Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions Chapter 57

The room reeks of sweat, blood, the sour tinge of fear, and the reckoning of consequences. It’s soundproofed, sealed off, and lit only by a single overhead bulb that flickers like it’s afraid of me.

I didn’t bring him here because he has answers. I brought him here because I need to bleed out the rage that’s curling under my skin before it rots me from the inside.

I don't let my head of security handle this one. Not today. Not when I need something or someone to scream.

I need *this*.

Not the truth, not even the intel—just the break. The snap of control, the shift of weight, the moment something gives beneath my hands.

The man in the chair before me once swore allegiance to me—swore it in blood and ancient vows. He once sat at my table and even took my coin. And still, he sold out my security perimeter last month to an associate with too many shadows on his name and too few answers. We handled that breach swiftly at the time. But I never dealt with this.

Until now.

The man’s tied to the chair, his wrists bloodied from his own useless struggles, slouched forward, and has a split lip and one eye that’s swelling shut. His eyes flare when I step into the light, and I can see the moment he realizes this won’t be about information.

“I didn’t sell you out,” he rasps as he spits out blood to the side.

I crouch low, tilt my head, and let the silence stretch out in the room until it’s unbearable. “No. You just sold yourself to someone who thought they could challenge me. You mistook my patience for peace.”

His bottom lip trembles as he looks down in shame that has come too late, “I didn’t know...”

“You knew enough.”

I slam my fist into the chair next to his head, and the sound echoes like a gunshot, causing his breath to catch. “Who else knows?” I demand.

His only answer is to mutter something into his chest that I can’t catch. I could compel him. I could dig into his mind like turning the pages of a worn book. But I don’t. Because this isn’t about that.

This is about the thrum in my chest that hasn’t stopped since I saw her on that screen.

So I move again—this time more slowly—and he flinches, just as I wanted. My usual interrogator and head of security—Nico—waits outside out of respect, or maybe out of fear, as I bleed my rage from this turncoat’s body. Even Griffin hasn’t dared wander in.

Until now.

The door creaks behind me, and Griffin’s shoes distinctively click once against the stained concrete.

My gaze doesn’t leave the barely conscious man in front of me. “You’re early,” I say, my voice like ice that’s cracking.

He doesn’t respond to my snark, but he does say sarcastically, “Oh goody, I see we’ve progressed from brooding to bloodletting. That’s healthy.”

I sigh and wipe my knuckles with a towel, as if I can scrub away the internal guilt or the disappointment. But they don’t budge. *Shocking*.

“Do you need something?” I mutter.

Griffin’s tone is deceptively neutral when he returns to work mode, saying, “You’re late for three meetings and the board’s already whispering about your moods again.”

I run a hand down my jaw, exasperated, and step back. “They can whisper louder. I’m busy.”

“Clearly,” he deadpans as he glances at the man still tied to the chair, who’s now blinking blood from one eye with a dazed look on his battered and bruised face.

Griffin crosses his arms, waits a beat, and then asks, “You ready to stop playing God and maybe act like someone who gives a damn about fixing things?”

“No,” I answer brusquely as I brush past him and pull out my phone. “Mike. Bring the car around.”

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The SUV is parked across the street from the bookstore. It’s just past six, and dusk filters in around us, all orange haze and long shadows. The lights are still on inside, casting that familiar honey-warm glow through the windows and out onto the pavement. I step out first, leaning against the side of the car like I might melt into the metal if I stay still long enough.

Mike doesn’t speak. He just steps out of the driver’s side and leans beside me with his arms folded.

The storefront is quiet. But I can see her silhouette move behind the counter through the big windows. She’s laughing at something while talking to someone inside. Her smile is bright and real, and she’s utterly unaware of the storm that’s standing twenty feet away.

“You’re not going in?” Mike finally asks, his voice low.

I shake my head once, but my chest aches as I say, “She doesn’t want to see me.”

“You sure about that, boss?” he asks, his gaze also remaining on her.

I close my eyes for a second—just one—before I answer dejectedly, “No.”

I stand frozen against the car’s cold exterior with my fingers twitching at my sides. My every instinct screams at me to go to her, to demand an explanation from her that I’m not owed. To tell her I miss her with every part of me that is ruined.

But I don’t. Because I don’t trust myself not to scare her away.

Another ten minutes pass as we stand side-by-side in silence. She eventually disappears from view without looking up and noticing me there.

Mike shifts beside me a few times, still silent, but still supportive. And after a few more minutes of her not coming back into view, I decide to put us both out of our misery and push away from the car, saying, “Let’s go.”

Mike doesn’t argue. He just gets into his seat and drives away as I stare out the window, like the passing street might give me the answers I need.

At our third red light, Mike speaks, his voice soft as he observes, “She didn’t see you.”

I dip my head and stare at the dark screen of my phone in my hand, and admit quietly, “That’s not the part that hurts.”

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The penthouse is dark when I enter, but I don’t bother to turn on the lights. There’s something almost reverent about the stillness, like the place itself knows I’m unraveling. The walls feel too tall, and the ceilings are too silent.

I pour myself a drink—something aged, expensive, and pointless—and stare out through the glass at the skyline I used to love, but it’s her I see on the inside of my eyelids. Or more specifically, that moment. The moment he hugged her and she laughed at him, *for* him. I replay it like my own personal punishment, letting every frame scrape my emotions raw.

“She’s not mine,” I say out loud, and tellingly, the glass panes don’t argue.

But she feels like she should be. And that is its own kind of agony.

I stand there for a long time, as I stare out into the night, letting it hollow me out. My power simmers just beneath the surface—coiled, starved, and waiting for something it can tear through.

But there’s no enemy here. Only a girl with a crooked smile who keeps undoing me with things she doesn’t even realize she’s doing.

My glass runs empty without me noticing, just as I whisper to the dark, “I could level cities and burn down empires. But I can’t make her choose me.”

And *that* might be the cruelest truth of all.