As much as I adore her for asking, my family’s impending ruination isn’t exactly a topic I can discuss with her or anyone else that isn’t a Morgenstern. Papa wants this settled quietly. Understandable, given that if our workers know how crippled our empire has become, they’llflee from our shadow to seek someone else’s. Someone with more power.
Someone like the saboteur hellbent on bringing war to our streets.
“If you’re ever unhappy here,” I say instead, “come talk to me.”
“This is our home, Lollipop,” Bax replies with a bemused smile. “What is there to be unhappy about?”
“Yeah,” Jett agrees. “The only one who’s ever grouchy around here is Bax when something explodes in his face and burns off his eyebrows.”
“That’s literally never happened.”
“Never, my shapely ass. You singe those fuckers off every time they grow back.”
Bax rubs his blond eyebrows that are just shy of full. “At least I don’t melt my nails with acid.”
Jett scoffs. “That was one time.”
“One time, my shapely ass,” Bax mocks in a rasping mimicry of her high pitch. “You melt those fuckers off every time they grow back.”
“You’re a literal asshat.”
“You can’t talk to me like that. I’m your superior.”
“You have a cock. That doesn’t make you my superior.”
“I can fire you, you know. Just ask Lollipop.”
Bax throws aback me upglance my way, but I flash my palms. “Switzerland.”
“Fire me?” Jett barrels on, planting her hands on her hips and scowling up at him. “How lost would you be without me here to make sure it’sjustyour eyebrows that get burned, hm? Let’s not forget how many times I’ve had to use a fire extinguisher on you so you didn’t fucking roast yourself like a human marshmallow.”
Bax whips her off, and she whips him off in return.
This, I think to myself longingly. This is the kind of atmosphere I wish my entire life consisted of. These are the kind of people I dream to have in my entire empire. Not the criminals who have no interest in redemption—but genuine, kind-hearted souls like Bax and Jett, who came to me from the streets and found a home here when they had nowhere else to go.
Stifling my chortles as the pair continue to bicker, I clear my throat and wiggle my vape. “About that refill…”
“Oh! Fuck, right.” Bax plucks blue and purple vape cartridges from a wall dispenser that likely held condoms once, judging by the faded engraving of a Trojan helmet in the glass. He drops them all into a black velvet pouch and tosses it to me, his focus flicking over my shoulder. “Incoming.”
Glancing backward, my mood sours right back to where it started.
Nikolai Volkov saunters through the door like he’s nothing short of a god. As always, the assassin is wrapped in form-fitting black, his skin kissed by the sun to a deep olive, dark hair cropped close to his skull. A jagged line like a lightning strike streaks from behind his left ear, arcing up to his temple and down again, cutting his dark eyebrow in half. His gray eyes, cunning and knife-bright, instantly find mine. The same Cheshire smile I learned from him spreads his full lips wide over pearly whites that may as well be fangs.
Memories moan from where they lie buried in the graveyard of my mind. Rainbow blades, splashes of red. My own hoarse pleas. I shove them all down in the dirt, their distant cries reverberating in my bones.
Bax lays a steadying hand on my shoulder, anchoring me to the present. I toss him a grateful look then shoo him back to a solemn Jett.
Behind Nik, two silhouettes split from his shadow: Vladimir and Malakai, his cousins. Vlad and Kai, unlike Nik, are both built for speedrather than strength. They’re not nearly as deceptively pretty on the outside, but they have the same bottomless stare.
“Printsessa.” Nik grins with a mocking bow of his neck. “How long has it been?”
Two years, forty six days, ten hours, seventeen minutes…and still counting every fucking second.
I twist a purple cartridge into my vape, inhaling the taste of a thousand vibrant colors and exhaling a lavender plume straight into his perfect face. “Not nearly long enough.”
Nik’s chuckle, echoed by his cousins, barbs every inch of my flesh. “You look”—he scans my usual leather pants and cropped tank and biker jacket then latches onto my hair that wasn’t pink the last time we saw each other—“desperate.”
Bait.Obvious bait to get me to snap at him and give him the satisfaction of knowing he can still get under my skin.
