Potere | Book II ✓

xvi | until the last star falls

xvi | until the last star falls

a 3 month intermission never hurt anybody, right?

82 days. It's been eighty-two days. We're back.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"I swore to Vincenzo that I would take his secret to my grave. I lied."

The voice of the former king is far too easy to distinguish. Michael Luciano. Drenched in a genuine accent, with a tone true only to him. I never appreciated him when he was alive, and I disregarded a majority of what he said. But what I've come to understand is that Michael never just spoke, he preached. He mentored. And in between all the slick comments and dry humor, there was a lesson being taught. A lesson directed towards his son, because what I know now is true. Every move Michael Luciano made was to further the work of the empire he established.

It's three o'clock in the morning, and I'm wandering the dark halls of our home in search of Liam. If anyone needed sleep after the Russian's brutal attack on Rosalie's school, it was him. So, when I rolled over, grasped at air, and saw that Liam was gone, I got up.

The worst scenarios always come to mind first. The idea that Liam could be strung over a bathtub filled with his own blood, dead as dead can get is the first thought I have. And it's so real that the bathroom is the first room I check in search of him.

He isn't there, thankfully.

His office is next.

The faint ray of light that peeks through the cracked, wooden door of Liam's office is my sign. I breeze down the hall, clutching at his oversized hoodie, which I managed to grab before leaving the bedroom. I bypass knocking and push through the door. This should've been the first place I looked, because nine times out of ten he's here, in his office, overworking.

"I always preached that one only lies when they fear the person they're lying to, but let me make it incredibly clear to you, Elijah. I have never once feared Vincenzo De Santis. He's a good King. He's a great leader. But he will never be me."

Liam pauses the video when he sees me. He's leaning against his desk, ankles crossed over one another. A glass of water rests in his uninjured hand, while he struggles to grasp the remote in the other.

I glance back to the screen as I approach him, eyebrows connected. His father is onscreen, standing before the desk in his personal office, just like Liam is now. He's animated, passionate, and you could hear it in his tone before Liam halted the video.

I look back to Liam in confusion. "What—"

And unsurprisingly, he answers my question before I can even ask it. "He made a second video." Liam still sounds like he's in disbelief. His eyes leave mine, and drift back to the stilled video of his late father. "I just found it I—it was in the box under our bed, filled with some of his stuff that I haven't gone through yet."

I recall watching the first video Michael made over a year ago. The topic of that one was Vincenzo, and although nothing he mentioned in that video has come to pass, I know that Michael didn't waste his breath for no reason. I don't hesitate this time. "Play it."

Liam, however, does. "I'm scared."

"Play it," I whisper gently.

Liam does, and the tone of Michael's unwavering confidence fills our ears again. "Valentin Rostov. He's where this starts and he where's this ends. If I'm gone—since I'm gone, then there is no doubt in my mind that you know who I'm speaking of. I should've warned you about him before, but I didn't and that's on me."