Jack: Equivocation
I’m in love with Riley.
I don’t see the point in lying to myself anymore. It won’t make it any less true. This is something far beyond infatuation, far beyond obsession—even though those are wrapped up in it, too. Being in love with Riley…complicates my life, a lot. Being in love with Riley makes me want to be all the things that I’d thought I’d killed in myself a long time ago: decency, courage, righteousness. I thought those things could never come back. But Riley brought them back. Like an enchantress wandering through my soul, she took the fractured shards of me and sung them back into wholeness. She’s changed everything.
I won’t let Daemon have her.
That might have been an option two weeks ago. Not now. I don’t think I can ever let Daemon have any girl ever again. But I’ll deal with that problem later. For now, I’m just focused on Riley.
I swirl my drink and take a sip. The whiskey burns satisfyingly on the way down. I’m at the top of a skyscraper on the northern edge of Central Park. The Amontillados have a club here, and my people are celebrating. I can see the whole city stretching beneath me. I just got back from upstate; I’m covered in fresh scars and bruises and wrapped in fresh white bandages to try to help them heal.
A week’s passed since the meeting with Hector. Everything’s fallen into place. His company is mine now, and not only that: The last resistance to the Amontillados has fallen. The campaign Daemon and I have been waging against the syndicates opposing us has come to an end.
The city is mine. I’ve conquered the world.
The Vilkorov syndicate was the last to fall to us. They had a compound upstate. I wanted to make a deal with them—bring them in as partners. But some shit went really bad over the last week. A meeting turned into a firefight, and now I'm left standing and they're gone. They were the last piece of resistance. Now it's just the politicians and the police, and they can be bought. Most of them already are.
I can rule this world as a king with near absolute power. That’s a dangerous thing, but I’m going to use it right. I’m going to use it to bring peace. When there’s no opposition, people obey you without question. Sure, I’m still going to be extorting them and manipulating them. But violence won’t be necessary.
I should feel satisfied. Elated even. People keep coming up to pat me on the back. Daemon even sent a message: To us, my friend. Daemon rarely includes anyone with himself in the same sentence.
I look around the sky-high bar and the celebration—like decedent gods before the fall. I don’t give a damn about any of it. The only person whose opinion I care about is the one who doesn’t give a damn about what I’ve accomplished. In fact, she despises me for it. Riley’s the only one here who’s not a sycophant on some level. The only one here who’s willing to point out, with her defiant eyes, that my entire organization is nothing but an empire of sin. A fallen empire.
That girl's eyes won't let me forget what I've done. I have a yearning for power, control, domination. I would conquer and master the entire world. Yet Riley somehow reminds me that I've done it the wrong way. With a glance, she brings up all the innocents I've hurt along the way. No matter how much I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter—that the world would've chewed them up anyway—Riley's eyes tell me that it does.
Her singular, pure heart is a testament to the ultimate failure of everything I've done. And I sit here content to gaze into her eyes. I tried to break her, to show her that all her beliefs—in hope and love and goodness—were empty fantasies. But it's her that's broken me. Somewhere deep within me, there's the faintest fissure in the iron I've forged around my core.
I was supposed to be bored with her by now. She was supposed to be just an amusement. It was never supposed to come to this.
Daemon’s called a council now that we have complete control of New York. He wants to talk to the heads of the different cities in person—set up the next stage of the plan, our next steps to even greater power. Riley will be given to him the week after that. It’s the deal I made. At the start, when I made it and took her in that poker room, I never imagined I would care. What would it matter to me if Daemon had my leftovers? Now it feels as if I might as well have given up my entire kingdom.
I won’t let him have her. Riley can’t know my plan—secrets are kept better when only one person knows them. But I’m already spinning it in my head. I’ll send her away on the way back from Daemon’s council. We’ll make the trip back from the island we’re meeting on by boat—I’ll take one with just her and me. I’ll say she threw herself over the side—couldn’t take how I was treating her anymore. I’ll head down the coast with her and drop her somewhere in the Caribbean, or Cuba. I have money of my own. I’ll send her away with more than she could ever need. She’ll be able to take care of herself. She’ll be able to live. I’ll make sure Daemon stays away from her family, somehow. If he thinks she’s dead, the pleasure of retribution for her supposed disobedience won’t have much pull.
And I’ll never see her again. The thought hurts worse than any physical pain I’ve ever known.
Riley’s sitting across from me at a table in the corner, and I’ve been enjoying just being in her presence.
“Where did this shit come from?” She indicates my battered body with an unimpressed nod. I love it when she curses. I love talking to her. It’s just fun. I wish we could go on like this forever. I wish I could spend every night talking to her and telling her about my day, then hearing about hers. It makes me feel like a kid with his first crush again, eager to share the entire world with her. Except you’re a criminal who kidnapped her and ruined her life.
“Business went real bad up in Black Pines.”
“The Vilkorovs?”
"Yeah, partially."
I look at her for a while. For some reason, all of a sudden, I don’t want to tell her the end of the story. All I can think about is how I have to give her up.
“What happened to the guy and the girl?”
“Well, what would you do? All Leon has to do is give up one stupid girl. He could find any other. He could have anything he wants. He gives up this girl and he gets to go back to his normal life—a life of wealth and power and anything he desires. Or he can refuse. He gives her up and she dies. He refuses, and they both die. The girl dies either way—if the Vilkorovs don’t get them, then I’m back there, in the shadows, waiting to finish the job. He knows that he doesn’t have a way out. But he’s in love.”
Riley is looking at me with accusation in her eyes. “You didn’t, Jack. Did you? What happened? What did you do?”
I think about the terrible things I’ve done to Riley. I think of how I’m going to have to let her go soon. I can’t bring myself to tell her the end of the story. Let her just know that. That’s enough to make her hate me. It’ll be better that way, maybe.
“Do you want a drink?”
She stares at me, annoyed and angry, but seems to see that she's not going to get an answer out of me. She nods yes to the drink. I can’t tell if she’s unhappy about the violence she knows I’ve accomplished in the last few days or about the fact that she thinks she’s going to Daemon soon.
I go to the bar and I can’t pay attention to anyone else in the room. Even looking away from her, her eyes fill my mind. I realize with some annoyance that someone’s talking to me. A jolt goes through me.
Talia.
Talia Amontillado is sprawled across the bar in what I assume is an attempt at a seductive pose.
“…been ignoring me, Jack,” she’s saying poutily. “I almost feel like you don’t care about me at all.”
Bingo.
I put on the best front I can. “We both know no one could ignore you, Talia.”
"Well, you're giving it a good effort."
“I’ve just been busy. It’s not easy maintaining your brother’s imperium.”
She laughs. “You act like such a good, obedient boy when you’re talking to the family, Jack. We both know New York is your empire though, don’t we?”
“You’re saying that. Not me. I’m no emperor.”
“Sure you are.”
“Being Daemon’s retainer is all the power a wise man needs.”
She smiles. “Maybe it’s hard, but it comes as naturally to you as breathing.”
I don’t like whatever it is she’s getting at.
“Haven’t you ever thought of ruling yourself? You could take me as your queen. We could do it together,” she purrs. I think of the sirens in ancient Greek mythology, offering false promises to foolish men.
“Maybe Daemon’s sister can joke about that. I can’t.”
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t tell.”
I take the drinks and don’t say anything.
“Why haven’t you ever taken me, Jack?”
“Wise knights don’t court princesses. That’s for royalty.”
"Ah, I see. They just ravish peasant girls, is that it?" She glances at Riley and I feel something tense inside of me. A single wire playing a taut note.
I shrug. “Knights need amusement, too.” I start to leave and her voice goes colder.
“I’m not done with you yet, Turner.”
I go back to her and set the drinks down. Daemon, in a way, is easy to deal with. In all things important he is nothing but a cold want for power. Talia can be more difficult. She cares about power but sometimes cares even more about amusing herself, and it’s impossible to tell what form that desire for amusement will take. She has no problem hurting people in her pursuit of distraction. She’s dangerous and unpredictable, and I realize right now, at this moment, her attention is trained on Riley. I don’t like that.
“I’m a little jealous of that girl getting more attention than me, Jack.” She says it as if she’s joking, but there’s a deadly seriousness underneath.
“We both know Daemon wouldn’t like me doing any more than sitting at a bar and talking with you, Talia.”
"I don't give a damn about what my brother thinks."
"Well, I do."
"I don't think that's it. I think you're ignoring me because of that girl. I don’t like being ignored, Jack. It makes me bored. I hate being bored.”
“I’m just an enforcer. You’re a princess. Hell, you’re the empress of New York. I’m sure you could find better entertainers than me.”
“Trying to pass me off on someone else? I’m insulted.” The faux-humor’s dropped from her tone. Her voice is flat now, with a hint of ice. “Do you know what I think would entertain me very well? To tell my brother to kill that stupid girl as soon as he gets her. What do you think of that? You know he’d do it for me. He’s very loyal to family.”
If my plan goes right, Daemon will never have her in the first place. But I'm worried Talia will make him do something sooner—tell him to have her killed tonight, even. All it would take is a phone call. I wonder how many of my men would be loyal to me and how many to Daemon if it came down to it. Enough. I could protect Riley from him, but a lot of my people would die.
I feel myself going cold. It seems like a joke or a ridiculous threat, but I know that Talia’s completely capable of doing it. She would order someone hurt or killed without a second thought, and she’s right: Daemon would do it for her. Talia’s young—just past eighteen—and she plays with people’s lives the way other girls her age play with gossip or setting friends up on dates.
I push the drinks away, sit down, and meet her gaze steadily. If Talia’s sights are set on Riley I need to buy time and figure out a plan.
“I never thought you were interested in me.”
“All women are interested in you, Jack.”
“A scarred up, half broken ex-soldier?”
“You clearly don’t understand women as well as I thought you did.”
I shrug.
“I have a key to a room here, in this building,” she purrs. “Do you want me to show it to you?”