw her in our condo in the week before her assigneddatewith Sancte, the darkness inside of the box grew, rocking against the sides like a living nightmare. Once in the days between learning of her assignment and the night she was actually scheduled to do it, we sat down to dinner at the kitchen island, side-by-side as we often did. I had made pasta from scratch, and she was twining it on her fork when her eyes caught mine and for once, I hadn’t thought of the night of Halloween all those years ago, seeing pasta.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “For always feeding me.” And she knew what it cost us both, to get over an association like that.

My fingers tightened on my fork and my heart picked up speed as I stared at her, trying desperately not to think of thethingshe was going to do. I do want her to be happy just as I did then. I knew she had goals, dreams of running something like Writhe. And I know she can do it. If she couldn’t, I wouldn’t worry so much. And it isn’t her in power that I hate; it’s what it might cost her to get there. I could murder and maim and steal, and sometimes it felt like a small sliver of my soul was left behind when I did. But for me, sex was emotional, and rightly or wrongly, I always put those ideals on her, too. How much of her soul would she discard for men who cared nothing for her?

Isadora is inquisitive and intelligent and sarcastic and biting, but she isalive.She laughs when I make fun of her music and she snuggles up close to me on the couch on the good days when we watch horror movies and sometimes she grabs my wrist and puts my hand over her eyes to shield her from the more grotesque scenes.

I love every second of that, and I’m terrified it might slip away from her if she keeps letting enemies use her body in exchange for power inside Writhe.

“Well you are a horrible cook so it’s really for me as much as you,” I said that night with a grin, and she gave me the finger and we ate together, shoulders touching.

I didn’t sleep well after that, despite the carbs.

And every night after, my nightmares grew.

I thought of all those things as Dad stayed in the kitchen, until he finally inclined his head to the patio door and walked outside, away from Karia and Cosmo.

Then he told me he didn’t want me doing the job. I laughed and asked how he could live with sending Isadora in my place. The laugh was to cover my anger. And rather than answer me, Dad asked if I knew that Isadora would hate me if I interfered in her work. He asked if I could live with that.

“I can live with anything except the absence of her.”

Now, I hold onto that thought as I start up the back stairwell of the Vipera compound; the steps are meant for staff, and I only found them from Dad’s description yesterday; the very thing he would have passed along to Isa. The place is as large as a sprawling five-star hotel, but it’s also just as busy. People in and out, some dressed, many not, the scent of marijuana heavy in the air, loud music of different genres reverberating through the hallways. All of that I walked by on my way in. I was searched, of course, and I have no weapon, but I was also left alone in the massive marble foyer while a staff member went to find someone who knew what to do with amember of Cruor.

I took my chance and slipped away the moment the man was out of sight.