Page 48 of A Madness of Crows

She traces a symbol into her kneecap. “Reed.”

Horror swamps me. I know Reed well enough, know his methods, his cruelty.

“A health check,” she continues as I stare at her. “To make sure I’m ready forbreeding.”

Her words are steady, bitterness rippling through every word. “I suppose it was always going to happen at some point, right?”

“Not to you.”

At my instant refusal, she lifts a shoulder, lets it fall. “Why not? It happens to everyone else under this roof.”

It’s a struggle to breathe, as I look at her.

Not to you.

My throat closes up in realization. “I have to leave for a couple of hours.”

She loosens a breath. “Of course you do.”

The sad words hit like a punch to my solar plexus. “It’s not like that.”

Not you.

She only nods. “I’m having dinner with Salvatore tomorrow night.”

Carefully, I cup her cheek, drawing her around to face me. Her eyes shimmer. “I will be back,” I swear. “I’m not leaving, Cat. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

She doesn’t pull away, only watches me with sad eyes. “Are you badly hurt?”

AmIhurt?

My eyes close. “No. Nothing I haven’t had before.”

And nothing like the pain in my chest as I leave her curled up in that bathroom and go for my keys.

***

The campus is eerily silent. I stop at my apartment first, shoving the things I want to keep into a holdall, living up to the excuse I had to come here in the first place. The place is nearly bare. Bare walls, bare sides.

Nothing to indicate that someone actually lives here.

Only a handful of Asante students are still around. They ignore me, their brief looks just as dismissive as the men back at the house.

Where Salvatore leads, they follow.

And then I begin to search.

The dining hall is empty. I’m turned away at the Fusco house, shrugged shoulders and tightened lips the only response when I ask for him.

Dante V’Arezzo is in Vegas, I’m told.

Nobody seems to quite know where Luciano Morelli is.

I jog up the steps to Cat’s apartment as my muscles scream for relief, my body threatening to give up entirely thanks to last night’s punishment. I’m expecting it to be empty, abandoned, but a silhouette moves past the window as I wait.

Gio Fusco opens the door with his gun in his hand and a grim look. “I’ve been messaging you every fuckingday, Asante.”

“You have to get her out.”