Chapter 24
Water spilled over Layla’s shaking hands, and images of Elise’s face, struck with horror, filled her mind.
The hot water turned into blood, leaking across her body while she tried to hold Elise’s limp body up.
Her efforts were in vain, no matter how hard she tried.
No reaper strength, reaper blood, no will could keep Elise’s mortal life earthside for long enough.
As her heart failed and every living essence faded from her body, Layla could only scream.
“Layla?” Elise’s voice brought Layla back now, her mind returning to the hot water splashing over her hands in the kitchen sink and drowning the blood from beneath her nails.
She looked up to see Elise staring at her over the counter with concern furrowing her brows. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
Layla turned the water off and wiped her hands on a nearby towel. “Hardly.”
Elise swallowed hard. “You were saying my name last night in your sleep and scratching yourself to death.”
“Nightmare,” Layla answered quickly. Though the scratching explained the blood under her nails night after night.
Elise’s lips parted. All her concern was chased away by true shock. “Hell, I’m so evil, I’m in your nightmares?”
Layla gripped the edge of the sink so hard, her fingernails split and the steel dented beneath her force. “No, Lise.” She paused before saying the next part out loud, as if her voice could give the words life. “I watch you die. Every time I try to save you, and every time I’m too late.”
Silence seeped between them. The moment stretched on for so long, Layla wondered whether she should have kept her wretched imagination to herself.
It wasn’t that she wanted to see these things.
Her mind had always been good at making her afraid of herself and everything she was capable of.
Things had only worsened once she became afflicted with her reaperhood.
Dreams quickly turned to nightmares, and in the five years that she had been turned, Layla had yet to figure out how to convert the darkness to anything somewhat light.
Finally, Elise moved, her fingers coming up to touch her lips.
They tapped them once, twice, then continued until she reached a repetition of seven.
It happened so quickly and with such nonchalance, Layla wondered if Elise even noticed herself doing it.
The sight hurt Layla’s heart nearly as much as the dismay in her eyes.
She should have kept her thoughts to herself.
Layla looked away, sealing her statement with a definitive claim that could not have been interpreted in any way other than how it was said. “That’s why it’s hard for me to look at you. I hate seeing you dead.”
More silence followed her words, but before Elise could respond, Jamie entered the kitchen area.
He appeared to be ready for the day, with his coat thrown on over a suit and two guns resting along his hips.
Elise still had her robe on over her nightgown, and Layla stood in her long shirt and shorts despite the morning being half over already.
Jamie splayed a hand on the counter between them, forcing their attention onto him. “As I tried to say last night, Sterling has an idea.”
Layla glanced around the room for the man of the hour. “Well, where is he?”
The gangster paused, sucking in his cheeks. “Hendricks is sleeping on him, so he is not permitted to move from the bed right now, but I can fill you in.”
“Diabolical.” Elise tried to roll her eyes, but she leaned against the counter and yawned instead.
Jamie clenched his jaw, shaking his head. “Late morning and you’re both still unreasonably exhausted. Serves you right for being awake until four o’clock in the morning. Had I known you were going to be up so late, I would have just called a meeting to go over today’s plans.”
Layla felt the heat of Elise’s blush. She scoffed, ignoring Jamie’s vexing statement. “Something else happened last night that I think you should know about.”
Jamie paused, then shoved his guns away. “What is it?”
Elise leaned in closer as well, her interest piqued.
“I ran into a friend of the Diamond Dealers. She did try to kill me, but I think I scared her away for now,” Layla said.
Sucking in a sharp breath, Jamie rocked back on his heels.
Elise blinked in confusion. “Why would the Diamond Dealers—or anyone related to them—want you dead? What do you have to do with them? I thought they were gone.”
Layla shook her head. “I thought so too. The woman who threatened me—she’s the sister of the Diamond Dealers’ late leader. She wants my blood for killing him. Even though I did not kill him. Your gang policies surrounding blood for blood are starting to get out of hand.”
Elise looked bewildered. “Starting to?”
Jamie dismissed her distress and turned to Layla.
His jaw dropped as realization lit his eyes.
“The Italian lady. I have met her. She’s the one who said her name was Roma.
Sold all my remaining booze from the Cotton Club to her.
I didn’t know she was still around. She made it seem like she was only here for quick business to take back to Italy. ”
Layla narrowed her eyes. “She told you all this? Doesn’t that negate the purpose of an alias?”
“No, I had my men do some research on her. She leads the Diamantes. We still don’t know exactly what she’s doing here. It seems like she’s establishing her territory,” Jamie said.
“I know she’s involved in the disappearances of reapers lately.
” Layla’s gaze flicked to Elise, who now had a contemplative look on her face.
“She and her men also had Saint weaponry, so it’s either they’re working with Tobias somehow, or they’ve lifted a bunch of his guns from the training compounds. ”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying,” Sterling said.
He emerged from Jamie’s bedroom with the cat under one arm.
The feline was limp with a calmness that Layla had never seen in him.
It being the most annoying Saint of all people to get Hendricks to relax made her want to curse.
Sterling set the cat down and joined the rest of them around the kitchen counter.
“I can arrest them for heading an illegal operation and trespassing. We should be in and out of the compound in minutes. As for Josi…” He sighed, and his expression softened as he faced Elise.
“I don’t think we need that much of a plan.
If your sister misses you…she’ll come to you. ”
“We tried baiting her before, and it didn’t work,” Elise said.
“What if we make her feel like she’s summoning you?” Sterling asked.
“How?”
Layla thought back on every recent memory she had of Elise and her sister. She paused on one in particular that had made her feel things she had not felt since becoming a reaper. “I have an idea. But you’re not going to like it.”
***
Elise had never felt more like a fraud in her life.
Sitting at the piano in front of an eager afternoon crowd at the Nest Club had her more nervous than she’d ever imagined a performance could make her.
It had been ages since she last properly played—she found herself missing it less and less as time went on, but now her confidence in her ability to put on a decent performance had never been lower.
Layla caught her eye nearby. The reaper stood at the front of the crowd and had a small smile on her face. Just focus on me. Those four words from earlier stuck with Elise as she lifted her hands onto the keys.
There were a select few songs Elise had committed to memory.
Two of which she had only played for special occasions.
She chose one of those songs today. Part of her felt like a fraudulent pianist—picking a song no one knew so they could not call her out when she made a mistake.
But at the end of the day, all that mattered was that Josi knew the song.
Elise desperately hoped her sister had committed her symphony to memory just as she had.
Otherwise, this performance would serve no greater purpose.
Even Elise could not convince herself of that.
She cleared her throat and bowed her head as she spoke, “This song is dedicated to my little sister.”
The moment her fingers hit the keys and she began to play, she felt at home.
Commanding the room with just her fingers dancing across the ivory instrument, Elise found more control than she had experienced in ages.
She did not need to watch the crowd to know they went silent, their eyes alight with awe and wonder.
Music fanned out around her as she produced the opening notes with a sense of shyness that clung to a childlike innocence.
The song started out in a joyful tone, inspired by the memories Elise had made with Josi as a young girl.
Eventually, her fingers stretched across the keys to reach a higher crescendo.
The ascending scale took her through all the years she imagined for her younger sister.
Invigorating highs and unexpected, but calm, lows that came along with growing and changing.
With each note, Elise laid out a story only she knew.
One she had clung to for years, hoping and praying she would never have to turn to music to feel her younger sister’s presence instead of Josi herself.
Elise had been forced to imagine Josi trying on her first pair of pointe shoes and taking the stage for the first time as a solo performer while she had been hidden away in France.
She had missed out on so much of her baby sister’s life.
Now she spent more time grieving that than she did reminiscing about the memories they did have.
The only comfort came in believing that another life had them together the whole time.
No forceful separation to make them imagine what growing up with a sister would have been like.