Jagger sipped his whiskey. “Very nice,” he said of the liquor. “Clarisse Warhammer’s chapter went up against me and a few of my people. When we found Cupcake, she was shot all to hell. We got her to a med-bay. Cupcake came over to our side to get away from theMara Salvatrucha.”
Marconi looked at Cupcake. Both of his hands were beneath the table. I didn’t have to look around to know we were once again targeted. “You gave to our enemies all the contact information? You are a traitor?”
“No. She didn’t. We didn’t even know who she was until today,” Jagger said. “But when she heard that the MS Angels were heading here from Louisville, she contacted me, to tell me there were a few honorable Angels fighting the good fight. We met today at the library and arranged to meet here, at your restaurant.” Jagger looked at Cupcake. “You could have told me Marconi was your contact.”
“You could have told both of us,” Marconi said. “Perhaps my son would not be injured.”
“Or perhaps we’d all be dead,” Cupcake said.
I was clearly the least important person in the group. That anonymity might keep me safe, which should suit me just fine. Should. Didn’t. Ego and pride waggled around in my gut, emotions left over from being Little Girl, the daughter of the head of the Outlaws, and then a twelve-year-old female made-man in the war. A hero in my own right, promoted after I crawled into a Mama-Bot, disabled it, and survived, saving Outlaw chapter members, a buttload of military, and an entire city of civilians. Yeah. I had been important.
Which I couldn’t share because I was important enough to go to war over.This sucked.
“It is a sin to let good food grow cold. Eat,” Lucretia said.
Miraculously, my food was still warm, kept that way by a heated metal plate. It was spectacular. Better than anything Mateo could cook. Better than anything Cupcake could cook. I ate everything, ignoring the small talk around me and being ignored in return. But I discovered I didn’t like being ignored, no matter how good the food. I drank two more beers. I may have sulked. When dessert came, it was little tarts with fresh fruit on them. Again, marvelous. The small talk stopped when Daniel Marconi looked at his Morphon and said, “My daughter informs me that her brother has been in contact with a woman in a hotel in Louisville. He promised to give her access to me. To his own father.”
That meant the son had plotted patricide.
“Mina, come to the dining room.”
Mina walked in. There was fresh blood on her white apron. I was pretty sure the blood was her brother’s.
Daniel looked at his wife. “I know you love him best.”
“I love all my children. Equally,” she said, her eyes hard and dry but her lips quivering at the obvious lie. “Enrico has put this family and this city in danger. He will stand trial. Meanwhile,” she asked Mina, “when was the betrayal to take place?”
“In two days. We have enemies close by.” Mina looked at us. At Cupcake. “I don’t believe in coincidence. Red’s Old Lady is here today, on the eve of a war with the MSA? Looking us over? Maybe taking back info to the MS Angels? And him? The top enforcer in the OMW?”
She snarled again, clearly her preferred expression, and I could see her desire to kill us in her eyes. She was still and unmoving, loose and ready. This girlwasa killer. Clearly a trained one. An assassin? Or a psychopath? Both?
“Forgive me for speaking,” I said. “I’m not just a—civilian. I . . .”
I looked around and everyone was staring at me, some in reevaluation, one in threat. Jagger and Cupcake were waiting, giving me the chance to stay safe or take a part in whatever was happening here. An equal part. Out in the open. Or maybe partway in the open. I didn’t want to create another thrall. But if I could keep the kid alive and that cemented a relationship that saved Charleston, that would be worth it.
“Speak,” Old Man Marconi said.
“Clarisse Warhammer has a weapon she uses to control people.” I stopped, thinking about what I was going to do and say. I found a partial truth and threaded the needle with it. “She puts a chemical on a teacup, a doorknob, a lowball glass.” I glanced at Old Marconi’s glass. “It enters through their skin. Or sometimes she uses a direct touch, a handshake, and it enters through a scratch or a tiny cut somewhere. That chemical makes them something like a slave.”
“This Warhammerdrugged my son?” Lucretia murmured. There was something dark in her eyes, something that said Mina had taken after her mother more than her father. But there was also hope there, that her son had not been a willing traitor.
I looked at Cupcake, who nodded slightly, as if she knew what I was doing and asking.
Cupcake said, “Warhammer is immune to the drug. She enslaved Red and me, and kept applying the drug. But the effects decrease if it isn’t reapplied.” Cupcake grinned at me. “Heather devised a med-bay program and has some Berger-chip plug-ins that make it easier to break the compulsion.” She raised her eyebrows, making a point. “It’s the only med-bay in the world that can break this compulsion.”
Partial truth. Good enough.
“My son did not plot against this family by his own choice?” Lucretia demanded.
“Yes and no,” Cupcake said. “When Warhammer transitioned Red and me, we knew right from wrong, but we didn’t have any options, no way to get away. No one to help us. Your kid knew right from wrong. He still did wrong, even when he was away from her. He might be a weak person who followed the compulsion, like a sleepwalker in a dream, or he might be evil. I can’t tell you that.”
Lucretia glared at Cupcake. Cupcake shrugged. “I don’t know your son.”
“Did Enrico go away and come back recently?” I asked. “And has he been sick? Feverish, like the flu but worse. Sweating, maybe delirious.”
“Yes,” Lucretia said. “He had a sickness last week. A high fever. I feared we would all become sick, but no one did. Only Enrico.”
“Fever is one sign of the toxin. He likely met with Warhammer seventy-two hours before that,” I said. “And anything he touched before he washed his hands and clothes could have been transferable.” I could feel Jagger’s eyes on me in accusation as my words reminded him of his accidental transition. “If an employee or a chapter member touched his things right away, that person might be sick too.”
