Epilogue
SIX MONTHS LATER
Waverly
.
The nightmare wakes me. It was one of those lingering ones where even when you’re conscious, it still infects your thoughts. Waking up to an empty bed didn’t help matters either. Lukas’s side of the bed is cold. He must have been moving around for a while.
When I finally leave the bed, I find him in the kitchen over the stove making eggs. His sweatpants hang dangerously low on his hips and he’s not wearing a shirt, his colorful back begging for some attention. I sneak behind him and cling around his waist, tracing one of his back tattoos with my tongue.
“Good morning, love.”
I squeeze him and stand on my tiptoes to rest my chin on his shoulder. “Morning.”
“Breakfast? I can pour you a cup of tea.”
“Uh-huh.” I keep clinging to his back while he drags me around our kitchen.
He stops and pulls me around to face him. “Are you feeling a little needy this morning?”
I flop my head on his chest and mumble, “Uh-huh.”
“Food or snuggles?”
“Snuggles.”
He turns the stove off and lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he returns me to the bedroom. Snuggles turn to kinky morning sex and back to snuggles. I feel better, less empty and lonely with him holding me under the blankets.
“What time do we have to get going?” he asks while staring at the ceiling.
“It starts at eleven, so I guess we should leave here at ten thirty.”
“I have a meeting at two, we can’t stay all day.”
“I know,” I say into his chest. He changed the time of the meeting, especially for that reason.
We get dressed in silence and load into the car. He drives while I check my email.
“Painters are doing the second floor, and the tennis court updates are happening tomorrow.”
“Everything is moving a lot smoother than you thought.”
“Don’t jinx it.”
“Sorry,” he says, laughing a little. I like that he’s laughing, even today.
We pull into a parking spot and I slip on my flats. Heels are never good in grass. There are fewer people here today than there were yesterday. I recognize most everyone.
Angie is dressed in black. She sees me but turns away. She’s sitting on the white plastic folding chairs, greeting people who come over to her. I know in my heart this is the last time I’ll see her.
“This wasn’t your fault.” Lukas kisses me on the cheek before heading to the hearse. There’s nobody in it, just rocks in a coffin. The body is still under investigation.
Standing in the parking lot are a few men in suits, talking in a circle. I know all of them, some more than others. The FBI agent is a friend of Alana’s, someone she’s known since high school.
The service is fast. As the casket is lowered into the ground, Angie’s mother sobs. Her father is standing next to her. Dirt is thrown on the casket and flowers are dropped in.
Despite what Angie and her parents might think, this wasn’t retaliation for missing a few payments. I’ve been too busy with the hotel to even keep track of their payments. When I made the claim at the wedding, I had no idea how bad their financial situation really was. Between the debt, the lies, and Adam’s death, there are actually only a handful of people who have the full scope of the truth. In fact, most people here don’t know any of the details, only that he struggled with an addiction and lost the battle.
He owed The Deviant a lot of money, between loans and a few drug deals gone wrong, it was close to seven figures. Adam had been working for The Deviant for years, long before Majesty was even a consideration. I was his insurance policy. The Deviant was willing to put up with him as long as Adam had access to me and, by default, the Four Families.
We were unaware of any of this until the police identified his body. His head was pretty easy to figure out. It had been mailed to his mom’s place.
I stand to drop my flower into his grave, but his mom whips around before it leaves my grip. “This is all your fault!” she screeches. “I hope you burn in hell. You and your whole family.”
Lukas’s arm wraps around my shoulder. His mother howls, “If you leave with that trash, you can never come back. You’re out of this family forever.”
Lukas has lost so much, and now I’m costing him even more. I feel the warmth of his lips on my scalp. “Easiest choice I’ve ever had to make.”
He squeezes me and whispers, “Can I go meet your mom?” It seems like a cruel joke that Adam is buried in the same cemetery as my mom. At least they’re on opposite sides.
We walk in the opposite direction of the funeral, but my mom isn’t alone. Dad and Uri are there.
Dad hugs me. He smells like aftershave. None of them are devastated over Adam, but they know this was a hard closure for me. I move away from my dad and head into Uri’s arms as my father walks Lukas a little bit away from us.
“Wave, I’m sorry about this. I swear he was alive when we last saw him,” Uri says. My family had been keeping tabs on him. Uri and my cousins did serious damage to Adam, broke both his legs, a bunch of ribs, his collarbones, and both hands. But he was on the road to recovery. Hell, he was in physical therapy. That’s where The Deviant’s men got him.
“Are you going to retaliate?” I ask, staring Uri in the eyes.
He squeezes my arm. “The Deviant shot me, put explosives in Thiago’s car, and sent a psychopath after Izzy. If we didn’t retaliate over that, we’re not going to do it for an asshole, traitor junkie.”
“So, nothing?” I bite back the anger.
“We paid for the funeral,” Uri says like it’s some sort of consolation. “But it’s a delicate ecosystem and we’re not going to war over Adam.”
They’ve spent twenty-six years shutting me out, and the one time I ask for something.. nothing. This isn’t about retaliation for Angie or her family. I had been actively protecting Lukas from another funeral, another bitter interaction between his mother and sister. I never doubted he would pick me over them, but it kills me he was put in the situation to begin with. Now I’m pissed.
Once Lukas is at work, I take his car to the only person who will help. Mastodon’s Security elephant logo greets me, as I walk past the front desk. Macie, Alana’s assistant, tries to stop me, but even she knows it’s not going to work.
I throw open the door to an office where Alana sits at a table with another woman. “He chose me.”
Alana jumps to her feet. “Waverly?”
“Lukas chose me over his family. Me.” The angry tears well in my eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a plan for The Deviant. He blew up your building. You’re too petty not to have a plan.”
“What did your family say when you asked for help?”
“They said it was a delicate ecosystem…” My eyes flash with anger. “But they made damn sure I wasn’t a part of it. You have a plan, and I want in.”
Alana turns her head toward the woman next to her. She’s in her mid-thirties, her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, and thick, black rimmed glasses accentuate her eyes. She’s giving off PTA mom vibes. But if she’s hanging with Alana, that’s not true at all.
The woman stands and reaches over the table. “Waverly, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
Have we met? I glance at Alana, who gives me a little nod. “This is Penny Olympian, the mother of the only heir to the Olympian legacy. She sits at the head of several corporate boards and is a world class hacker. You two have been emailing back and forth for years now.”
I blink a few times. I’ve only seen her walking red carpets and in photo shoots. This, I wasn’t expecting at all.
Penny motions across the table. “Sit.” I do as told. “Majesty is created from the hythanatia flower. A very small patch is growing in your garden. In fact, there are several clusters of them on your land. The hythanatia flower is the byproduct of the minerals and ores growing under it. It’s extremely valuable. Using the flower to make drugs is like drilling for oil and only using it for petroleum jelly. You’re missing ninety-nine percent of its uses.”
OH. Shit.
“The ores and minerals the hythanatia flower grows from contain enough raw material to power the world for the next five hundred years,” Alana adds. “The Deviant’s largest Majesty farm could kill five million people, or change biofuel forever. Right now, he doesn’t know what he has, and he needs to be stopped before he figures it out.”
“That’s why you helped me buy the hotel?” The air conditioner comes on and goose bumps rise on my skin.
Alana shrugs. “Plus it’s a super cute hotel, and we need a venue for parties.”
She pushes a file in front of me and I start to read. It takes me an hour to go through all the documents, maps, and information. When I stumble on a picture of a man I recognize, my stomach drops. “Why do you have a picture of Adam’s creepy-ass friend?”
Alana closes her laptop screen and reaches for the 8x10 black and white photo. “What do you mean Adam’s creepy-ass friend?”
My finger presses against his black and white forehead. “That guy. He’s an Ivy League dickhead who gave off creeper vibes.”
Alana and Penny exchange “oh shit” glances. Penny speaks first. “That’s The Deviant. Or at least, the current one.”
Did the room become a billion degrees all of a sudden? “Explain.” I can only handle one word answers.
“The Deviant is a title passed down from father to son,” Penny begins. “The first Deviant ran a human trafficking ring before stumbling onto Majesty. He’s currently a high-ranking officer in the DEA who is on a task force with a whole slew of other alphabet agencies. He passed the mantle over to his son, Keith.”
I have to laugh. “Another crime family?”
“Yeah, but this one is different, embedded in agencies and corporations… It’s rude because that’s OUR thing,” Penny says and points to her chest. “The Olympians have been doing it for thousands of years. And we’re not thrilled about this upstart dickhead trying to inch into the world we perfected.”
Alana shakes her head. “The Deviant ‘family’ is in a ton of different industries. In fact Terk Henderson, the owner of Legacy Records, has direct ties to The Deviant. The plan was to run Majesty through the music industry, using concert tours to spread it across the country and the world.”
Even I have to admit, “Not a bad plan.”
“It’s not, but Legacy started losing talent, and by default The Deviant lost tons of money.” Alana swallows and pushes some papers around. “One of the reasons why I bought Mastodon was to protect them.” She pauses, studies my face, then relents. “I supposed if I don’t tell you who they are, you’re going to Google it anyway?”
“Yep.”
“We call them Siren, Honey Badger, and Phoenix, but you would recognize them as Amanda Chase, Lena Goodlove, and Grae.”
HO. LY. SHIT! “Grae’s super hot,” I blurt out, and Alana frowns.
“I’m well aware. His life and the others are in danger.” She opens her laptop back up. “Stopping The Deviant and controlling Majesty are our number one priorities.”
That’s my cue to get back to work. After a few hours it hits me how horrifying the data is, but I’m struck with a sense of peace. I understand Alana’s plan and I can help. “You’re going to need to program six hundred drones, strategically placed around the world to lift their cargo fifty feet in the air, and release it at the same time.”
Penny tilts her head to the side. “Our estimates say we’ll only need four hundred.”
Alana examines my notes and says, “She’s right. What sort of cargo should we drop?”
I cross my arms and frown. “Faraday bombs. Whatever we do has to send a strong message—total destruction.”
Penny raises a brow. “Are you doing this because you’re a music fan or because he killed your ex boyfriend?”
“No.” A cold chill wafts through the room. “The Deviant attacked everyone in my generation of the four families, but failed. He only has one move left.”
Alana gasps as all the air leaves her lungs. “The kids.”
The message and the mission are crystal clear to all of us. Alana, Penny, and I are out of the ecosystem, and we’re the only ones who can save it.
Thank you for reading Sins and Secrets.