Prologue
Prologue
"Could you dig a bit faster?" Lucien complained, leaning on the shovel as though it were a walking stick rather than a tool.
"It’d go faster if you actually helped," Ezra muttered, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow.
The two of them were deep in the forest, surrounded by damp earth and silence, save for the sound of shovels striking soil.
"Well, I’m your lookout, aren’t I?" Lucien replied, as if that settled the matter.
Ezra stopped digging and looked up at him. "Why can’t we just chuck the body in the sea? I thought you had a boat."
Lucien held up a finger. "Fair point. But people might notice us hauling a corpse onto it, don’t you think?”
"Where’s August?" asked Ezra, irritation sharp in his voice.
"Ah, that, my friend, is the very question I’ve no answer to," replied Lucien, who was now casually tying back his shoulder-length, platinum blond hair. The moonlight caught the pale sheen of his skin, casting stark shadows across the fine bones of his face. His sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and unsettlingly calm eyes gave him the look of something carved rather than born, beautiful in a way that felt slightly unreal, as if he didn’t quite belong in this century.
"What?" Ezra muttered, sighing as he returned to digging. "So I’m the only one actually making an effort to dispose of the bloody body?"
Ezra’s golden hair was damp with sweat, the fringe sticking to his brow. His features were refined, clean-cut and boyish, but there was something quietly intense behind his blue eyes, something brittle, like glass under pressure. The effort of digging had loosened the collar of his shirt, now dirt-streaked and clinging to his skin.
"If I had to hazard a guess," Lucien drawled, inspecting his perfectly clean hands, "I’d say he’s back there cleaning up the blood. You know, where we accidentally put a bullet through the poor sod’s forehead."
"Easy for you to say, standing there like a bloody statue," Ezra snapped, huffing as he drove the spade deeper into the earth.
"Well, who do you think dragged the body five kilometres from the car, hmm? That would be me," Lucien said, placing a hand over his chest with mock pride.
The two of them were quiet for a while. Ezra focused on digging, the shovel biting into the cold, unyielding earth, while Lucien stood nearby—still as a statue, cigarette balanced elegantly between his fingers. The chill of the night bit through their coats, settling in their bones, but they had no choice. The body had to be buried before first light.
"Where exactly are we?" asked Ezra, pausing to catch his breath, the fog of it blooming in the air.
"This?" Lucien gestured lazily to the shadows around them. "An old family estate of mine. Not exactly forgotten, but… let’s just say it’s not in use these days. Rather abandoned. Rather convenient."
Ezra’s brow furrowed. "What if someone finds the body?"
Lucien exhaled a stream of smoke, his smile all teeth and nonchalance. "What, do you think a wolf’s going to dig him up and phone the authorities? Come on, Ezra. It’s private land. No one steps foot here unless you’ve betrayed us and gone all noble with the truth."
Before Ezra could retort, the distinct snap of a twig shattered the air. They both stilled, Lucien’s hand drifting instinctively to the knife tucked beneath his coat. Footsteps followed, slow, deliberate. A figure emerged from the shadows, his long coat brushing the wet grass as he approached.
The man was striking—tall and composed, with dark, tousled hair and a face that seemed carved from shadow and aristocracy. There was something old-world about him: the deliberate grace in his movements, the crispness of his blood-spattered cuffs, the way his cold gaze seemed to weigh and judge without a word.
"You two are loud enough to wake the bloody corpse," August said dryly, his voice calm but cutting.
"You gave us a fright," muttered Ezra, easing the spade from the dirt.
"You're both just loud enough to be careless," August continued, holding up a bloodied cloth. "I’ve done what I can. Now, shall we bury the bastard before dawn decides to ruin our little adventure?”
The three of them buried the body beneath the damp earth, their breath misting in the cold night air. For a moment, they simply stood there—staring at the fresh grave, the silence between them almost reverent, as though they were offering a final, unspoken prayer to the dead. Not out of guilt, but out of necessity. Respect, perhaps, for the secret now sealed in soil.
Ezra was the first to break the silence. “We’ll never speak of this again.”
Lucien exhaled a slow curl of cigarette smoke, the ember briefly lighting his sharp features. “We never spoke of it in the first place.”
“Now, shall we?” August said coolly, brushing dirt from his coat. “I think we’ve earned ourselves a drink.”
Without another word, they turned from the grave and disappeared into the shadows of the estate, their footsteps muffled by moss and mud. The night swallowed them whole as they made their way back to the car, bound for August’s penthouse in the city—where the scotch was aged, the lights were low, and the guilt, for now, could be drowned in crystal glasses.
