Poppy
My footfalls are as silent as graves as I slink through the shadows of the luxurious beachfront villa. Even under night’s heavy blanket, it’s a Picasso of splendor. I’m shocked there aren’t marble busts lining the walls and frescoes of cherubs flying up the ceilings. This Mediterranean dream belongs to the twin brothers that have been on my suspect list since they showed up at my café wearing fake smiles and lying through their fucking teeth.
Either—or both—could be my target.
Emi fished the dark web for anything on the Bourbon brothers. Although there wasn’t much to be found, Dantë’s dating life was a surprise. Last I knew, he was engaged to Margot Lovecraft, advisor of a local sorority. Apparently, the man has been going through bodies like a chainsmoker through cigarettes ever since Margot ghosted him last year. Brontë was spotted online twice: as the shopowner of Bourbon Binds, and as a coroner for a local medical examiner’s office.
A coroner who’s likely carted many of my victims to his morgue.
Emi hit a wall when mining for what Dantë does for a living, but it must be impressive if he can afford the custom-painted McLaren parked beside Brontë’s vintage cobalt Corvette in the enclosed garage downstairs. He could be affiliated with the underworld. Or worse, the government.
I pass through an open-concept kitchen with a seaside view of the starlit Atlantic. Cross a hall into a homey den. Peer into an obnoxiously lavish study. Stalk up the main staircase. I crack the first door I see, to the right of the top landing. Honeysuckle and pine perfume the air as I poke my head in.
The room is brimming with anime paraphernalia. Quiet metalcore that Bax and Jett would enjoy is playing from the speakers. Top-tier gaming equipment encompasses the far wall. Swathed in sweats, Dantë is cuddling with an axolotl plushie and sleeping as soundly as the dead.
Who would have thought? Dantë Bourbon, playboy and nerd. I wonder just how many people he’s fucked in that bed with his army of plushies watching.
I stifle a snort then close the door.
Across the hall is another room. I soundlessly peer in, breathing the spice of bourbon and cherry smoke. Built-in bookshelves wrap the room, stuffed with rebound books. An en suite bathroom stretches to the east, dominated by a priceless clawfoot tub. A bar cart is parked aside a leather wingback chair angled toward a small brick hearth.
I don’t even need to see him to know whose room it is.
In a massive, circular bed piled with pelts and pillows, Brontë is asleep. A fur duvet is tangled around his long, muscled legs. He’s in his boxers and nothing else, his warrior frame and throat-to-toe holy tattoos on full display in the slivers of moonlight trickling in from the far windows. He stirs, restless. Something tells me it’s not a result of my presence.
Is he plagued by nightmares, too?
Focus, Poppy.
Before I do anything reckless like tuck him back in, I search the room and find nothing. Quietly shutting the door behind me, I creepback down to the garage. My assessment is as solid as the concrete beneath my feet.
The Bourbons are not my enemy.
My disappointment rises far above my relief. I’m nowhere closer to finding my target now than when I started.
My family is struggling to keep this systematic downfall a secret. Our ops are still being sabotaged from afar, our people leaving for greener grass. Slowly but surely, we are crumbling at the roots. We’re in no better shape than the Volkovs were during their war with Grandpapa Lucian.
If this keeps going, our bones will be picked clean in a matter of months.
As I sneak toward the cracked window I slipped in through, I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in a glass door tucked beneath the stairs. Thick shadows bathe the room beyond, concealing its contents. Piled outside are boxes to be mailed, all labeled as Bourbon Binds.
Brontë’s Etsy shop.
I inch forward, my imagination running rampant. Bodies strung up by the ankles like livestock, heads lining the walls like trophies, blood staining every surface like the aftermath of a horror movie.
Unrealistic. Yet entirely plausible.
Brontë may not be hellbent on crushing my family’s empire. But he could still be a threat. He’s seen the bodies I’ve been leaving in my wake. It’s no coincidence he crawled out of his own hole to visit, of all places,mycafé. He looked just as uncomfortable as he did intrigued when we met. As if that wasn’t suspicious enough, he’d been reading a serial killer rom-com while drinking a cup of blackandmade that odd remark about investigating unsolved murders.
The universe was practicallyscreamingat me to read the signs.
Quietly, I push through the unlocked door.
A biting cold hits me first, shocking against the hot-as-Lucifer’s-ballsack August heat still clinging to my skin. My exhale puffs white in the arctic chill. My inhale brings burning ammonia into my lungs, followed by the saccharine stench of death.
I flip on the dim lights and twist in a slow circle, taking it all in.
Cricuts crowd the shelves, pyramids of vinyl stacked beside them. There are mountains of border stencils and decorative paper. Rolls of ribbon and book cloth. Endless threads and needles. Every color of spray paint in existence, organized by type of finish on a shelf above glass jars brimming with syrupy dye. A slop sink is tucked into a corner, the deep basin artfully stained.
