by Amelia Wilde
Sweeter Than Sin
Amelia Wilde
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Connect with Amelia
Also by Amelia Wilde
This book is for Kayti McGee, I guess
Prologue
Zeus
Seventeen years ago
A hand on my shoulder breaks me away from the conversation I’ve been having in the main ballroom. It’s a nervous touch. Light as a feather. The other men at the table continue the discussion about their various tax shelters but their eyes look toward whoever is standing next to me.
I pretend not to know who it is.
When I turn toward her, the nervousness in her touch is echoed across her face. Wide, brown eyes. A tentative smile. She’s cute for a whore. Devastatingly, painfully cute. Dark hair, shining waves, a curvy body in a red dress. She clutches a tumbler in her hand, ice still frozen and clinking in the whiskey. Like all good whores, she keeps that smile on her face even while she cuts glances at the men around the table. “Your father’s busy,” she says.
The drink and the whisper and the smile are all signs. They’re all a bid for assistance, which my father never gives. I roll my eyes at the rest of the table and stand up. “I have to take care of this.”
“Put her in her place, Zeus.” The man who says this has evil in his eyes. I know what he does to the women here. It takes them a full week to recover.
“What else would I do?” To prove it I put a hand on the back of her neck and haul her along with me toward one of the exits. “Give me that.”
She presses the glass into my hand. It burns going down, one swallow, and then I toss it at a waiter with a decimated tray of hors d’oeuvres. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, but—”
“But what?” I don’t bother to look at her, even when she trips on the carpet and only manages to catch herself at the last second. I’d let her fall. If it came to that, I would let her fall. “You thought you needed me?” I shove open the door to the outer hall and pull her across it. Her legs are so much shorter that it’s a struggle for her to keep up with me. Her feet are slipping in her kitten heels. We go across to an access hall, shadowed and empty at this time of night. All the way to the very end. The wall bumps out a few feet and I push her into that space. “What could you possibly need from me?”
I haul her up the length of my body until she’s face to face with me, her arms slung helplessly over my shoulders and lips a bare inch from mine. She scrambles to get her legs up, finding purchase around my hips, and I give her a shake. “Tell me.”
“A kiss,” she whispers.
“Ah, fuck,” I tell her, and then I give her what she wants while she laughs, the sound muffled in the dark. She’s so fucking cute. When we come up for air she presses her face into the side of my neck and sighs. “Were you scared?”
“No.” Katie turns her head and licks over the curve of my jaw to the bottom of my ear. “I was close, though. I almost believed you.”
We’ve been playing this game for four months. It is strictly against my personal policy to get involved with any of my father’s property but she’s the first one to make me laugh. She’s the first one to make me feel like I’m not a burned-out husk of a killer. She’s the first one to look at me like I’m not my father’s son. “We’ll be gone soon,” I promise, for what I hope is the last time. “Then we won’t have to play like this.”
She pushes back so I can see her face. “What if I want to play like this?”
“Do you think I’ll just give you whatever you want?”
Katie kisses me, light and fleeting. “Yes.”
“You’re right.”
I kiss the side of her neck and she shivers. “Tonight, then?”
Tonight is when we’re supposed to leave. To disappear. We won’t take anything with us, except the bank cards to a secret account I have and enough cash to make it without the accounts if necessary. It’s supposed to be my father’s big reveal of our new business partnership, with me taking over the whorehouse while he keeps the rest of the city in a chokehold. But I know he’ll never really let go of this place. And I don’t want it. I haven’t wanted it for months, for years. There are other ways to have what I want.
I have her now.
Katie presses her mouth to mine, her tongue flicking across my bottom lip. It’s nothing, comparatively, to what I’ve done with other women but it doesn’t matter. Every time she touches me I come back from the brink. Without her, I have no doubt, I would be nothing but my father. Or I would be nothing.
“We could go now.” The urge to leave is so strong. The exit to our right pulls on my sleeve. “Right now. We could leave, and be gone by the time—”
“I can’t,” she giggles. “I have one more client. He’s a regular.”
“The old man?” I groan. “He’ll find another piece of ass.”
“I’m his favorite piece of ass.” She kisses my nose and my cheek. “And he tips well. It’s forty-five minutes, and he won’t take that long. I’ll meet you back here when I’m done.” Katie tries to scramble back down to the floor but I don’t let her. Not at first. I kiss her first. Slow. Soft. Who cares if that old fuck is waiting for her.
“Remember,” I warn. “Don’t—”
“Don’t bring anything but my purse,” she says. “You worry too much. It’s as easy as walking out the door.” Then she wriggles insistently enough that I do put her down. I lean against that exit, which won’t open unless I put in the security code.
“I’m not worried.” I love you. I’m not going to tell her now. I’ll have a lifetime to tell her. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
“I would never.” She blows me a kiss and sashays down the hall, picking up speed as she turns the corner, curls bouncing. Smile on.
I count several minutes before I make my way back. I’ve just stepped into the hall when something moves in the corner of my eye.
“Happy birthday,” says my sister. The hairs on the back of my neck leap upward. Demeter isn’t allowed in the whorehouse. She never has been. But here she is, wearing a silver dress to match her eyes, her own curls a riot down her back. Someone’s done her makeup. “How does it feel to be twenty-one?”
“How does it feel to be abandoning your own child?” I won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing how much her presence unnerves me. “Where is she, Demeter? Did you leave her alone again?”
She scoffs. “Abandoning my child. Please. Haven’t you heard of a babysitter?”
“Then you’ve come to make some extra money.”
Her eyes flash. “I was invited to your party, asshole. The least you could do is say thank you.”
“Thank you for coming to my party.” I show her my teeth. She of all people should recognize that smile for what it is. “Speaking of the party, let me take you in. There’s nothing happening out here in the hall.”
It’s a challenge, and she knows it, but she doesn’t mention the fact that she saw Katie. She must have. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s been lurking out here. And if my sister is lurking, then there are actions to be taken. Get Katie out of that room, for one. Cause a distraction, for another. Demeter slips her arm through mine. “Yes, let�
��s,” she says. “I like the music.”
Bullshit. She likes plants and silence and murder. I escort her into the ballroom and she grins, smiling so wide, as if she can stand this kind of place. If my father invited her, then I have no idea why. He hates the thought of her within view of other people. Get her out, get her out. I ignore the small voice and Demeter turns and disappears into the crowd. She’s been here just long enough for people to see her.
I rejoin the table I was at, where nothing has changed. Another drink is waiting. I don’t touch it. My heart beats too fast to keep up with my racing thoughts. I didn’t see her in the hall, so she couldn’t have been close enough to hear what we said.
Forty-five minutes. That’s all. Forty-five minutes and I’ll be gone.
I make it twenty-five before I excuse myself, pretending to be just this side of too drunk, too loud, too happy. My father’s men pat me on the back as I go. “Come back so we can sing to you,” one says.
“Sing to me?” I laugh in his face. “No singing.”
He looks around the table as I leave. I don’t fucking like that. There’s some plan here that I’m unaware of. I stop several times on the way out to see if someone will reveal it. Too many covert smiles. Too many winks and nudges. What the fuck? My father is watching—I can feel him from here, where he sits at the side of the room in an enormous chair with two thick arms. It’s meant to look like a throne. He doesn’t need a throne to be a wicked king. On the last stop I turn and catch his eye. He raises a glass to me, his expression watchful. I raise a random glass from the table back to him.
I abandon it on the way out.
She’s not in the hall. No cause for concern. The booking was for forty-five minutes. Katie only thought she’d get done early. I wander into the lounge for another ten. This time, another one of the whores approaches, and I kill seven minutes pretending to scold her so her potential client has time to crawl into a corner and pass out from his drug of choice. “He’s out,” I hiss. “Find somewhere else to be.” She scampers away and I go back to the end of the hall.
No Katie.
Every heartbeat hurts. There is a car waiting three blocks from here. Everything is set. I didn’t tell her about it, because I didn’t want anyone to know. There’s no chance that anyone knows. All we have to do is walk away. Fuck. Where is she?
It’s not unusual for me to go up to the second floor, where the whores entertain. Every noise from behind those doors is an assault. None of them are coming from her. No hushed laugh, no profuse thank yous, no door opening to let her out. They can stay in these rooms, if they want, but there is a separate wing around the back where they sleep. I’m almost to the turn when a door opens. A redhead scuttles out, tugging her dress down from where it’s hitched around her waist. Not her.
There’s only one set of rooms left between me and the hall.
One of the doors is open.
Horror creeps up my back. If a door is open here, the lights are on. This one is slightly ajar, and all I can see inside is darkness. Don’t, something warns. Don’t, don’t. I put my hand flat on the door. It swings in with no effort, no squeak on the hinges. An empty room. I’m just walking into an empty room.
At first it is empty. There’s nothing but moonlight and shadow in here. The knot in my stomach dissolves. An empty room. Katie’s going to laugh when I tell her this.
My eyes adjust to the light.
Hades would have seen this earlier, the figure on the bed. The dark curls on the pillow. The red dress leached of all its color.
The glassy eyes. Staring, staring, staring.
It’s a steady walk to the side of the bed. I have lived a lifetime of looking tall and strong while I’m in hell and this is no different. No different except for the crush in my chest, a sharp pain. My lungs have collapsed. They can’t get any air. I kneel down to get closer and it’s a mistake because from this close up I can see that she’s dead. She’s dead. Not a whisper of breath. No rise and fall to her chest. Dead.
My own breath comes back, too fast and hard, and I swallow the urge to be sick. “Katie,” I whisper. Just blink and say it’s a joke. “Oh, fuck. You’re—you’re all right. It’s okay. You’re all right.” Wake up, wake up. I risk putting my fingertips to her wrist. There’s no pulse there.
She’s already going cold.
I know what happened, can sense it, before I put my lips to hers.
I can taste the poison there.
It’s as easy as walking out the door. Part of me will never walk out this door. Part of me will always be here, dying too. My ribs collapse one by one, crumpling under the weight of what must be grief. I’ve seen it before on my brother’s face. I never knew. I never fucking knew. All I know now is who did this, who did this.
He’s sitting downstairs now, looking over his kingdom. He’s the only one who would do this. That’s all he does. He takes the things people love and he crushes the life out of them.
Katie’s throat is untouched. No markings. She’s just lying here, like she went to sleep. Except for that stare.
I can’t stay here. My knees don’t want to support my weight but I get up anyway and kiss her forehead. “I love you,” I whisper into her ear. “Please.”
No reply.
They’ll be coming for me soon, if they’re not already. I won’t give them the pleasure of witnessing this.
In the hall, life continues as usual. Men fuck whores in the bedrooms. They cry and scream and pretend. I’m nothing, passing by in a new suit, nothing but rage and fire. It burns. It chars my bones and my skin and licks at my eyes. I’m on a pyre, thinking of her face, all the way to the ballroom where I will kill my father. In front of all these people. I don’t care. There is nothing to care about here.
I’m in the middle of the music and the crowd and the hushed laughter when the scene finally registers.
My father, sitting in his chair, leaning to the side.
Demeter, perched on the arm, whispering in his ear.
The sound in the room cuts out, then floods back in. My father stands. I can tell, I can fucking tell, that he knows what he did. Or what Demeter did. He must be able to see it on my face.
So I don’t let it show. I blink, slow, and grin at him, cocking my head to the side. Like I’m not going to crumple to the floor. Like I don’t want to scream. Like my muscles are not working overtime to keep me in this spot instead of killing him. And all around us, his whores in their dresses, watching. I am surrounded by his men. If I try to kill him now, then what is the logical next step? He’ll kill them all. One by one. Katie was a promise. My father keeps his promises.
He raises a glass, and people hush. “To my son.” The howling in my head won’t stop. “Let’s congratulate him on his new position.”
They do. It’s a dull roar that makes it impossible to think of anything else. A cruel echo. How many of them know? How many of them can see?
It can’t get any worse.
Then Demeter slinks forward to the front of my father’s chair and clears her throat. She presses both hands to her chest, smiling, and then gives a harrowingly innocent giggle. “I came to lead us in song,” she says. “Happy birthday, big brother.”
They’ve planned this. It’s obvious by the way they all start singing, even before Demeter does. I’m required by circumstance to stay on my feet and refrain from murdering all of them while every cell screams for her. While I laugh to cover it up. While Katie gets colder upstairs. Happy fucking birthday to me.
1
Zeus
Xavier Morris is the first one to try and ruin the evening. He bursts into the ballroom red-faced and angry, which I anticipated.
I did not plan to give him Brigit. I would never. I know what happened upstairs, and I know he will not be happy, but it’s my turn to wear a perturbed expression. The chief of police cuts his way through the crowd with his elbows out. By the time he reaches the dais on the side of the room, where I have sprawled myself across my chair, he’s purple.
“What the fuck was that?”
I put down an empty glass that never had a drink in it and peer at him. “Brigit understood the terms of the deal. Did she try to negotiate?”
“She got taken,” he spits. “Right in front of me. I walked into that room to find broken glass and a team carrying her out. What the fuck are you—”
I’m on my feet, letting rage color my own face. “What do you mean, taken?” I took her. I fucking took her. I have people all around this building and I have people outside and I had them break the window and carry her outside. “What the hell are your people doing, Xavier? This was part of our deal. You didn’t have anyone on the perimeter?”
“Of course I have people on the perimeter.” He’s spitting the words through clenched teeth, leaning in close, but he’s not as tall as I am and he never will be. And he’s in my property. “I bought her. I’ve already paid.”
I stare at him until he blinks. My head of security will be coming now to give me the news. He’ll be at my side in three, two, one— “Zeus.” It’s easy enough to take my attention from the furious gaze of the chief of police and look at James, who is wealthy and almost sickeningly handsome. I am positive he works security for me for the amusement. He doesn’t particularly need me, which is why we have such a lovely relationship. “There’s been a situation.”
I take him by the front of that suit and yank him close. “Is this fucker lying to me?”
It’s a show. It’s an act. And James plays his part. “A window on the second floor. Breached. One of the women has been taken.” James does not flinch when I tighten my fist around the fabric and pretend to consider killing him. “We had people on the ground, but they were distracted.”