God, the look on Dena’s face when she saw me with Tre … It occurs to me that I threatened to kill her the last time we met. Oh well. It was for her own good. Gaz probably would’ve strangled her and left her for dead eventually.
Fuck.
I play with a strand of blond hair and shrug.
“She’s becoming a nun,” I offer up, looking over at Tre, his handsome face bathed in the lights from the dashboard. It turns his brown skin an eerie green color, like he’s as much a specter in the night as I am.
Only, there’s nobody tonight who has a spirit as thirsty as I do.
Nobody.
“A nun?” Tre asks, and I hear Johnny K. snicker in the backseat. He leans over the front seat, crossing his arms on the back of the long bench seat. He’s still looking at me like he wants to fuck me, as if he doesn’t care that I poisoned him with fentanyl and a sprinkle of whatever that strange drug is that the mafia produces.
Crown really must’ve pushed to keep these kids alive; Cat wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed the entire senior class of ASHS. Fuck. The dose these guys got was so low that they survived, even without that strange silver antidote.
It’s a miracle.
“Yep. Her parents left for some missionary thing, and she decided to convert.” I tap my nails against the dark screen of my phone, looking out the window as the blackness of night rolls by.
“Convert? Wasn’t she already Christian?” Johnny asks, looking between me and Tre as Kellen sulks and sits slumped in the back seat. He doesn’t want me here. The girls weren’t happy about it either, even though they knew better than to say anything aloud. The way they look at me though, it’s not much different than they looked at me before save for one key factor.
Fear.
They never feared me the way they do now.
Is it terrible that I like it? Do I care? I never asked to be the fucking heroine in an epic love story. I’m an anti-hero at best, maybe even a villainess. And so are my men. I’m fucking done apologizing for my life or the choices I make. That’s what makes me and these men work so well. We’re messy, flawed, fucked-up, fallible human beings.
Perfection is boring.
Give me broken, give me shattered, let me embrace demons in the darkness. I’ll take it. I’ll take the hot scorch of hellfire and the heavy weight of damnation, just so that I can keep feeling with the intensity that I do. I’m like … the princess and the pea, but instead of being some spoiled bitch who should probably see a sleep specialist and also reassess her disturbing rage toward errant legumes, I feel every small moment like a knife to the back.
A smile from Beast, a compliment from Crown, a peck from Grainger, a wink from Sin. Those are the small, seemingly insignificant peas that I can feel even with twenty layers of bullshit between me and them.
That’s it.
The club princess and the knife in the back, a love story. A dark fairy tale. A harsh truth with so many wrongs that it all turns out just right.
At least … I hope so.
Now that I’ve allowed myself to taste that bitter tonic, I’m determined to chase it with something sweet, even saccharine. So, a baby. Four men who consider me their old lady. A yellow farmhouse. Motorcycles and grease and Grey running the mafia, so I don’t have to fight every second of every day.
“There are all sorts of ways to be spiritual,” I say, chewing on my waxy lower lip and thinking how it feels to have my men sheathed inside of me, how sinful yet how holy, all at the same time. If there really is a god, that’s where I’d find him, in the bedroom, stretched out underneath my men. “Reba’s changed her flavor. She had chocolate before; it’s strawberry now. Easiest way to think of it.”
“Fuck, Gidget, I forgot how weird you were,” Johnny murmurs, and then he reaches out to run a hand down my arm, and I snatch his fingers in such a tight grip that he actually chokes.
“Don’t touch me, Johnny,” I warn him, voice tight. I look right into his eyes as I deliver my dose of venom. “And I’m not Gidget tonight. Call me … Tina.” I smile brightly as Trevone laughs and Kellen huffs in the back seat. “First person to call me Gidget instead of Tina gets punched in the balls.”
“Whatever,” Johnny mutters, settling back into his seat for the remainder of the drive.
The casino is like something from another world. One minute, we’re in the endless shadows of the national forest and then there’s a huge, brightly colored billboard, and the whole world shifts. The trees pull back, the building rises from the shadows, and I see a huge parking lot filled with countless cars, their surfaces dewy from the on and off rainstorms.
The moon is covered with smoke from the wildfires, but it doesn’t matter. Triangle Lake Resort is bright enough to cast the entire area in brilliant, glittering light.
“You think they’ll card us straight off?” Johnny is asking as we climb out, and I find myself pausing as Dena pulls her convertible—with the top up, mind you—into the space next to me. She damn near runs over my toes, and if she did, I’d have killed her for ruining my carefully applied pedicure.
“Gidget,” Dena says, voice clipped as she looks me over and her two cronies creep up on either side of her.
“It’s Tina tonight,” I correct, pointing at my blond hair and wondering what finally happened to that weird love triangle between Tina, Trevone, and Kellen. Considering the boys are here together, and Tina is decidedly not, it must be something bad. “If you call me anything else, Cat will find out I was here, and he’ll probably kill all of us.”
I give a faux grimace, shrug my shoulders, and pretend like I’m not wearing a small pin camera on the front of my dress. It doesn’t look like much, just a tiny silver skull, but it’s relaying live video and sound back to the other Daybreakers.
Here goes nothing.
“Tina?” Dena queries back, pursing her mouth like a cat’s asshole. God, I hate that expression. “What is wrong with you?”
“Clinically?” I ask, and then shrug again, my clutch held firmly in my right hand. “I’m seriously considering psychopathy, but it could just be antisocial personality disorder.” I take the clutch with me as Dena makes an annoyed sound, her heels clacking as she follows along with the rest of our group.
Luckily, the boys with us are all football bros with enough muscle to look older than they really are, and Dena and her girls know how to do their hair and makeup as well as I do. We might get carded, but unless these idiots have jacked-up fake IDs, we won’t get caught. Considering they live in Ashbury, they probably bought their fake IDs from a Daybreaker minion meaning it’ll be quality stuff.
We head up the front steps in a group, and I look down at my clutch, pulling out my phone and pretending to be engrossed in a text message as we sweep through the front doors.
“You want a drink or something?” Tre asks, seemingly relieved when we’re not immediately tackled by casino goons three steps into the front door. On my right, there’s a classy lounge full of glamorous looking people with absurdly bourgeois drinks in their hands. Ahead of me and to my left, flashing, blinking machines of every flavor fill the room, broken up only by craps or blackjack tables, a roulette wheel, or the customer service desk in the far corner.
There are three different sorts of casinos in the world (in my humble opinion, at least): the shady sort, the touristy kind, and this—the classy variety.
Mafia.
I can smell the silk and sweet venom of careful monsters, and my heart leaps in my chest. I reach up to press a button on the earbud I’m wearing, the one that’ll allow the boys to talk directly to me. I left it off in the quiet car, so there wasn’t any echo or anything to give me away to the others.
“Took you long enough,” Crown chastises, and I can hear the restlessness in his voice. I can’t respond to him without looking crazy in front of my lovely group of high school buddies, so I ignore the quip.
“A drink would be great,” I tell Tre, flashing a coy smile. “I’ll go find a table.”
> “Well,” Dena chastises, looking Johnny and Kellen over. “Aren’t you going to offer us anything?”
“I’ll buy if you put out,” Kellen says with a smirk, and Dena giggles at his misogynistic douche-baggery like he’s just offered her flowers. Fuck, if one of them dies in the crossfire tonight, I hope it’s Kellen Doughty.
“Get something for my girls, too, ‘kay?” Dena offers up, looking around for a prime spot. She decides to head straight for the table closest to us, the one that holds that in-between space between the pit and the lounge. I stay cloistered with the other girls, enjoying the anonymity of our little group.
We take seats around the glossy, white surface of the table as my eyes scan the room. I don’t expect to see Giulia or any of the men in Alvise’s tactical team. I’d recognize them, too, since I spent hours and hours this week looking through the photos that Grey sent me.
There are five of them in total.
Five men who were directly responsible for Queenie’s death, one of whom is the asshole who said those unforgettable words—This is for Kian.—and pulled the trigger on a heavily pregnant woman. Five men who took turns on Posey and then left her for dead, her blood running down the pool drain.
I exhale and toss my hair back, trying to maintain my calm, desperately tamping down those violent urges. Anyway, I don’t expect to see Giulia. Grey said she was here to fuck her boytoy, right? They’re probably holed up in the penthouse right now, banging one out.
But that’s okay, because we have a plan for that.
“Stay with the group for a while,” Crown tells me, even though I already know. We’ve been over this a dozen times in the last few days. Maybe more than that. “And then take a quick walk around.” He pauses for a minute, and when he speaks again, it’s like he’s trying to talk around something bitter and thick on his tongue. “Take the quarterback with you. He seems interested.”
“Bet your ass he’s interested,” I tease, not caring that Chardou looks at me like she’s considering running fast and hard in the opposite direction. “Trevone,” I correct, looking back at her. “What do you think? Does he still want to fuck me? Even after I poisoned him on his birthday?” Crap. I should’ve said envenomated him on his birthday. My bad.
“Are you kidding me?” Amiya chirps, playing with the silky raven plait that’s hanging over her shoulder. “We could’ve died at the Artefact that day. Don’t you even care?”
I just stare right back at her, and I can tell that the blue contacts I’m wearing are even more unnerving than my usual red-brown Cat eyes. Amiya shifts uncomfortably and looks away, toward a table on the opposite side of the lounge. It’s situated behind a red velvet rope, clearly a VIP area for bottle service.
There are so many fancy people over there, ones that remind me of my wedding guests, the ones I mowed down with a machine gun.
If only Amiya knew how much I cared, but how few choices I had. If only she knew how much Crown cared. She should feel lucky to be alive because people like her are usually just fodder for people like Cat. Like Alvise. Even Grey.
And me … apparently.
I brought these kids here tonight, even knowing there’s a small chance they could get hurt. Likely not, considering this place is full of the general public. It isn’t easy to cover up dozens of civilian deaths, especially when they’re all concentrated in one spot. My ‘friends’—as Crown put it—are fairly safe here. But I would never have brought Reba along with me.
That’s the difference.
“Your daddy is a hedge fund manager,” I reply finally, as if that’s accusation enough. “You don’t think he does things that are probably against the goddamn Geneva Conventions on a regular basis? Don’t act like we’re any different.”
Amiya turns back to me as Dena and Chardou exchange a look, but she doesn’t dare say anything. And then the boys are back and passing out drinks, clearly having been successful with their fake IDs at the bar. Excellent.
Trevone takes a seat next to me while Kellen and Johnny sit across the table with the girls interspersed between them.
“This place is fantastic,” Tre remarks, looking around with wonder as he lifts a bottle of some fancy IPA to his lips. “Damn. Shoulda checked it out sooner.”
“And if you win? Then what?” Dena asks snootily, gesturing in the direction of the slot machines. “It’s totally pointless.” She tosses her hair and then pauses at the sight of a handsome young man in a tailored suit.
His face triggers my memory, and I almost choke on the drink that I’m not actually drinking. Couldn’t tell Trev that I’m knocked-up with a biker’s baby, could I? Well, I mean, I’ve said things like that to these people before, Amiya in particular. But I was joking then. It’s reality now.
I make sure that I’m facing the man as he walks past so that the boys can see; he’s one of Alvise’s tactical guys.
“Fuck,” Crown murmurs, but this isn’t entirely unexpected. What is unexpected, I think, is for the sea of glittering socialites on the other side of the red velvet rope to adjust themselves so that I can see the person sitting at the head of the table.
Giulia Wolfe.
My eyes widen as I spot her there, not fifty feet away from me.
Oh my fucking God.
She’s laughing and smiling and schmoozing, but when her eyes drift my way, I drop my attention down to the clutch in my lap, certain that if she sees my face, she’ll know right away who I am.
We have a disturbing sort of connection, me and Giulia.
“You will never walk outside these walls without a leash. You’re a useful political tool, that’s all you’ve ever been.”
Her words echo in my head as I stick the straw of my drink in my mouth and suck up some of the liquid. I don’t swallow any though. Not only am I pregnant—so weird—but also, I can’t allow myself to be incapacitated by anything.
My head must be clear for this.
“We don’t actually have to gamble,” Tre throws out with a scoff. He clearly can’t stand Dena, but since she’s the most popular girl at Ashbury besides Tina, he puts up with her. Because that’s what his life is about, stupid, insignificant things like popularity or football. He doesn’t live and breathe death and destruction, doesn’t revel in the simple things, like the air in his lungs or his safe, easy neighborhood and his safe, easy future. “We’re here for drinks and ambiance.” He gestures with his head toward the back of the casino. “There’s all sorts of shit here: a huge arcade, a pool area with a hot tub and a sauna, shops, a second bar area with live music. Don’t be such a stuck-up bitch, Dena.”
They’re bickering, but I’m not listening.
Instead, I lift my gaze up to peer at Giulia from beneath my eyelashes, as if I’m just a demure blonde on Tre’s arm. No, I’m anything but that. I have the ghosts of all three of my siblings inside of me. I have Queenie’s strength and Posey’s sass, Gaz’s endless rage.
“This drink sucks,” I say with a shrug, pushing the bright blue whatever it is toward the center of the table. “I’m going to get something else from the bar.”
“You want me to grab it?” Tre offers up, but I’m already standing and Crown is in my goddamn ear.
“Don’t get too close to her,” he warns me, but I don’t plan on it.
“Nah, I’m good,” I offer up with a coy, little smile, scooting past him and heading in the direction of the bar. I lean my forearms against the surface of it and then flick a glance toward Giulia’s table.
“Keep an eye on her. As soon as she leaves the lounge, figure out where she’s going without getting too close,” Crown continues.
“I want to hurt her so fucking badly,” I whisper, just before the bartender swings my way, and I order a ginger ale. You’d think I’d ordered a punchbowl of vodka for the way the guy looks at me, like I’m completely nuts.
“I know, Gidge. I know. But keep it together.”
I accept my drink with a smile and toss a ten on the counter, taking a seat on one of the
stools to sip it. My stomach is roiling with nausea, but I don’t think it’s the pregnancy. I’m in the presence of monsters, and my own inner monster can sense it.
I subtly shift my gaze back to the table only to notice that another man has joined Giulia, one of his big hands on her slender shoulder. The way his fingers tense imperceptibly against her skin, I know right away who this is. Her lover. A man named Cosimo Balotelli, a capo for the Grey Wolfe Mafia. A capo is short for caporegime, which is basically like a captain who heads a group of soldiers.
In this case, Alvise’s tactical team.
The majority of the other people have drifted away toward another table, leaving Giulia and Cosimo alone.
“This is for you,” he tells her in a velvety baritone, and I swear to fuck, my brain literally snaps in half.
This is for you.
This is for Kian.
This is for Kian.
This is for Kian.
I turn sharply toward the man in the black-on-black suit and tie, and I feel my heart lurch strangely in my chest. I recognize his voice. I recognize it because it’s been playing in my mind for years, a relentless requiem that leaves my soul just a bit colder, a bit more bereft, every time I hear it.
I would recognize that voice anywhere, could pick it out of any crowd.
The man hands Giulia a red rose which she brings to her nose, smiling devilishly as she flicks her dark gaze back toward Cosimo’s face.
“You always know how to please a woman,” she murmurs, looking back toward the rose and closing her eyes as she breathes in its scent. “I’ll meet you in five.”
“I’ll be waiting patiently,” Cosimo purrs, his accent decidedly American, despite his very Italian sounding name. He takes off with smooth, confident strides, and I turn back to my drink.
“We need to know where they’re headed,” Crown tells me, his voice edged with that impossible authority. “Figure that out, but don’t follow them.”
“Yes, sir,” I whisper, staring into my drink and trying to keep my hands from shaking. I wait for Giulia to stand up, abandoning my ginger ale on the counter, and then I follow behind her at a safe distance.
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