He was a little skinnier than when they’d first taken him, with hollowed cheeks and a chin she pictured cutting her finger on. He was also very tall, especially when Zekia was standing side by side with him like this. Then again, Wesley was also a good few years older than her and Zekia suspected that when she got to be his age, she’d be just as big.

Wesley still wore a suit, but it was stained with his blood. And his eyes, stamped purple as the sleeplessness mixed into bruising, held pupils that were nothing but large black circles stealing all the color from him.

He had been stubborn and he had been punished for it, because sometimes hurting people was the only way to save them. Dante Ashwood had taught her that lesson well. And once she finally got Wesley to give in, he would be so proud of her strength.

When she finally got Wesley to give in, everything would be okay.

They would be a family.

Zekia just had to try a little harder.

“Will you join us if I let him go?” Zekia asked Wesley. “Will you join us now that Creije is on the line?”

In an ideal world, Wesley would have said yes.

He would have taken her hand and said he’d be her big brother.

He would have told Zekia that he liked the view from his high horse very much, but that he liked the view from a throne a lot more.

Instead, Wesley lifted his hand from hers and said, “I wouldn’t join you if my life was on the line.”

“Don’t you think it is already?”

Wesley laughed and Zekia didn’t mind, even if it was the bitter, horrible kind of laugh that was meant to make her feel like killing him, just so she wouldn’t be able to use him.

She liked it when Wesley laughed. She liked seeing him happy. She thought it was good that she made him smile every now and again, because the rest of the time all she did was make him scream.

“I’m not afraid of you, kid,” Wesley said. “If you were going to kill me, then you would have done it already. And Creije isn’t on the line. One district won’t break my city. I built it to be strong and when this is all over, it’ll still be standing.”

Zekia could see why people found Wesley frightening. Even now, when he was hungry and cold and looking like he was about ready to fall over, he still looked formidable. He still looked like an underboss.

“The city may be standing, but the people will be on their knees.”

It was Dante Ashwood who spoke then, and Zekia couldn’t help but think how his voice sounded like a whisper in the wind and a storm in the dead of night all the same.