“You know that Leven is my uncle,” I start.“What you don’t know is that I killed my father when I was twelve.”I stop, give her a chance to process the words I’ll never be able to unsay.That new thing—fear—sits on my chest like weight.I could lose her in this conversation as easily as I could’ve the night she disappeared.
“After that, Leven took us in, made sure we ate, had clothes, and played sports.He was a single man, Lindy, raising eight kids on his own.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died when I was ten.That broke my father.He was always a mean bastard, but when Mom was alive, he was mean by ignoring us.Literally acted like he had no children, only ever had eyes for her.When she died, any humanity in him died too.He was insufferable those next two years.Adrian and I took the brunt of it, we’re the oldest.But when he hung Atlas out the window of our moving car by his ankles, screaming he was going to drop him, I knew we couldn’t keep living that way.”
She looks at my marked hands.And then back at my face.“You saved your brothers.”
“We never told Atlas that.We’ve never told anyone that.”
“I’ll share the weight with you,” she answers.
I nudge the mug away.“Come here.”
We leave the kitchen.She pads ahead of me into the living room, curls into the corner of the couch.I sit beside her and she pulls my marked hand to her chest, under the fall of her hair, over the steady thud of her heart.
“Spiderwebis the reason Travis can call me at all hours of the fucking night.It isn’t a man,” I say into the hush.“One center, eight legs.Intelligence, Finance, Operations, Enforcement, Cover, Weapons, Drugs, International.They rotate leadership on purpose so we can’t pin them down.Until we expose the center, it won’t die.That’s why men like me exist.”
I tap my fingers against the coffee table, three, then five, for her, and make myself say the next part.“It isn’t abstract to me.It’s proof that men aren’t always born evil.Some men grow it like a second skin.Spiderwebis why my family looks the way it does.Why Leven did what he did.”
“You said Leven raised eight kids,” she whispers.
“London,” I say.Her name is a key in my chest.It turns and something old opens.“Taken when we were kids.”I let my thumb count against her pulse.“Leven knew we needed a way to punch above our weight and get out alive.We all fund it, all bleed for it.”
For a second we both just breathe.Then I pull out the folded photo that never leaves my pocket and set it on the coffee table.“Every man I cut sees her first,” I tell Lindy.“I show them who I’m carving for.I make them look, and then I ask what they know.If they know nothing, they bleed for someone who does.If they know something, I take it and keep going.”
“When did they take her?”she asks.
“She was five.Pink princess dress she refused to take off.She’d sleep in it until Uncle Leven bribed it off her to wash, then the cycle started again.Adrian taught her to read too early and thought it was hilarious.This tiny thing sounding out street signs and cereal boxes.Caleb built her a fort, but it wasn’t some kid thing with sheets.It was wood, even then he could craft shit way beyond his years.She called it a castle, forced us to pay a candy tax to get in.The triplets were thirteen then, Adrian fourteen, and Caleb eight.London could get us all to play castle any time, play anything.We worshipped her.Eland drafted admission contracts for her in crayon, Evie handled security by lifting every fake lock she could imagine.Elsie patched skinned knees with a surgeon’s seriousness.By then their fates were already sealed, as were mine and my brothers.Leven knew what he’d need as our empire grew and he shaped his children into it: lawyer, thief, surgeon.”
I clear my throat.“London was born when my parents were still alive.When my father, Alistair, and his brother shared the same property.Leven didn’t plan on more kids after his triplets.It was loud and crowded, but so easy.Simmering soups and Mom laughing with Auntie in the kitchen.”A breath.“After my mom was gone, London kept the dark from eating us alive.She was the accident that saved the house.Exactly what we needed when we didn’t even know what we were missing.Atlas was her shadow, same age, same trouble.”My voice goes rough.“I carried her when she fell asleep in the wrong places.She always fell asleep in the wrong places.”
Lindy touches the edge of the picture like it might bruise.London’s grin eats half her face.A jelly stain ghosts the corner from a life that doesn’t exist anymore.“Leven is married?”
“Levenwasmarried.It took us years to find their bodies,” I say.“All he had to go on was an abandoned car and tire tracks in dust the cops smudged with their boots.Spiderwebwas barely a rumor then.Leven started making calls he swore he’d never make and put men who hate each other in the same room and told them to aim in one direction.”
“Your mother and aunt, they were together?”
“Yes.”I keep my voice flat.“They ran Mom and Auntie off the road.What they did before they killed them isn’t something I’m going to put in your head.”
She doesn’t look away.“Why,” she asks.“Why them.Why your family?”
“Because of who we are,” I say.“Because this city never had room for two crowns.For as long as there’s been light in this valley, an Ashenheart has owned the dark.My great-great-grandfather, Gideon, hauled liquor through the desert during Prohibition.”Lindy stills for half a heartbeat then nods for me to go on.“He had boy girl twins, Valentina and Victor, absolute powerhouses.Valentina was a spitfire and brokered a lot of deals that back then women normally couldn’t touch.My cousin Evie takes after her.Valentina stayed single, but she and Victor were dead center when the first casinos rose out of dust and money started pouring in.My grandfather, Ronan, with his siblings, locked in our territory.Uncle Leven and my father, Alistair, inherited a city that already knew the rules: you don’t touch women, you don’t touch kids, and if you want to do business in Vegas, you pay the Ashenheart house first.”
“A crime family,” she says, but there’s no judgment in it.
“Top family,” I correct.“That buys you a lot of enemies.Spiderwebwanted to prove Gods could bleed.”
Her fingers close around mine; she threads them between the letters on my right hand, braving the past with me.“To try to take your place in the city,” she says.
“Yes.”I nod.“But all they did was give the monsters a common target.The Italians, the Bratva, Dead Man’s Hand, the badges who stand with us, we’ve all lost toSpiderat some point.We don’t pretend we’re clean.We move guns, wash money, tax doors, run our territories.But the Accord has one law carved in bone: no innocents.You break it, you vanish.Spiderwebbreaks it as policy.That’s the difference.That’s why we hunt them.And we don’t stop until the fucking thing is ash.”
“But why London?”
I slide a second photo over.Christmas lights, triplets in the middle, London in that pink dress.“Fifteen years ago, we cut close to the center.We found a leg that touched it and took a grown son off the board, a man the center loved.”My jaw locks.“They answered by taking London.”
“Five,” Lindy whispers, testing the age against the horror of it.
