Harrison Augustine greeted her in his luxurious top-floor suite at the Kipling’s Hotel. Unlike the last time they’d met, he wore a cleanly pressed suit—not a bathrobe—and he smelled like Gershton-brand cologne instead of alcohol.
Sophia didn’t want to admit that things as simple as class and hygiene could intimidate her, especially when she’d arrived in opulence to match—a scarlet wool coat and heels so tall even Harrison couldn’t look her in the eyes. But last time Sophia had seen Harrison, even after taking Harrison’s omerta, she’d felt that she had the upper hand. After all, he’d been half-drunk, and Sophia had had it all: the ruby-painted smile, the tricks, the element of surprise—everything it took to be what Sophia Torren considered bulletproof.
But she felt small now, despite her stilettos, painfully aware that this time, she had not chosen to come here—she’d been summoned. Because she was so muckinggoodat fixating on things. On razing her Family’s empire. On hunting down the Bargainer. And she never stopped to consider what would happen after all her bad ideas had come to pass.
“Thank you for joining us,” Harrison said smoothly, swinging open his door to reveal two others in his sitting room. Delaney stood by the coffee table, her arms crossed, her blond ponytail so tight it practically gave her a facelift. A fair boy with curly hair huddled on the couch’s edge. He looked a year or two older than Sophia, and he seemed so nauseous that his skin nearly looked taffy green.
“Is it a complex?” Sophia asked Harrison, cocking an eyebrow. “Why you only spend time with people half your age.” Her voice still oozed confidence and condescension, which she greatly preferred to vulnerability.
Harrison quirked an eyebrow, matching hers. “Apparently.” He smirked, and his amusement only made her trust him less. If there was anything Sophia could depend on as certainty in this world, it was men and their fragile egos.
Smoothing down her curly, waist-length black hair, Sophia took a seat on the divan beside Harrison’s other two guests. A pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice rested on the coffee table amid silver platters of pastries and fruit—the expensive South Side sort, where the honeydew had been sliced into roses and the glaze on the pastries gleamed so brightly Sophia could see her own reflection in a croquembouche. Delaney hadn’t touched the spread, while the boy with the curly hair clutched a plate of food to his chest and nibbled on it, his empty gaze fixed on the floor, like he wasn’t even tasting what he ate.
“Earlier this morning,” Harrison started, sitting as well, “I met with the Chancellor, Levi Glaisyer, and Bryce Balfour. I’d been so nervous that I’d forgotten to eat, and so I ordered brunch. Hope you’ve all come hungry.”
The three of them stared at him blankly.We’re his three omertas, Sophia realized. When Jac had described the vileness of Vianca Augustine, he’d never mentioned the woman liked her conferences catered.
“So you found out what these mean?” Delaney asked, brandishing a gold Shadow Card, much like the one Sophia had. It was the Moon, withTHE TOWERinscribed on the back in a smudgy scrawl a shade darker than Torren red.
“I have,” Harrison answered, “but I thought it would be better to ask Harvey, here. As you may or may not know, I’d intended to kill my mother after my inauguration, not before it.”
He talked of matricide with a buttery soft tone, without even a smidge of guilt. It both fascinated and unnerved Sophia, whose family was as wretched as his, but who still thought of Luckluster Casino with a pinch of shame.
“But Harvey made a deal with me,” Harrison continued. “Kill my mother before she killed Bryce. So you see, it’s thanks to Harvey here that Bryce was saved and we’ve all been enlisted in this game. And a little thanks to me, who shouldn’t have taken pity on either of them.”
Sophia reexamined the boy with the curly hair—Harvey. There was something greasy about him, a gleam like oil between his fingers, a cunning slickness to his expression even as he paled. A Chainer, she recognized instantly. As a Torren, she knew his sort well. Well enough never to trust them. Even if Harveyhadwillingly accepted Harrison’s omerta in exchange for saving his friend.
“Well, Harvey?” Harrison asked. “How does it feel to have helped engineer this mess?”
Harvey cleared his throat. “Well, I...I didn’t mean...” He looked no one in the eyes. “I just wanted to save him.”
“Does he even know that you did?” Harrison asked coolly. “About the deal you made with me?”
Harvey pushed his half-finished plate back onto the coffee table. “No.”
There was a weight to his voice that Sophia recognized—Harvey and Bryce were more than friends, or, at least, they felt so to Harvey. And like Harrison, Sophia struggled to pity him, even if Harvey obviously deserved it. If Harrison had killed his mother only minutes earlier, then Jac would still be alive. Then they could all still have their murder, their boys, and their happily-ever-afters.
“So what is this game?” Delaney pressed.
“There are twenty-two players,” Harvey murmured, almost too quietly to hear.
“Speak up,” Delaney snapped.
Harvey repeated himself, stumbling over his words. “Every player has a target. That’s what the red word means, on the back. Whoever has that card is the one you’re after.” He explained how to obtain a target’s card, either by killing them or convincing them to relinquish it. And the caveat of how surrendering your card tied your life to the survival of whomever you gave your card to.
“Who are all the players?” Harrison asked, and Harvey numbly listed them off. Bryce, Rebecca, and him, of course. Enne and Levi—the royal pair. The seconds of every gang: Scythe, Lola Sanguick, and Tock Ridley. Grace Watson and Roy Pritchard. Harrison and the Chancellor. The whiteboot captain, the publisher ofThe Crimes & The Times, a nightclub owner, an ex-Pseudonym, and the manager of the House of Shadows. Prima ballerinas Poppy Prescott and Delaney Dawson. Sophia Torren. The Bargainer.
Before Sophia could mull over his words—specifically the last one—Harvey added, “And Jac Mardlin.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and laid it on the table. “I, um, wasn’t able to deliver his card.”
Sophia nearly laughed at the name of it—Strength. Jacwasthe strongest person she had ever met, and he’d survived her sadistic brother only to die from bad luck, from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, from running inside St. Morse in the midst of danger convinced that he could save everyone just because he’d savedher.
Sophia hadn’t meant to let him save her.
It was a quiet, nagging thought—trivial in comparison to how much she hurt, how much she missed him.
It should have been Sophia who killed her brother.
Destroying her Family’s empire had always been her mission, not Jac’s. And she knew Jac had sacrificed for it. He’d nearly broken his friendship with Levi. He’d nearly died, on more than one occasion. And it was over now, anyway, so why should Sophia care who had pushed Charles over that bannister? At least Jac had gotten his legend.
