Chapter Twenty-Four
Max
Her words ricochet through my thoughts like a bullet. Her sister.
Her sister? Ember doesn’t have a sister. Her dad was a functional drunk who preferred the gambling tables to the company of women, and her mom left when she was a baby.
“What?” I breathe.
“My sister,” she repeats harshly.
“Ember, baby, you don’t have a—”
“I do,” she hisses, cutting me off. “I don’t remember everything before I cracked my skull open, but I remember her.
I only knew her for…” she shakes her head.
“Half a year, maybe, before Dagon took me. She’s my half-sister, on my mother’s side.
Apparently, good old Mom had a propensity for giving birth and abandoning children a year into motherhood.
” Her jaw flexes, and my heart aches, even as doubt clouds my mind.
If she had a sister, why didn’t anyone know?
How did I not know? Why wouldn’t she tell me?
I try to string the timeline together. Ember’s last year in high school was my most demanding year in college.
We’d been talking significantly less, and I missed the spring break trip I was supposed to take back home because I had a blowout fight with my parents over what Dad really did that made us so rich.
But… I vaguely recall Ember texting that she had news to tell me.
…it’s not entirely impossible that Ember does indeed have a half-sister. I’d need Toby to check in on it, go through the records of Ember’s mom and follow the trail. He might not be happy to do that, since he’s not Ember’s biggest fan, but at the end of the day, I’m his boss. What I say goes.
“I’m gonna need a little more than that, Flame,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm even though I’m freaking out. Ember has a fucking sister that she’s spent the last five years nearly dying to protect?
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time, and you’ve got a fuckload of explaining to do. Talk before I decide you need something to loosen your lips.”
She blows out a long breath, staring at the ceiling.
“She reached out to me when she found out about my existence. She was fostered and adopted by a family when she was younger. When she was digging around in their files, she found information on our mother, and by extension, me. She sent me an email. I thought she was full of shit so I ignored her at first, but after a while, we got to talking. She even flew out so we could meet in person.” Her brows furrow.
“She’s a couple years younger than me, and so…
” Ember shakes her head. “Good. She’s like sunshine in human form.
Fast forward to Dagon; I tried to kill him not long into my captivity.
He almost killed me instead, and when I survived, he gave me an ultimatum.
Live and serve, or die and he’d kill her in the most painful way imaginable.
” A shudder shakes her shoulders. "That man has a truly incredible imagination.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. This complicates… a lot, but it also makes sense. And it gives me the conduit to keep Ember here permanently.
“I’ll get your sister out from under Dagon’s thumb,” I say slowly. “He won’t be able to touch her—I guarantee. But, first, you’re going to need to make me a promise.”
“Asking an assassin for a promise is like asking a great white shark not to tear you into pieces when you’re wrapped in fish guts.” She gives me a blank stare.
I pull my bottom lip into my mouth to hide a smile.
“You’re going to give me your word, and I’m going to hold you to it.
Forcibly, if need be. You will not break it, and if you do, the consequences will be severe.
” I take a step forward, crowding her space.
“I save your sister, and you’re mine. Permanently.
I’m not going to make you kill people to work off a debt, but you will stop trying to get away from me.
It wouldn’t work either way, but do spare me the effort of warding off your petty murder attempts. ”
“Petty?” she intones.
I press a finger to her lips. “Shh. Anyways; point is, you stop trying to kill me, and we call this good. Your sister’s protected, and everyone’s happy.”
She stares at me hard, thinking over the deal. I know what I’m offering her isn’t much better than the ultimatum Dagon gave her, but I’m a man of my word—and I have no interest in tormenting her. Well, maybe sexually, but that’s a given. I certainly won’t scar her body or destroy her mental state.
“The deal is you save my sister, and you own me?”
“Yes.”
“No deal.” She shakes her head. “You might think you can, but you can’t.”
“I have the best hacker in the world and an army of assassins on my side. Not to mention connections in every corner of the underworld.” I arch an eyebrow. “If anyone can get it done, it’s me.”
She mulls this over for several minutes. “If you can pull this off—”
“I can.”
“—in the next forty-eight hours—”
That’ll be difficult, but, “I’ll get it done.”
“And keep Cain out of it—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Cain’s my commander. I can’t keep this from him.”
“Then we don’t have a fucking deal,” she hisses. “I don’t trust him not to do what Dagon did and threaten her.”
That… is actually a reasonable point. Cain absolutely would do something like that if he saw the benefit. “I can do my best to keep him out of it, but he might find out from someone else.”
Ember considers this for a beat. Nods. “If you can do all of that, and give me proof that she’s safe…” Ember gazes down at her feet. “I guess I’ll just answer to you instead of answering to Dagon.”
“Flame,” I say softly. “I’m a much better person to be bound to. For one, I care about you. I’m never going to abuse you. I don’t want to make you into my weapon; I just want you to be you.”
Her eyes flare. “You want me to be the girl I was before the last five years of my life. Newsflash, pretty boy; that’s not happening.”
“I don’t want that girl,” I say. “First of all, she was barely legal when she admitted her crush on me. I felt like a pervert for kissing her. Second of all, I was still coming to terms with my inability to grow a moustache when I realized my feelings for her.”
Ember’s brows furrow. For perhaps the first time since I took her, she pauses and thinks instead of acting.
“Third of all, I think you’re much more legal, much hotter, and so much more powerful than the young, wide-eyed, na?ve girl who became my best friend. I felt horrible for being attracted to her; I feel fucking invigorated by you.”
“Beauty fades,” she says dismissively. “It’s an asset that swiftly degrades over time.”
“Your mind doesn’t. Your soul doesn’t.”
Her lips thin. “I don’t have a soul anymore. I sold it, then killed it by doing what I’ve done.”
Aw, fuck. I hear the self-flagellation in her tone, and it nearly undoes me. I step forward, taking Ember’s hand in mine. “Baby—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Baby,” I repeat slowly, suppressing a smile when she hides an eye roll, “if you didn’t have a soul, you wouldn’t have spent the last half-decade being Dagon’s slave to protect a sister you only knew for a couple months.
That right there is proof that you’re still human, no matter what you tell yourself. ”
“You don’t get it, do you?” she asks. Instead of coming out harsh, her tone is forlorn, almost defeated.
“I can’t afford to be human anymore. If I’m human, I have to come to terms with all the terrible shit I’ve done.
I killed innocents because I was ordered to, Maximus.
I probably did kill Tobias’s cousin—an errand boy, by the sounds of it.
When Dagon told me to jump, my only question was how high.
I’m a monster, and I’m exceptionally good at being one. ”
I draw her closer. “Then you can be my monster. I don’t care about your sins, Ember. My hands are far from clean. What I care about is you. You being alive, here, and mine. Give me that and I’ll give you the world.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows. I imagine wrapping my hand around it and pressing down until she’s dizzy from oxygen loss. Will it make her come harder? Deny her an orgasm? Frighten her or turn her on? I’ll find out soon.
“Give me my sister’s safety, and you can have me,” she says, challenge lacing every word.
I smile. “I’ll get right on that. First, Flame, I need your sister’s name.”
She blows out a deep breath. Looks at the ceiling, at the floor, basically anywhere but at me. Finally, she says, “If you use this information against me, I will find a way to kill you. Don’t doubt me, Maximus; I will find a way to fucking destroy you.” She inhales a deep breath. “Alina Braxton.”
I take Ember straight back to our place, outfit her with an extremely well-monitored laptop and tell her to start redesigning our apartment, and go to my office.
I start with a garden-variety search of Alina Braxton, and find a girl who looks immensely different from Ember, but shares her nose and her eyes.
Just enough similarities to confirm that they are probably related.
Probably isn’t good enough for me—I need confirmation. A DNA test alongside birth certificates and life stories. So, I call in reinforcements to get me the information I need—Toby.
He arrives an hour after I ordered him to come up immediately, which is a subtle fuck-you that irritates me.
Toby might fall under Greyson’s direct purview, but I’m still his superior, and he answers to me as much as he answers to Grey.
I suppose his little argument with Ember has made him reluctant to help me, which I intend to straighten out promptly.
I open the front door when he knocks on it, casting Ember a warning glance that silently transmits for her to stay put on the couch, keep shopping, and not antagonize Toby any further.
I need him right now—she needs him right now.
She must recognize that, because when I swing open the door and Toby steps in, she only gives him an uninterested look up and down before returning her attention to her laptop.
She looks a little too interested in whatever she has pulled up for my comfort, but I made it quite clear that I can see everything she does on the laptop, so I doubt she’s stepping out of line.
“This better be fucking good,” Toby quietly seethes, following me into the office.
I close the door behind him. “It came from me; that makes it good.” I round my desk and take a seat.
Toby follows suit, lowering into the chair across from me, but I hold up a hand, staying him.
“I did not invite you to sit just yet, soldier.” I stare at him.
“You need to get over your resentment of Ember.”
His nostrils flare. “She killed my fucking cousin. Let me punish her and I’ll be over it.”
“She followed—fucking—orders,” I hiss. “Are you really going to blame a pet for their master’s commands?”
“So you agree that she’s a wild pet? Excellent, that’ll save us time.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “You should send her to the pound like a mouthy bitch and be done with it.”
“Do you want to die, Toby?” I ask conversationally.
“I invited you here because I need your help, but keep talking about my chosen like she’s a dog, and you’ll get a bullet instead of a task.
” I lean forward. “Don’t test me, soldier.
I don’t fuck around when it comes to her.
Now, unless you’re uninterested in walking out of here unharmed, you’ll follow my commands to the letter. Are we clear?”
Toby inhales a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut. After a few moments, he gives me a reluctant nod. “Yeah, we’re fucking clear.”
“Great. I need you to find out everything there is to know about a girl—I want a report on her entire life. Birth records, education, living and dead relatives—”
“Have you already decided to exchange Ember for someone else?” he asks snarkily. “Can’t say I blame you—”
“Tobias.” I shake my head slowly. “You’re testing my patience, and right now is not the time to test my patience. Do your task, or I’ll assume your value to the Nighthawk’s has been vastly overinflated, and I’ll react accordingly.”
Tobias stands from his seat angrily. “Fine,” he snaps. “I’ll get it done, today. Send me her name, and I’ll do the rest.”
With that, he storms out. I raise my fingers to my temples and massage them, understanding that bringing Ember here was a complicated, not necessarily well-advised move.