Chapter Three. Ember #3
Most people recognize HoC as the premiere house for exquisite shoes, high-fashion shoes.
But the underworld knows it as a front for the biggest international drug empire in the world.
Some of the shoes are carefully constructed shipping mules for Glass Slipper, a highly addictive designer drug created by yours truly.
I may have a rage problem, but I’m also a genius.
Like, card-carrying Mensa genius. After graduating from USC with a bachelor’s in biology and two master’s in biochemistry and chemical engineering at twenty, I immediately went to work at the lab in the basement of the Castle creating the drugs that would earn the company and my family billions a year.
More than the Cross empire earned in my grandfather’s and father’s generations.
Good ol’ Gramps might’ve initially gotten rich by transporting twice-stepped-on product from an overseas plug, and that was fine for his time.
It got HoC started, and he built a name and empire to be feared and respected.
But it’s my mind, my creativity, my ideas and hard-ass work that fund this empire and the lifestyles of all the muthafuckas who despise every breath I take.
And yet I’m still treated like shit scraped off the bottom of a sneaker.
Or maybe worse.
Invisible.
But I shouldn’t hope for its downfall? Yeah, he could miss me with that. Once upon a time, I dreamed of HoC being my legacy, my future. Now it’s just going to be my competition. Any figments of loyalty Marcus didn’t manage to kill within me died when that machine lowered him into the ground.
A mixture of sadness and recrimination creeps across his stern features, and I can already tell he’s on bullshit and I’m not going to appreciate what he’s about to say. Matter of fact, it’s probably going to make me flip my shit.
“Ember, I know you’ve been hurt, but this is beneath you. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted this for you. She wouldn’t have wanted you to become—”
“Don’t finish that fucking sentence,” I snarl, stalking closer to Sam and not stopping until mere inches separate us.
See, most people wisely fear my godfather, but not me.
And not because he loves me and treats me like family.
No, because while other people believe monsters are make-believe and just villains in stories to scare children to act right, I have firsthand experience that they’re real.
I’ve lived with them. Felt their fetid, hot breath in my ear, on my damp skin. Been scarred by them.
As a result, I don’t fear shit.
“I love you, Sam, more than the man whose nut sack I came from and who barely raised me. But don’t do that.
Don’t bring my mother into this. And you don’t get to tell me how I should react to people who have done me dirty since the moment they laid eyes on me.
Longer, if we’re talking about Marcus. Since you don’t have one scar, one nightmare, one…
” I bite my lip to contain the scream building and swelling inside of me like an Oklahoma twister.
“It’s the stink of privilege to think you can dictate that for me when you weren’t there to endure either the brunt or the pain.
It’s fuck them and House of Cross forever.
And if you can’t see that, it’s fuck you, too. Respectfully.”
His eyes narrow. “Watch your mouth, little girl.”
“I said, respectfully.”
A deafening silence thrumming with a menacing tension hovers over the room, vibrates between us. This isn’t the first time we’ve butted heads, but this is the first time it’s been this personal, this … antagonistic.
“If I’d known what was going on in this house—the extent of what Michelle inflicted on you and what Marcus allowed—I would’ve moved hell and earth to get you out of here. You know I would’ve.”
The pain and disgust aimed at himself that echo in his voice soften my heart, and I dip my chin.
“I do know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.
He was your best friend. And as confusing as it sounds—shit, it doesn’t make sense to me—I didn’t want him to be without you.
Michelle is a selfish, self-serving bitch, completely out for herself.
She didn’t love him for real. And he didn’t let me get close to him.
After losing Mom, all he had was you. So, no, I couldn’t tell you, but knowing you would’ve knocked all this shit over if I had was enough. ”
His heavy breaths punctuate the room like deep gouges.
He lowers his head, his chest lifting and falling.
The internal struggle is all over him. Because of the man he is, I know he’s battling his own guilt, a sense of betrayal, and even maybe some disgust. This is my real father figure; he’s the reason I understand affection and relationship.
“I don’t blame you, Sam,” I murmur.
“Maybe you should.”
“Well, if you were going to make this about you, I would’ve kept this shit to myself.”
His head snaps up, and when I smile at him, his flattened mouth and narrowed eyes soften. With a soft snort, he shakes his head. And though the shame lingers in his gaze, so does resignation. And acceptance.
For now, the storm has passed. But this is Sam. He isn’t done with himself. Not by a long shot.
“You’ll have security with you wherever you go. That’s not up for discussion. I’m going to personally provide it so I can be sure they’re trustworthy and capable,” he says.
“Okay, I can work with that.”
He sighs. “What are your plans? When do you plan on letting Asad know? Are you going to at least leave the formula for Glass Slipper behind?”
“I’m not even formally on the payroll, remember?
Can’t remind the masses that Marcus Cross has a daughter.
This isn’t some shit where I have to turn in my two-week notice to HR.
He’ll know when I tell him. But hell, he’s smart.
As soon as that will was read, he should’ve figured that shit out.
And they can reverse engineer the drug. I don’t owe these muthafuckas a thing.
As far as my plans?” I grin. “They’re my own.
” I shift forward and close the distance between us and kiss his lean cheek. “See you later, Sam.”
“I have guards already waiting for you outside, Ember,” he warns me. “Where are you headed? Home, I hope. It’s been a long-ass day.”
“I can’t argue with you on that, but mine isn’t over. I’m going in to work.”
He frowns. “To the lab? What the fuck for? You attended your father’s funeral today, for God’s sake.”
“I know.” I shrug. “Threw my schedule all off. Talk to you soon.”
Throwing a hand up in a wave, I set off for the doors. I have some business to handle that can’t wait. And putting my father in the ground isn’t reason enough to put it off.
Forty minutes later, I step off the elevator into the bowels of the Castle and enter the stark white antechamber outside the lab.
Within seconds, I press my thumb to the fingerprint scanner next to the lab door, and a green button at the top corner of the small black box beeps.
Next, I lean forward to the retina scanner and wait for the low-level infrared light to beam through the eyepiece.
Seconds later, the green button beeps again, and the stainless steel, pneumatic-seal APR doors silently slide open.
As soon as I step into the sterile lab with its stark white walls and spotless workstations, the heaviness and stress of the long day evaporates from my chest and shoulders like a poisonous gas.
Taking a moment, I scan the room, visiting the workstations, sinks, array of beakers, test tubes, microscopes, incubators, and exhaust hoods as if they were old friends instead of standard lab equipment.
The silence is a cocoon of ambient noise that soothes my soul from the past fifteen hours.
The faint whiff of chemicals and cleansing solution smells better than the most expensive perfume.
I inhale my first weightless breath of the day that doesn’t contain death, rage, or avarice. Simply put, in this place of lab equipment, tools, and deadly compounds, I feel … home.
Crossing the large open space, I stop at the far wall and press my hand to a panel, and a section of the wall swings backward, revealing a spacious locker room.
And that’s a bit of an understatement. Yes, there are four cubbies, but they are huge, a beautiful oak.
A long, matching table, cabinets, and full kitchen complete the room.
And tucked in the corner is a bathroom with a full shower.
I quickly open my locker, pull out my lab coat, and shrug into it. Sure, it’s just an article of clothing, but in a way, it’s like putting on a new skin. The right skin.
When I emerge from the locker room, Perla, Jarrod “Gus” Gusner, and Jaq Merritt enter the lab.
Together. That’s them. Always together. They even showed up for their interviews for the positions as my lab assistants as a trio.
Three people couldn’t be more different in appearance and personality, but according to Perla, they’ve been best friends and inseparable since middle school.
Most of the time I love that for them since this world is known for being cruel to anyone born or who dares to be different.
And other times I’m envious that they had each other during those confusing, sometimes toxic years, and I had no one.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Perla says in her sweet, slightly squeaky voice. “We weren’t sure if you were still coming in tonight, given … you know, your—”
“Your father being dead ’n’ all,” Jaq states in their usual blunt manner.
When Gus and Perla hiss their name, they blink at them.
“What? She knows he’s dead; she buried him today.
And it’s not as if she’s broken up over it.
Other people might be off, but this is just a regular workday for all of us, so I don’t know why you’re over there stuttering and shit. ”