Um, what?
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you need to back off of my woman.” Max pushes him back.
“Move or die.” Vex’s hand moves to the gun by his side.
The name. He wants me to repeat her name. “Sweetums.”
Vex’s entire body shakes. “You can’t be talking about her.”
I’ve never seen or heard that name before or since. “She said her brother named her.”
“Where? When? You need to tell me. Where did you see my sister?”
Vex has a sister?
“The last time I saw her was when she went to kill The Spider more than sixteen years ago. I thought she was dead all this time, but I was wrong.”
“My sister drowned eighteen years ago.”
“Sweetums has a five-year-old daughter named Gemma.” I peek past Max’s body to watch a man crumble before my eyes.
“She’s alive. She’s alive.”
Payne approaches Vex’s side carefully. “Why don’t we let Fiona finish telling her story? It will help us find Sweetums.”
Vex lets Payne move him back to the bar.
But Max doesn’t move. “You can start whenever you’re ready.”
After that almost heart attack, they expect me to finish. “After The Spider killed Sweetums’ mother, he kept Daria to use her to control Sweetums. And it worked for a while.” I take a deep breath and hide behind Max’s back. Vex isn’t going to like what I’m going to say next. “Daria had been starved before she arrived, but with a little food and a bunch of care, Daria started feeling better. That was until Sweetums said ‘no’ to The Spider. She tried so hard to be docile. But it wasn’t in her nature. The Spider picked up Daria and shook her so hard I thought he was going to snap her neck.” The bruises are something I will never forget. “He damaged her trachea that night. The ‘doctor’ who was drunk came in to fix her. Instead, he almost killed Daria. That was the night Sweetums decided The Spider was going to die, whatever it took.”
When she told me, I couldn’t believe anyone would think it was possible to kill him.
“There were things going on in the outside world affecting The Spider’s business. Men were dying. People were murmuring. There was a night when half of the men were out on a secret mission, and Sweetums decided it was time.”
The Day Sweetums Died
“Fiona—” Sweetums whispers through her cage. Her black eye is almost healed. “—do you think you can get me that knife from the kitchen?”
I want to say ‘no’. I want to go back into my cage and cry. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Then I need you to get it tonight. Right before the men go out. He’ll release me then.”
“If you bring a knife, he’ll kill you.”
She shrugs. “Maybe, but while he’s distracted, I want you to run. Take Daria with you and run as fast and as far away as possible.”
“But—But…I can’t leave you here. You’re my best friend.” My only friend.
“You have to. It’s the only chance Daria has at living. He’ll kill her. You know that.”
He kills everyone. Death hasn’t scared me in a long time. Living though… “But you’ll die.”
“So the two of you can live. Saving my sister and my best friend is worth dying for. And if I don’t try this, I’m just going to die anyway. We both know it. One day, he’s going to get bored of me, and either kill me or sell me. Which do you think I’d prefer?”
“Fine. I’ll get it for you.”
“And you’ll take care of Daria? Raise her and protect her for me? You’ll see that she has a normal life?”
