by Amanda Foody
Jac struggled to catch his breath, and he rolled himself over so that he could see them. Charles walked toward Sophia, in a direct line toward her gun. Her hand trembled as she aimed it. Her eyes flickered to Jac’s, and it was painfully obvious that she was afraid. She hadn’t walked into Luckluster prepared to die, like he had, but she’d come for him all the same.
She fired. The bullet shattered the mirror across the room. The sound of it stung Jac’s ears, pounded around his skull. He cringed and pulled himself to his knees. He’d never felt so weak. He knew it was temporary, knew he would recover until Charles touched him again, but he couldn’t heal fast enough. He needed to stand. He needed to help.
“You could keep firing,” Charles told her. “Keep pressing your luck until you run out of it altogether. You know what might happen then. You know the two of you can’t beat me.”
She fired again. The bullet buried itself in the plaster where the mirror had once been.
Jac cursed and stood, even if it ached to do so. Their game wasn’t over yet.
“Or you could take one step back, and let me close that door,” Charles cooed. “Then he and I can finish what we were doing.”
Sophia’s green eyes flickered to Jac’s one last time. Jac had a plan, but he didn’t have the voice to tell her. He tried to mouth it to her, but she shook her head. Jac knew she’d misunderstood. He hadn’t told her to run.
He’d told her to move.
With all the energy he could muster, he charged at Charles. The man neared the door’s threshold, focused on the pistol Sophia had pointed at him, just a few feet away. In the mirror, Jac glimpsed Charles’s smile when Sophia stepped back. For a moment, Charles had thought he’d won. He was already reaching for the door to close it, already licking his lips in anticipation.
Then Jac knocked into him with all the force he had. He dug his shoulder into Charles’s back and pushed, and pushed, and pushed. They stumbled onto the carpet, into the lights, and collided with the railing.
Charles slipped, and the momentum made him flip over. As he fell, a look of bewilderment crossed his face.
Charles’s luck had finally run out.
Screams erupted from the party below. Heaving for breath, Jac looked over the railing to see that Charles had fallen onto the casino’s spiral staircase, several of the wrought iron stakes protruding from his stomach. His bare chest, already laced with lashes and old scars, seeped over with red. His arms dangled limply beneath him, his mouth hung slightly ajar.
His bloodshot eyes were dead.
Sophia’s hands found Jac’s shoulders, pulling him away and into her. Jac buried his face in her shoulder and leaned against her to keep his balance.
“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You were right—”
“Don’t be sorry.” She rubbed her hand down his hair. Jac took deep breaths to steady himself, and he kept his gaze locked on the banquet hall, on the floor where he’d lain only moments before. He wanted to remember it like this—bright and empty.
“The Dove had escaped, and so I went to find you, just in case. But you were already gone.” She squeezed him tighter. “I wish I was angry with you.”
“You should be.”
She shook her head. “It’s over now. We’ll call Harrison and we’ll tell him that it’s finally done.”
Jac reached for the scar on his arm, but realized it no longer itched. So he rubbed his Creed instead. With each passing moment, the residual burning from Charles’s touch faded. The nightmare had finally reached its end.
Of all the pain he’d experienced tonight, he’d expected killing to hurt more than this—or at least to hurt at all.
Maybe your soul didn’t break like a bone. Maybe it broke like a promise.
LEVI
Levi caught his breath and knocked on Harrison’s door in the Kipling’s Hotel.
Last night, Vianca had put Levi up in his old room at St. Morse, as though his former apartment held any nostalgia for him. He’d lain restlessly on the familiar sheets, wondering if he could truly make a palace out of a prison, and realized that if he was going to accept this crown, he needed to know why the last prince had rejected it. He needed the truth.
“Levi,” Harrison greeted him as he swung the door open. He wore a satin robe and leather, fur-lined slippers. “Have you come to kill me?”
“Wh-what?” Levi stammered, panting. “Why would I be coming to kill you?”
“Because you’re pounding on my door at six in the morning, and because it’s the sort of thing my mother would probably send you to do.” Harrison looked him over with a crinkled nose. “And you’re sweating.”
“I took the stairs,” Levi explained.
“It’s the sixty-third floor.”
“Well, I couldn’t just walk in the front door like last time,” he snapped, bracing himself against the doorframe. “I’m alone, and there’s ten thousand volts on my head.”
“So dramatic,” Harrison muttered. He motioned for Levi to follow him inside, and Levi nearly collapsed onto the carpet. The room, like before, was covered in a disorganized mess of papers, telephones, and campaign buttons.
“I’m actually surprised my mother hasn’t sent anyone to assassinate me,” Harrison said, pouring Levi a glass of water. “Last night, I received word that Prescott’s eight-point lead in the polls is gone, and it’s all thanks to you.”
Levi opened his mouth to say, “Come again?” but quickly collected himself. He had no clue what’d given Harrison such a lead, but he was very willing to accept the credit. “Yes...yes, that’s why I’m here.”
Harrison cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. “Of course,” he said, smirking. He ushered Levi to the couch and handed him the glass. “Now that Charles Torren is dead, it will only be a matter of days until both casinos will be nothing but rubble, and I can grind my heels in the ashes.”
Levi choked on his drink. It might’ve been a hairbreadth away from the election, but Jac and Sophia had pulled it off. Just like Jac promised he would.
His triumph was quickly replaced by guilt. This entire time, he’d been betting against his friend.
Harrison checked his watch. “I have an event in two hours. Because I’m grateful, I’ll give you fifteen minutes for whatever you actually came here for.”
Levi had come loaded with questions, far too many to squeeze into such a short meeting. So he started with the most important. “Are you certain you’ll win?”
He licked his lips. “Unfortunately, you can’t ever be certain. My team thinks the Torren votes will leave us evenly matched. The results could go either way, which is why it’s even more crucial that I win, if I want to kill my mother. Despite the curfew and all the new regulations, the Capitol wants this election to seem fair. My mother’s murder would, unfortunately, give the wrong impression.”
Levi’s heart—already hammering—now pulsed with nerves. If Prescott won, Vianca claimed Levi would be pardoned—and made heir to the Augustine empire. But if Harrison won, then Levi remained a criminal, the Irons stayed broke, and nothing in the North Side changed. But at least Vianca would be dead.
“Do you know the identity of Vianca’s other... Her other...?” Levi asked, unable to utter the last word.
“I know about Séance, and I suspect the other,” Harrison answered, but Levi couldn’t guess how he’d learned that. “I suppose I’ll be doing all three of you a favor. It doesn’t matter much to me. There have been nearly a hundred of you coming and going for as long as I’ve known about my mother’s practices.”
“Not your practices?” Levi asked. Harrison and his mother shared a blood talent.
“It’s not exactly to my taste.”
Levi wanted to press more on how he’d learned about Enne, but he was running low on time. And so he asked what he’d come here for: “What happened between you and your mother?”
Although such a question would’ve unraveled Vianca, Harrison didn’t hesitate. He even chuckled. �
�You really don’t know? I thought everyone knew the sorry story of what happened to me. The tabloids aren’t all wrong about it.” He inspected Levi closely. “I was about your age.”
“I know about how Veil kidnapped you, if that’s what you mean.” Enne had once told him as much.
“Yes, Veil and his psychotic attempts to undermine anyone else with power in the North Side. I was abducted from my bed at university and smuggled out of the city. We were kept in an attic, Leah and I.”
“You mean Leah Torren?” Levi asked. “Sedric’s older sister?”
“Yes. It was a brilliant move on Veil’s part. The Families only care about two things: volts, and their legacies.” Something dark swam in Harrison’s eye. “Five months spent in that attic, it was only me and her. We were both seventeen. We were heirs to rival Families in New Reynes. The story practically tells itself.” And if the details didn’t, then the sharpness in Harrison’s voice certainly did. Love always carved the deepest wounds. “When I returned, my mother grew even more obsessed with the future of the Family. Which was why she was far from pleased when I told her of my own naïve hopes—that our empires could be stronger together.” Harrison laughed bitterly. “I should’ve left with Leah and never came back. I tried to, but my mother got to her first.”
Levi filled in the rest with what he already knew of street history. Leah Torren was murdered shortly after her return. Sedric had been a child at the time.
“I imagine the real reason you’re here is because you think my mother has offered you some kind of choice,” Harrison said, and Levi stiffened. He hadn’t wanted to give that away. “But once someone knows what matters most to you, they own you. The omerta binds your life, but if she manages it, she’ll also bind your heart.”
Vianca had killed the person Harrison loved in order to control him, and her plan had backfired. And as Levi thought of Vianca’s suggestive comments over the past few months, he realized Vianca had since tried to engineer the opposite. She’d bound Levi and Enne together through her. She’d devised ways for their partnership to continue. She’d played with their chains like puppet strings, twisting and intertwining them until she got the end she wanted. Until she rewrote the mistakes she’d made with her son.
She hadn’t picked Enne because of her finishing school manners or because of Sedric Torren—she’d picked Enne as bait. For him.
“I have a last favor to ask of you.” Harrison nodded to a cigar box on the coffee table. The box was an antique, its woodwork covered in rose petals and faded paint. It looked so delicate, Levi was almost afraid to touch it. Gingerly, he opened it.
Inside was a gun.
Levi sucked in his breath. “Who is this meant for?”
“This election has become another game of fifty-fifty chances for you, hasn’t it?” Harrison asked. “But this doesn’t have to be a gamble. Whatever else you need to convince you—a pardon, riches, anything—I can give it to you. You can take matters into your own hands—choose your throne rather than betting on one. You need only name your price.”
Once again, Harrison was handing Levi his destiny.
All it would take was a single shot. He couldn’t take out Vianca, but he could kill Prescott. The turmoil would tip the election in Harrison’s favor.
But the blame would have to fall on someone, and Levi’s gambler’s instincts told him it would fall on him.
Levi could, at this very moment, shoot Harrison between the eyes. A different choice. He wouldn’t even need Harrison’s weapon and all it symbolized to do it—he had a perfectly good pistol in his pocket. He could accept Vianca’s offer. He would still remain a prisoner, but at least he’d wear a crown.
But there was a third option. There had always been a third option.
All this time, Levi had focused on those who could give him power. He’d wagered with Harrison. He’d wagered with Vianca. But all of those bets had required sacrifices—sacrifices he should’ve never been willing to make.
Now a new plan formed in his mind.
“Someone else will accept my offer, if you don’t,” he said smoothly, and the deep green of his eye had never so perfectly matched his mother’s.
But Levi was already making his way toward the door. “I wish you luck with tomorrow’s election and your other plans. But I’m going to claim my own throne.”
* * *
A knot tightened in Levi’s stomach as he entered Luckluster Casino. The last time he’d stepped foot here, he’d received a death sentence. And even with its signature red lights dimmed and its lobby empty, he still saw the ghost of Sedric Torren stalking him from the corner, smiling wolfishly and clutching a deadly invitation.
Levi couldn’t simply go up to the concierge and ask for Jac Mardlin, a wanted criminal. He knew Jac had been using an alias, but he had no idea what it was. So instead he cleared his throat and asked for Sophia.
“She’s not here right now,” the concierge replied.
“Then I’d like to see her partner.”
This request was understood, and the concierge led Levi to an office much like Vianca’s. Jac sat on a leather chair beside a fireplace, grinding a barely smoked cigarette into an ashtray. His gray aura wafted throughout the room, cooling and familiar and steady.
He looked up as Levi entered and shot to his feet.
“Levi,” he let out.
“It’s good to see you,” Levi managed. Out of habit, he inspected his friend’s appearance for any signs of Lullaby, but thankfully found none. Instead, he noticed other changes. Jac seemed to stand taller, and there was a faint scar on his lip that he wore well.
Levi swallowed. “I heard Charles Torren is dead.”
“He is,” he answered darkly. “And just in time for you, isn’t it?”
Levi couldn’t tell if that was an insult, but he still winced. “I ended my arrangement with Harrison.” When Jac’s eyes widened, Levi blurted, “I’m sorry for all the things I said. For the way I acted. I trusted you with everything except yourself, and I didn’t consider what you wanted.”
Levi held his breath as time passed in silence. It was only seconds, but he felt the weight of these past months inside them—months of looking over his shoulder for whiteboots, of leaking voltage, of reassuring everyone he had the situation under control. But he didn’t. And without Jac, without Enne, he had struggled alone.
When Jac didn’t respond, Levi made his way toward the door and sighed, defeated. “Well, I said what I came to say.”
“Wait,” Jac said, and Levi stopped. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I was never doing this for you—I was doing it for me—so I shouldn’t have asked you anything in return. It was unfair. And pretty mucking low.”
Levi’s shoulders sagged with relief. That sounded like forgiveness.
He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Jac, and his friend squeezed back.
Levi wanted to unload everything from these past few weeks, about Vianca and Harrison and Enne. But instead, he sat on the opposite armchair, swallowed down his own problems, and said, “Tell me the story.”
Jac grinned. “The exciting version, or the truth?”
“Whichever one you’d rather tell.”
And so Levi learned what had happened since he’d last spoken to Jac. How Charles had toyed with them before attempting to have them killed. How Sophia had used every volt they had to try to push him out. How Charles had arrived at the match bloody and wounded. How Jac had finally finished him.
Jac, Levi realized, was very good at telling stories. He always had been. He had a story after every fight. He knew Faith legends; he knew street ones. Levi had spent so many years listening to Jac tell stories that he’d never realized his friend, too, wanted to become one.
“So are you and Sophia...?” Levi asked, because it seemed the only part of the story missing.
Jac flushed. “Um—”
“Are we what?” Sophia asked from the doorway. She wore all black, as though in mourning for the half brother she’
d despised, and she carried a large clothing bag. “Dating?” She kissed Jac on the top of his head, making him flush deeper. “Nah. We’re cohorting.”
“What do you have there?” Jac asked her.
“Harrison invited us to the party at St. Morse tomorrow night.” She unzipped the bag and revealed something shiny and burgundy. “I already got your tux.”
Levi cleared his throat. “You might not want to attend.”
“Why is that?” Sophia asked.
He hesitated.
“It’s Irons business,” he said uncertainly.
Jac stiffened. “I see how it is, then. Tock is your second now?”
Levi held his breath. He would give just about anything to have Jac back. Even though Levi was lord, Jac was the one who’d really started the gang on the day he swore. But he didn’t know if Jac even missed the Irons. He didn’t think he’d want to come back.
“No one has ever called her anything but my third,” Levi answered. He hoped it sounded like an offer. But after a few moments bracing himself for rejection, he worked up his courage to actually say the words. “I want you to come back, but I understand if you won’t. Either way, you’re still my best friend.”
Jac’s face broke out into a smile. “Of course I’ll come back.”
Levi was so relieved he stumbled over his words. “We don’t pay much. It’s been tough since the lockdown. Not great at all, if I’m being honest. But you’ve always been my partner. And we could use—”
“I said I’m coming back, didn’t I?” Jac said, smirking. “And I like the sound of that. Partner.”
Levi smiled his first real smile in a long time. He didn’t have a chance to continue on about how he was lousy and selfish and had made a mess of things in his friend’s absence, because Jac leaned forward with a serious look in his eyes.
“So what did you mean by Irons business?”
Levi cleared his throat. He’d worked out his plan on the way here, and already, Tock was making calls to the other lords.