SWNOVELS Dukes of Madness: Chapter 5
It’s been four days, and Lavinia’s done nothing but sleep.
She wakes up every now and then to accept the food I bring her, tired eyes shining up at me through bedraggled hair as she tastes the soup. Sometimes, she’ll rasp out a low, “Thanks.” Sometimes she won’t say anything at all, adjusting the kitten to lay at her side as she prepares for the chore of consuming sustenance. That’s what it looks like when she eats. Like it’s just work. Sometimes I’ll sit at my desk, working on a paper or finishing my lab notes, but most of the time I leave her be, always hyper-aware that she’s in my bed, waiting for the next time I return.
Either way, it’s always quiet. Even the air in the tower around us feels reserved, as if there’s a frailty that could be shattered by the smallest sound. The wariness never really leaves her eyes. Every time Remy or I enter the room, she goes stiff, as if she’s expecting someone else. Nick, probably.
But he never comes home.
At night, I climb into bed beside her, and I’m not really sure why. The kitten and I always go five full rounds before he lets me settle on the mattress, swiping out with sharp claws as he shrinks into the curve of her sleeping form, like he’s her bodyguard or something. I’ll stand there and curl my fists, glaring at him until he finally retreats, curling into a tight ball against her neck, and it’s stupid. I could sleep on the couch, or even in Nick’s bed. It’s not like he’s using it.
Instead, I slide carefully under the blankets and nurse my stinging, kitten-slashed hands, the darkness amplifying the sounds of Lavinia’s slow, measured breaths, and I sleep. I wake up. I go to class. I come home. I do it all over again.
Except this morning, when I wake up to find her tucked up against my side.
She must have rolled over and curled against me at some point. There’s a long stretch of time where I just lie there, flat on my back, cataloging the warmth of her skin against mine. Cool hands, hot feet, warm breaths. The realization doesn’t hit me so much as it just… arrives.
I’ve been waiting for this.
No.
I’ve been hoping for this.
The touch of her chin against my shoulder. The warmth of her body against mine. The rhythm of her breaths, so close that I can feel them, fluttering like gossamer. The weight of her next to me. The thrum of someone’s life pressed against the thrum of mine.
My dick is harder than steel, but it’s not just that. Not just her tits or the way her lips look, plush and parted. It’s not even about the way I’m holding myself back from rolling on top of her, thrusting wildly into the soft cradle of her thighs. It’s just this. The touch. Not a punch or a shove or some athletically deliberate hold. This is softness and comfort and…
Sweet.
That’s when I know, all these nights I’ve been getting into bed beside her are just like back in the old days when I’d throw myself into a crowded, rowdy party and wait for someone to start some shit. The flash of anticipation, the buzz of energy building, cresting—can’t be blamed, didn’t start it, not my fault.
I stare at my open laptop across the room, to the big digital clock floating around the screen, and I give myself ten minutes—not a second more or less—to indulge.
Her hair smells different than it used to. I’d washed it with Remy’s shampoo before, not even thinking, only now I miss the scent of hers, honey and the faintest hint of flowers. The Archdick has fucked off somewhere, and now it’s just her, one of her bruised knees prodding into my thigh. I think about touching the skin there, about moving my fingertips higher, about grabbing her hand and placing it on my bare chest. I think about the texture and the heat, and how if she touched me with even the smallest hint of intent right now, I’d come my fucking brains out.
And then my time is up.
Crawling out of bed is the hardest thing I’ve had to do all week.
“Do you think they were fucking?” Remy asks, passing the blunt.
“Probably.” I snort, taking my attention off my journal long enough to inspect the ember of the blunt. “You know Tate’s type.”
Remy’s mouth quirks and it’s a perfect mirror to what I’m feeling inside. “She always did love her some premium, high-maintenance pussy.”
“And what could be higher maintenance than Leticia Lucia?”
Talking about her like this, thinking of Tate having something good, takes away the sting of her possibly hiding it from us. Still, maybe we’re reading it wrong. Last night, when Lavinia gave Remy the picture—likely just to shut him up from the constant barrage of questions regarding Leticia—we knew right off it was Tate. Remy had inked those flowers on her ankle himself. We all know what it looks like. The socks. The feet curling toward one another. Maybe they were fucking.
Maybe.
Forsyth is gray and dreary even at ten in the morning, a mist hanging over the city like a noxious cloud. I add to it, exhaling a heavy stream of smoke into the air. This is only my third time up in the belfry. The first night after moving into the tower, the three of us came up here without even having to discuss it. Only Dukes are allowed in the belfry. There’s a very select group of people who have seen Forsyth from this vantage. It’s all part of the experience, having an exclusive perspective, and it went without saying that it’d be one of the first things we did. It is an incredible view, but there are at least three buildings in the distance that are as high or higher than our clock tower. It’s not the height that makes it unique. It’s the fact that we can see all points of Forsyth from here. West, east, north, south. Every King would love to have this, to hover above it all, knowing that everyone is beneath them, small and insignificant. That’s why it can only be us, the fists of Forsyth.
We earn our spoils.
“She seems better today, doesn’t she?” Remy takes the blunt, pinching it between his fingers before bringing it to his lips.
“So do you,” I note, writing that down under today’s date.
R: Alert. Active. Appears to be in good spirits. Continuing medication, but with difficulty. Six hours of sleep. Marijuana @ 10am. No other substances.
I thought it’d be stressful coming up here with him, knowing what I know. I think of him standing on that ledge and looking down, and something frantic and painful slams into the pit of my stomach.
I turn to another tab in my journal, jotting it down.
All subjects present with possible PTSD.
Maybe that’s it. Remy and his fear of losing hold on what’s real. Nick and his twisted idea of justice and fairness. Me and the way I feel strangely responsible for it all. Maybe we’re all stuck in some awful loop of grief over Tate, searching for a way to break the chain and only ever strengthening the links.
In any case, I’m surprised to find it’s not so bad, sitting here with Remy on what could easily be the edge of the world. I see the appeal, understand why he’s been so antsy to get up here all morning.
We need to remember that the world is bigger than us.
“Well, I’m better now,” he says, eyes falling closed as he savors the weed. It’s been two days since he last snorted that junk Cash Mallis had given him. Four days since I returned from Lionel Lucia’s mansion with his daughter in my back seat. Four days since we put her in my bed. Four days since Nick left. “She just seems better, like she has more energy. More cyanine blue than green. Don’t you think?” There’s a hopefulness in his eyes when they open, and I don’t have it in me to extinguish it. “She took a shower by herself this morning.”
All of this is written in another tab of my journal for the day.
L: Lethargic but alert. Fatigue. Sufficient appetite. Appears hydrated. More verbal today. Resuming normal hygiene, unaided. Tactile; uncharacteristic but not medically significant.
“Yeah, she looks better.” A part of me wonders why he cares. Why, sometimes, he comes into my bedroom at night to check on her. How he gets home from class and makes a beeline for my bed to see whether or not she’s awake. It’s as if she’s his first and last thought of the day, and it’s fucking weird. “I’ve never seen you like this over a girl,” I admit, taking the blunt back.
He squints, even though it’s too overcast for a ray of sun. “Like what?”
Shrugging, I take a moment to find the right words. “Like… invested. Like you care about her.” If it’d been someone like Haley, he wouldn’t have pushed and pushed, pestered me until I rescued her. This much, I know.
“She’s our Duchess,” is his reply, but even though it’s said flippantly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, I can tell there’s something lingering beneath the words. “I think I like her.”
I stare at him. “And you’re working that out after making me trespass on enemy territory to snatch her?” Rolling my eyes, I playfully bury my fist into his shoulder. “No shit you like her. I’m just not really sure why.”
He slaps my hand away. “Please, like you haven’t been dick-brained over her for weeks.”
I don’t say that I’m still thinking about waking up to her pressed against me a couple hours ago, and I definitely don’t say that I’m wishing time would move faster so I can climb back into that bed and maybe have it happen again. “That’s different,” I argue. “I didn’t say she wasn’t hot. You don’t get attached to pussy for no reason. I know you.”
He looks down, forehead wrinkling. “At first, I thought it was just because she made me remember. I didn’t even know why yet, but I just knew she was important. And then…” I watch as his eyes go distant, because Remy is like this sometimes—painfully earnest, willing to spill it all out.
It’s the best and worst thing about him, the way he wears his heart on his sleeve, like it’d never occur to him such a thing could be a weakness. If he can find it—if he can wade through the chaos of his mind to form a feeling into words—Remy will always speak his truth. It’s not always comprehensible or rational, but it’ll always be honest. I think that’s what enrages me most about whatever that doctor must have done to him. That she had someone so open, so willing to show every morsel of his thoughts, and they just fucking plundered it like savages.
So I wait patiently as he sorts through it, hitting the blunt a couple more times, a glaze settling over his eyes before the spark within them finally catches. “I think she’s the first person that ever took care of me.”
My jaw drops and I steal the blunt, yanking it away. “Then what the fuck have I been doing?!”
Remy’s pursed grin pushes his exhale of smoke into a sideways stream. “Nah, it’s not the same. You take care of me because you want to fix me. With you, there’s a goal post. But Vinny, just…” He tips his head back, the sun catching his hair. “That day she talked me off the ledge—right over there, actually—she took care of me. She talked to me, patched me up, let me use her skin, and there wasn’t any… expectation. Like she didn’t need me to be better or fixed. She just needed me to be the best I could, and that was enough.” When he finally looks at me, there’s a flicker of apology in his eyes. “Tate’s the only one who ever treated my bullshit like that.”
My stomach sinks. “Remy… she’s not Tate. She can never be—”
His eyes flash angrily. “No one knows better than me that we can’t replace Tate. You think I want Vinny because she fits in her place? I’m just saying, it’s nice not to be someone’s project for a change.” Lower, he adds, “Plus, she’s got my ink now, and that makes her mine. Oldest dibs known to mankind.”
I could probably mention that the Lady has his ink, too, as well as half this damn frat and a good portion of his old high school graduating class. Instead, I fight back a scowl. “I don’t think of you as a project.”
“Sure you do,” he insists, giving my journal a pointed look. “But what you don’t realize is that you’re my project, too. There’s a reason I let you henpeck me to death. It makes you feel better. Gives you purpose, keeps you close.” He nods, watching the trail of smoke as it marries into the city mist. “One day you’re gonna realize it’s futile—that you can’t fix me, you can’t win—and it’s going to seriously piss you off. But until then, we’re good, brother.”
I scoff. “I can always win, Remy. Always.”
He basically ignores this, flicking his hair from his eyes. “Anyway, I don’t know why you’re giving me the third degree. You’re the one who’s been doting over her like a flustered nightingale.”
“What? You’re full of shit.” But when I hit the blunt, I hold it in, pinching out a terse, “You were the one brushing her hair.”
He laughs, head shaking. “No, it’s good. Because you might not be able to win against whatever’s wrong with me, but her?” He looks up at me, considering. “If she’ll let you—if you really want to—you could fix her.” There’s a question there that I’m not exactly ready to answer.
Do I want to fix Lavinia Lucia?
I redirect the conversation the best way I know how. “You should try to smooth things over with Nick.”
A dark look passes over his face. “Fuck Nick.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you said you were tired of losing people?”
“I am.” Despite this—or maybe because of it—Remy’s shoulders curve dejectedly. “He’s just such a shit sometimes, you know?”
“I know.” After a long pause, I add an ominous, “But…”
Remy nods. “He’s our shit.”
“Right.”
For better or worse, Nick is our problem to deal with. We haven’t heard from him since he ran out of here, but a call came from South Side a couple days ago letting me know my brother’s crashing at the Hideaway, and it fucking gnaws at me.
Nick doesn’t belong there. Not in the Hideaway, not on the Avenue, not in the place in the distance where the mist meets the smog, blanketing South Side in a thick barrier of haze. I spent two years pushing the truth of that down, letting him do as he pleased, resisting the urge to march over there and drag him back, and I think I might regret it.
Nick ran away.
But no one came for him.
“We need to go get him,” I decide, closing my journal.
Remy leans forward to watch it flutter downward into the fog. “What if he tries to take her back?” Looking at me, I see the frustration in his eyes. “How can we trust him?”
“He won’t take her back.” I’ve never been as sure of anything as I am about this. I saw the look on his face when he felt the force of what he’d done. My brother might be impulsive, selfish, and stubborn as hell, but he’s not a masochist. He won’t hurt her again because he wouldn’t be able to take the wound it’d make.
I’m so caught up in this thought, my stoned mind just as hazy as the sky before us, that when my phone buzzes with a notification, I’m strangely certain it must be my brother. As if I could call him home with nothing but a carefully focused thought.
It’s not Nick, though.
“Shit!” I fumble for my journal and the bottle of water I’d brought up here with me.
Remy frowns. “What’s up?”
“Saul’s downstairs,” I say, rushing to gather our things.
In an instant, Remy is diving for the hatch, and I know he must be thinking the same thing I am: that Lavinia is down there.
Alone.
Still recovering.
Unprotected.
I haven’t been doting, but yeah, nursing Lavinia back from the edge of death has been a lot of work. I guess I’ve known deep down that I have my own trouble to deal with, which is why Saul’s appearance at the tower shouldn’t be unexpected. Just really fucking inconvenient and ill-timed. She has been looking better today, point of fact. She’s been more alert, her vitals seem solid, body functions returning to normal. Remy and I had gone up to the belfry for some much needed decompression, and now we’re stoned out of our goddamn minds, skidding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.
Saul has let himself in.
He’s standing near the wall of composite photos that line the back wall, eyes flicking over each small circular photo that makes up a membership class. A thick-necked soldier stands by the door, not daring to step fully inside, because we all know he’s not Royalty.
I’m acutely aware that I’m wearing nothing but sweats, including shoes. I’m also unarmed.
“Saul,” I say, alerting him to my presence. As if he doesn’t know.
“Simon,” he says, taking one last look at the photos before turning. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been up here.” He glances around, eyes sweeping from the clock in the loft, then down to the rooms. He points to my bedroom, his King ring catching light. “That was my room.” He grins with calm nostalgia. “We had some good times up here, your parents and I.”
I’ve never spoken to Saul about his time as a Duke with both of my fathers. I definitely have no interest in hearing about my mother’s time as Duchess. I know he’s not happy there’s a real Bruin back in the house. My half-brother is the only real threat to his position.
To Remy I say, “Hey, why don’t you go ahead and get the laundry,” and I know when he instantly nods that he understands the code.
Dirty laundry.
My brother.
Remy doesn’t linger, throwing Saul a nod before grabbing his keys and moving toward the door. I don’t miss the quick glance he shoots at my bedroom door, and I’m pretty sure Saul doesn’t either.
A dip of Saul’s chin and the soldier lets Remy through.
“I’m sure you didn’t come down here to reminisce about the good ole days,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and positioning myself between Saul and my bedroom. Lavinia is in there, probably cuddled up with her dick of a kitten, nose buried in my psychology textbooks. That girl will read anything. “I assume you want to talk about the Counts.”
“You assume correctly.” He unbuttons his suit jacket and sits in the worn leather armchair. His shoes are shined to perfection, his shirt crisp and ironed. Saul Cartwright isn’t just a King, he’s the athletic director at the University. A legitimate job. Something no other house can claim. To the outside world, he’s an established, respected man. But in West End? He’s a brutal gun runner and domineering figure, just as ruthless as any of the others. I knew there would be a consequence for retrieving Lavinia, and I knew he would be the one to issue it. “That makes it twice now that one of you has broken into the Lucia mansion. The first time, I managed to smooth it over, but now?” He picks a piece of lint from his shoulder. “Well, obviously it’s a step too far.”
“She’s our Duchess,” I remind him. “You saw us win her. She’s ours to claim.”
He agrees, “She’s yours to claim. She’s also yours to forfeit, which is what you did.”
“It’s what Nick did,” I correct, muscles tensing. “And he had no right. Remy and I were never consulted, and frankly, Lionel knew he was playing a risky game by not disclosing the arrangement made between him and Daniel.”
He taps his finger against the arm of the chair, eyes narrowing. “This is a question of property.”
“And Lavinia is ours.”
Saul looks unimpressed with my quick reply. “So stamp your name on her ass, brand the Bruin into her cunt, fill her scrawny little belly with your cubs. But Lionel Lucia is a King. The importance of his property always supersedes yours. Always.” He sticks out two palms, weighing them. “And yet, here you are, continually trespassing on it.”
He’s got me there, but I don’t regret rescuing Lavinia. Not after how I found her. “So what? You want me to grovel to him? Hand over a shipment of weapons? Suck his dick?”
Saul’s easy expression turns to stone. “You’ll go nowhere near him or his property ever again. Stay away from Lucia. This feud has gone far enough. We need his business, just like he needs ours.” He spins the ring on his finger. “This is a fragile ecosystem, Simon, and you two have managed to rock it like an earthquake in the few weeks you’ve been here.” His eyes meet mine. “I had my concerns about having the two of you in the tower at the same time, and so far you haven’t proven me wrong. Lucia’s calling for assembly, a Duke has gone absent, and for some reason, the Princes are missing a foot soldier. Blood kin, at that.” His eyebrow raises in question, but he’s not the only one trained in schooling his expression. I’m not saying a fucking word about what happened to Felix that night. “If you two continue on this destructive course, I’ll have no choice but to take action.”
Two? Not Remy? I can only assume he has an extra layer of protection that comes from having the last name Maddox.
“There won’t be any more problems,” I say, giving him a firm nod. “I have no further interest in the Counts, now that the Duchess is back home.”
Home. Is that what it is for her? After years of living with a sadist, then being confined to shitty motel rooms and South Side’s swankiest brothel, I find it hard to imagine this doesn’t rank top spot. Then again, maybe a cage is a cage is a cage.
Saul lifts his chin, assessing me. “I wish I could say that your word is enough, Simon, but I have to make an example out of you. You see, things don’t look good for us. To the casual observer, it might seem as though I don’t have my own goddamn Kingdom in order. What do you think I should do about that?”
Eat shit.
I’ve always had a civil rapport with Saul, but the truth is, hearing him call West End his Kingdom makes something flare within me. It’s not like he earned it. My Pops walked away and let him take it. Nick and I have more of a claim to West End than Saul ever has.
Wisely, I don’t say any of this. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do.” Saul reaches into the interior pocket of his suit jacket and removes a small square of paper. He hands it over and I reluctantly reach out to take it.
8 Huff Street—11pm.
“What’s this?” I ask. “A job?”
“A match. Tonight.”
I frown at the address. We mostly fight at the gym, on our own turf. Anything outside of that and we lose control of the setting and crowd. It’s risky. “But this is outside of Forsyth. I don’t fight in open territory.”
“Oh, you’ll fight,” he says, pinning me with a simmering glare. “And what’s more, you’re going to lose.”
It takes a solid thirty-seconds for the words to process. “You want me to throw a fight.” My stomach drops like a boulder. “You’re going to bet against me.”
He gives a slow, cold smirk. “Which is why you’re going to lose unexpectedly, believably, crushing the hopes and dreams of every sucker who puts money on the easy odds. A windfall of that magnitude just might begin to compensate me for all the trouble you’ve caused with this Lucia situation.” He stands and re-buttons his jacket, nodding at my closed bedroom door. “Oh, and the little Duchess you’ve got tucked away in your bed? Take her with you. She needs to understand that her father isn’t the only King she should fear.”