“Magnifique.” Brontë flashes Scull’s phone. “Guess I’ll just send in my own application to your boss.”
“You’re on the hit list, too, Bourbon.”
“Yet here I stand.”
“Patience.” Scull grins, sharp and bloody. “Your turn is coming.”
Brontë grins back, twice as savage. “Tease.”
“I’ve heard enough,” I say, retracting my blade. “Mama? Papa?”
My parents share a glance and nod in unison. Papa gathers Quinn into his arms and carries her out as Mama says, “We have what we need.”
I draw my Glock and train it between Scull’s lion eyes. This is the man who oversaw the murders of Jett and Fiona and every single Morgenstern. The man who manipulated an innocent woman into doing his dirty work. The man who betrayed my family while sitting in our home and drinking our wine.
Brontë’s hand falls on my shoulder. “Mine.”
“Are you sure?”
“He could know something about Margot.”
“Fair enough.” I lower my gun and rise to the tips of my toes, pecking his cheek. “Make it slow.”
“I intend to.” He fingers my knife from my grip and flattens the blade beneath my chin, stealing my lips in a fierce, deep kiss. Then he nudges me toward Mama, who interlocks our arms as she leads me out the doors.
We’re halfway down the hall when the screams begin.
LOST
Brontë
“Ineed clothes, tampons, vape juice…” Poppy tugs at her overgrown roots with a pout, leaning heavily into my side as I walk her up the basement steps of my beachfront home that I've barely stepped foot in these past few weeks. “Hair dye.”
I offer a grunt, mentally adding to the list of stops to take before returning to Morgenstern Manor. She wouldn’t let me leave without her to check on Dantë after calling him with the news of Scull’s demise and his non-existent knowledge of anything to do with Margot’s disappearance. In the end, I don't know if the crooked detective spoke true. As far as I'm concerned, that motherfucker lied through his teeth up to his dying breath.
I skinned him alive and, tearing a page from Poppy’s vigilante handbook, made him choke on his own branded flesh. Alexander took care of the rest, covering Scull’s death with a forged note about leaving town. An easy and clean story, given his lack of family and friends to question the sudden departure.
Quinn, however, is devastated. I have yet to see her at work without tears in her eyes.A necessary evil,I keep telling myself as I watch her fall apart without him. I did her a favor, and she’ll never know it.
Emi is digging into the numbers on Scull’s phone, trying to glean the source. All we can do now is wait.
Reaching the top of the steps, I lift Poppy over the threshold to the kitchen.
And stop short.
Dantë is sitting at the island, an untouched coffee before him. His head is in his hands, the afternoon sun gilding his silhouette like a halo.
“Brother? Are you all right?”
“I miss her.” He sniffles as he pulls a red box from his hoodie pocket and tosses it onto the countertop. It’s as empty and hollow as a soulless heart. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Too slowly, I realize that today is Valentine’s Day. The anniversary of when Margot disappeared. Brutal timing and an even crueler fate, considering where we hail from.
“Oh,mon ami.” Poppy reaches for him, lurching forward.
And yelps as her stitches pull.
I bark a curse at the same time Dantë’s bloodshot eyes widen. Poppy catches herself on the island, palms slamming down. Her victorious grin slips as the ring box flips up, somersaults in a golden ray of winter sunshine, and falls back down—straight into the mug. Coffee splatters Dantë, staining his pristine white clothes a shitty brown.
