“It’s been a while,” my mother said as she slid her hand into mine as we watched the guests mingle around us. “I thought you would never come back.”
I mulled over my words carefully. “I didn’t think I would come back either.”
She looked up at me with worry in her eyes, and for the first time, I noticed the purple tinge under them and new wrinkles. The woman who did her makeup was a magician, but she could only hide so much. “What made you come back?”
She held her hand up to stop my lies. “And I want the truth.”
I hummed in the back of my throat, and I chewed my bottom lip raw. “I don’t know what to tell you then.”
Her voice lowered, “Just don’t tell me you’re hunting your father.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in him.”
Her lips thinned out as her eyes looked me over. She would see right through me, just as she always had. It was a mother’s superpower, I was sure. There wasn’t a Cristof boy immune to it. “Then what are you interested in?”
Goosebumps erupted over my arms at her question because I didn’t have an answer for it. I thought that’s what I’d been searching for all this time. I knew that was what I was searching for—my calling, my true purpose. I’d always been the good, bored one. The one obsessed with fire and destruction. I didn’t want to be that one. I wantedto be more like my brothers, and maybe that was why I’d taken up hunting, or maybe that wasn’t why at all. I wasn’t so sure anymore. All the lines were crossed and blurred.
“I’m not so sure I know anymore. For a little bit, I wanted peace and quiet, none of this.” I waved my hand around as my lips curled in distaste. “I wanted freedom and maybe an escape.”
“But now you’re back,” my mother probed. “And you don’t know if you’re ready to go back to the quiet life you’ve created for yourself.”
I also wasn’t so sure the grannies were ready to let me off of my leash either. I knew they said they would send reapers to do their dirty work, but I had a feeling they were going to keep me here for some reason or another. They didn’t like me being so far away. They wanted all of their key players right where they could move them whenever necessary.
I let out a snort. “If the grannies let me be free.”
My mother’s lips curled in mischief, and I wondered how much she truly knew about me and what she was pretending she didn’t know. She let out a sigh as her eyes closed, slowly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
As if she didn’t know the grannies would meddle. It was what they did best.
“Please don’t leave the city until we’ve gotten the chance to catch up without prying ears and eyes,” She stood up on her tippy toes to press a kiss to my cheek. “I like the facial hair, by the way, you look so grown up.”
She patted the spot she kissed before she turned back tothe rest of the guests with a megawatt smile plastered on her face. No one knew how to rule the elites like my mother.
My eyes skipped over all of the guests with zero interest until they landed back on Poppy. She was standing beside her mother and the friend who was practically glued to her side. I couldn’t see her eyes from behind her glasses, but for some reason, I knew they were fixed on me. I tilted my chin up and tried my best to look bored, but I knew I was failing miserably when her friend giggled and winked at me.
With that, I turned on my heel, ready to go.
“You were always known for leaving messes behind.” Dimitri’s voice stopped me cold.
I shoved my hands in my pockets as I turned to my older brother. “Hmmm?”
“If you’re going to kill someone in my city,” he said softly, “you might want to make sure the cameras don’t catch you.”
I knew a camera or two would catch me; I wasn’t stupid. There were too many, but I also knew that you couldn’t tell who I was based on my hard hat and construction gear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been back in the city less than 48 hours, and I’ve been in my hotel.”
“That excuse will work for the police but not for me.” Dimitri’s jaw ticked as he looked me over in my much more thorough manner than Mother had.
“You have no proof.” It was as easy as that. Was he going to turn me in? No, I knew he wouldn’t. We protected our own, but that still didn’t explain this weird ass start to a conversation.
“Are you going to tell mother?” Dimitri swirled his glass of whiskey as he watched his own woman across the room.
Copper coated my tongue as I worried my lip some more. “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know this wasn’t a job Benson sent you on, okay? If it was, he would have had all the cameras in the area on a loop for a minute. What I want to know is why and who hired you? He worked with our father. Is that it?”
I wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one with half ass excuses and explanations. “What do you want from me?”
