King of Sloth (Kings of Sin #4) by Ana Huang

She was bundled up in a cashmere turtleneck, coat, and pants. It was an odd thing to notice given the circumstances, but it reminded me we were supposed to go ice-skating today. At this very moment, we were supposed to be at Rockefeller Center, people watching over hot chocolate.

It was funny how days, plans, lives could change just like that.

One blink, and everything was different.

“I’m fine,” I said. My voice sounded as hollow as my guilt.

That was the thing. I was always fine, and it was always the people around me who suffered.

I lived; my mom died. I came out of the vault without a scratch while two men had to be treated for third-degree burns.

“What happened?” Sloane asked, her voice still soft. “How did…?”

“It was an electrical fire,” I said flatly. I laid it all out for her—the wiring, the electrician’s warning, my decision to push off the update and, most importantly, my lack of foresight in taking care of these things before construction had started.

“This wasn’t your doing.” Sloane had always possessed an uncanny ability to read my mind. “The electrician himself said the wiring wasn’t an emergency. You—”

“Maybe not, but it was my job to think about things like that.” I set my jaw. “I can’t cut corners like that. Imagine if this happened after the club opened. It would’ve been another Cocoanut Grove.” The 1942 fire at Boston’s Cocoanut Grove was the deadliest nightclub fire in history.

“But it didn’t.” Sloane stood firm. “I talked to one of the responders. No one died, and the physical damage isn’t as bad as you think. The vault has a lot of fireproof elements. It’ll be tight, even tighter than before, but with the right crew, you can rewire the club, fix the fire damage, and open in time. Maybe it won’t be—” “What?” I stared at her, trying to process her words. They made sense individually, but together they formed a jumbled mess.

“What are you talking about?”

“The club. I did some quick calculations. It’ll take two months to clean up the damage, which throws off your initial design timeline, but if we scale back the interiors and focus on the experience, it’s doable.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “We’re not scaling back anything because the club is done. It’s not happening.”

Shock registered on Sloane’s face. “Xavier, the vault is salvageable. It—”

“No, it isn’t.” The loosened knot from earlier twisted into an unbreakable coil. “I gave it my best shot, and this is what happened.” I gestured around us. “If this isn’t a fucking sign to quit, I don’t know what is.”

“This isn’t a sign of anything.” If I was stubborn, she was unyielding. “It’ll be harder, but if—”

“Dammit, Sloane!” A torrent of pent-up emotions punched through my numbness. Pain, fury, frustration, regret—they all poured out, eating away at my rationality and restraint until I was nothing but pure, unadulterated instinct.

And right now, my instinct was to lash out at the closest target. “I don’t give a shit about the club or its design,” I said, low and vicious. “People almost died because of me. Because of my oversight and decisions I made. I survived a fucking fire this morning, and you think I want to plan a fucking party? That’s the last thing on my mind.”

Sloane’s mouth trembled for a split second before she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “I understand you’re upset, and you’re right,” she said with infuriating calm. “Now isn’t the time to discuss business. We can do it later, after we get you—”

“We aren’t discussing it later or ever.” I couldn’t breathe past the pressure choking me. “I told you, the club is done. Do you hear me? As in, it’s never happening. Why don’t you get it?”

“Because I know this is your emotions talking!” Her composure finally snapped. “You went through a lot today, and I’m not trying to downplay that. But you can’t make a decision about your entire future based on—”

“Yes, I can!” I stood, needing to move, needing to do something to feed the ugly beast prowling inside me. “Trying to secure my fucking ‘future’ almost got people killed. This project was impossible from the start, and I can’t sit here and run business calculations when there are men lying hurt in a hospital because of me. Not all of us can go through life pretending they don’t feel, Sloane!”

Unlike you.

I didn’t say it, but I didn’t need to; that was the problem with us knowing each other so well.

Sloane’s skin leeched of color. She’d taken a step back when I stood, and she stared up at me with something I’d never seen from her before: raw, undisguised hurt.

Hurt I’d put there—intentionally, callously, and maliciously. I knew her weak spot, and I’d attacked it without thought.

Emptied of fuel, the beast inside me deflated, leaving only regret in its wake.

Fuck. I reached for her, my throat clogged with the bitter residue of my words. “Luna...”

“You’re right.” She shied away from my touch, her eyes still glossy with hurt. “Not everyone can.”

“I didn’t—”