Chapter 170
Serena
Consciousness returned in fragments—first the taste of copper on my tongue, then the brutal throb in my temples, then the realization that I couldn't move my arms. My wrists burned where rope bit into skin, shoulders screaming from being wrenched backward around something solid and unforgiving. A pillar. I was tied to a fucking pillar.
The darkness wasn't complete. Weak light filtered through gaps in corrugated metal walls, enough to make out shapes but not details. The air reeked of rust and decay, motor oil and something organic that had been rotting for weeks. My stomach lurched, bile rising, but I forced it down through sheer will because throwing up while bound and helpless was not an option I could afford to entertain.
"Wesley." My voice came out hoarse, cracked. I tried again, louder. "Wesley!"
A groan answered me from across the warehouse—distant, maybe twenty feet away. Then movement—the scrape of fabric against concrete, the rattle of restraints. Through the dim light, I could just make out Wesley's silhouette slumped against another pillar, facing me. "What—" He coughed, the sound wet and pained. "Fuck. What happened?"
"We were drugged." I twisted against the ropes, squinting through the darkness to make out his face, but the distance and dim light made it impossible to read his expression.
"Fuck!" The word exploded from him, raw with self-loathing. "The wine. Of course it was the fucking wine. Felix—that bastard—he planned for me to turn on him. He knew. He fucking knew I'd break, and he drugged us anyway because I'm exactly the kind of pathetic, predictable idiot who—"
"Wesley." I cut through his spiral before it could gain momentum. "Focus. Where are we?"
"Warehouse. Industrial district, probably. I can smell the river." His breathing was uneven, shallow with panic barely restrained. "Serena, I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't be here. You were supposed to get out. I was supposed to—"
The door shrieked open on rusted hinges, flooding the space with harsh fluorescent light that felt like knives driven into my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut against the assault, then forced them open because I needed to see what was coming.
Felix stepped through the doorway with the measured confidence of a man entering his own kingdom. His suit was still immaculate—charcoal Brioni, perfectly tailored, not a wrinkle in sight despite the violence he'd orchestrated hours ago. But his face told a different story. The bridge of his nose bore Wesley's mark, mottled purple and swollen beneath a butterfly bandage, the injury transforming his refined features into something feral and frightening. Blood had dried in the creases around his nostrils. He hadn't bothered to clean it all away.
He walked toward us with deliberate slowness, each footfall echoing off the concrete, letting us absorb his presence. The Corsetti men flanked him like baroque statues—silent, still, utterly ready for violence.
"Wesley." Felix's voice was silk over razors. "My dear, foolish nephew."
He stopped directly in front of Wesley, his body blocking most of my view. I leaned forward against the ropes, craning my neck to see around him, catching just enough—the rigid set of Wesley's jaw, his bound hands gone white-knuckled.
"You know," Felix continued, almost conversationally, "I really didn't want to involve you in quite this way. The original plan was so much cleaner. But then I had to account for the possibility—the unfortunate, tedious possibility—that you might develop something resembling a conscience at the worst possible moment." He tilted his head, studying Wesley like a disappointing science experiment. "And here we are. Proof that even a broken clock is right twice a day."
"Fuck you," Wesley spat. "You've been using me since the beginning. Every word out of your mouth was a lie—"
The slap came without warning, Felix's palm connecting with Wesley's cheek with a crack that reverberated through the warehouse. Wesley's head snapped to the side, blood immediately welling at the corner of his split lip.
"Using you?" Felix's laugh was genuine, delighted, obscene in its warmth. "Oh, Wesley. You self-important child. You think you were the one being exploited?" He leaned in, close enough that Wesley flinched. "Let's review, shall we? Who paid for your cars? Your apartments? Your endless parade of bottles at clubs where you played at being someone who mattered? Who listened to you whine about Lance for years, nodding sympathetically while you pissed away every opportunity handed to you?"
Felix straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve. "No, nephew. You weren't used. You were tolerated. There's a difference. And now—finally, miraculously—you have some actual value. Except you nearly fucked that up too by deciding to play hero for this—" he gestured at me without looking, "—this nobody from a bankrupt family who wouldn't give you the time of day when she had better options."
"Don't." Wesley's voice dropped to something I'd never heard from him before—pure, cold rage. "Don't talk about her."