chapter 34
JACE MARINO
I was fine living in the shadows.
My life as a professor was fine.
Coming to class, attending to my students, watching them argue over things that didn't matter. It was the best kind of peace I could ask for. For a while, it felt like breathing as a human again.
He took that from me.
I still want to believe I have the one person I've ever felt something real for.
But he's been taken from me too.
I thought I had a plan. I didn't. I've lost control.
But I'm not quitting without a fight. I don't quit. I won't quit.
My father gave me permission to live as a professor outside the Marino world, but with one condition. That I'd still work from the shadows.
I accepted.
Now everyone's seen the man who was supposed to stay hidden. The man whose voice carries the same kind of weight as my father's.
Which means more threats. More enemies.
And more blood to clean up.
Now I'm breathing the Marino air again.
And it smells like iron. Blood.
