Chapter 5
REUNION
Poppy
My motorcycle drifts across the threshold of the old tactile plant at the heart of the city, cutting the engine and rolling to a stop. Plopping my helmet onto my lap, I absorb the scent of burning chemicals and the sound of heavy guitar riffs blaring from the wall-mounted speakers.
I should be feeling some sense of comfort in this familiar place I chose to rendezvous with the assassins I’m assigning to my family’s saboteur problem. Instead, the raving beat of death metal only urges my heart into a thundering stampede as trepidation dumps into my veins.
“Evening, Lollipop!” Baxilian Kemp waves enthusiastically, beaming at me with every ray of his sunshine as the tall, svelte street chemist and his sidekick, Jett Proctor, pour a bucket of colorful crystals into an unmarked cask.
“Evening.” I point to a speaker above a shelf of rocking mason jars labeled: Boom-Boom Powder. “Bax, what is that?”
“Homemade fireworks.” Bax pushes his safety goggles up from his ivy eyes, pinning back his boyish blond curls as a grin slashes a mischievous curve across his cherubic features. “Special order for some unlucky bastard in Boston. Requested by his very vindictive ex.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Inspiring. Could you maybe turn Alex Terrible down a smidge before you blow us all straight to hell?”
“Relax, boss,” he drawls, slapping the bucket until the last luminescent rock tumbles. “It won’t blow without an ignition source.”
I fling a hand toward the boiling liquids two very short feet beneath the rattling jars. “Seriously?”
Bax sighs, drawing his phone from his hoodie pocket and tapping the volume down to a tolerable rumble. “You’re no fun.”
“I am fun. Just not on days where I need to meet with the Volkovs.”
Bax’s easy smile slips at the same time Jett fumbles with the bucket, tin clanging a cacophony against the floor. Both are entirely reasonable reactions. After all, the three remaining Volkovs are our most infamous mercenaries. Not to mention, they hail from the family who lost everything to mine.
“How’s the anti-anxiety juice?” Bax asks, recovering first. “Need a refill before they get here?”
I pat my jacket until I find my vape and pull the abysmally low cartridge out. “Got any more of your cotton candy blend?”
“Fairy Farts, coming right up. I’ll even throw in a few extras if you promise to try Unicorn Cum. Tastes like a rainbow shot straight from a magical cock. Right, Jett?”
“Uhh…” Jett’s sepia cheeks flush crimson as she averts her gaze, dragging her glossy black coffin nails through her acid-green pixie cut. “I plead the Fifth.”
Bax jabs an accusing finger at her. “Those were your words.”
Jett flips him off and pivots to the crystals, stirring them with a fire iron and dutifully ignoring his sniggering. “Anything else we can help you with, boss?”
As much as I adore her for asking, my family’s impending ruination isn’t exactly a topic I can discuss with her or anyone else that isn’t a Morgenstern.
Papa wants this settled quietly. Understandable, given that if our workers know how crippled our empire has become, they’ll flee from our shadow to seek someone else’s. Someone with more power.
Someone like the saboteur hellbent on bringing war to our streets.
“If you’re ever unhappy here,” I say instead, “come talk to me.”
“This is our home, Lollipop,” Bax replies with a bemused smile. “What is there to be unhappy about?”
“Yeah,” Jett agrees. “The only one who’s ever grouchy around here is Bax when something explodes in his face and burns off his eyebrows.”
“That’s literally never happened.”
“Never, my shapely ass. You singe those fuckers off every time they grow back.”
Bax rubs his blond eyebrows that are just shy of full. “At least I don’t melt my nails with acid.”
Jett scoffs. “That was one time.”
“One time, my shapely ass,” Bax mocks in a rasping mimicry of her high pitch. “You melt those fuckers off every time they grow back.”
“You’re a literal asshat.”
“You can’t talk to me like that. I’m your superior.”
“You have a cock. That doesn’t make you my superior.”
“I can fire you, you know. Just ask Lollipop.”
Bax throws a back me up glance my way, but I flash my palms. “Switzerland.”
“Fire me?” Jett barrels on, planting her hands on her hips and scowling up at him.
“How lost would you be without me here to make sure it’s just your eyebrows that get burned, hm?
Let’s not forget how many times I’ve had to use a fire extinguisher on you so you didn’t fucking roast yourself like a human marshmallow. ”
Bax whips her off, and she whips him off in return.
This, I think to myself longingly. This is the kind of atmosphere I wish my entire life consisted of.
These are the kind of people I dream to have in my entire empire.
Not the criminals who have no interest in redemption—but genuine, kind-hearted souls like Bax and Jett, who came to me from the streets and found a home here when they had nowhere else to go.
Stifling my chortles as the pair continue to bicker, I clear my throat and wiggle my vape. “About that refill…”
“Oh! Fuck, right.” Bax plucks blue and purple vape cartridges from a wall dispenser that likely held condoms once, judging by the faded engraving of a Trojan helmet in the glass. He drops them all into a black velvet pouch and tosses it to me, his focus flicking over my shoulder. “Incoming.”
Glancing backward, my mood sours right back to where it started.
Nikolai Volkov saunters through the door like he’s nothing short of a god.
As always, the assassin is wrapped in form-fitting black, his skin kissed by the sun to a deep olive, dark hair cropped close to his skull.
A jagged line like a lightning strike streaks from behind his left ear, arcing up to his temple and down again, cutting his dark eyebrow in half.
His gray eyes, cunning and knife-bright, instantly find mine.
The same Cheshire smile I learned from him spreads his full lips wide over pearly whites that may as well be fangs.
Memories moan from where they lie buried in the graveyard of my mind. Rainbow blades, splashes of red. My own hoarse pleas. I shove them all down in the dirt, their distant cries reverberating in my bones.
Bax lays a steadying hand on my shoulder, anchoring me to the present. I toss him a grateful look then shoo him back to a solemn Jett.
Behind Nik, two silhouettes split from his shadow: Vladimir and Malakai, his cousins. Vlad and Kai, unlike Nik, are both built for speed rather than strength. They’re not nearly as deceptively pretty on the outside, but they have the same bottomless stare.
“Printsessa.” Nik grins with a mocking bow of his neck. “How long has it been?”
Two years, forty six days, ten hours, seventeen minutes…and still counting every fucking second.
I twist a purple cartridge into my vape, inhaling the taste of a thousand vibrant colors and exhaling a lavender plume straight into his perfect face. “Not nearly long enough.”
Nik’s chuckle, echoed by his cousins, barbs every inch of my flesh. “You look”—he scans my usual leather pants and cropped tank and biker jacket then latches onto my hair that wasn’t pink the last time we saw each other—“desperate.”
Bait. Obvious bait to get me to snap at him and give him the satisfaction of knowing he can still get under my skin.
But he doesn’t. Not anymore.
“This isn’t a reunion.” I place a casual hand on the mini Glock holstered at my hip. “This is business.”
All three Volkovs straighten, their vicious grins sobering.
“Someone is fucking with us. I need your help in tracking them down. Start with gangs and clubs. Leave no stone unturned.”
Vlad folds his arms and puffs his chest as if it’ll push more muscle to his pancake pecs. “We’re going to need more details than that to get started.”
“Too bad. That’s all I have.”
“You can at least tell us what they’ve done, printsessa. Otherwise, we’re going in blind.”
“Are you doubting your own abilities?”
Vlad scoffs, but the burn to his ego works in deterring his dangerous questions. “What about our contracts?”
“They’ll be taken off your plate and delegated elsewhere. This is your priority.”
Kai cocks his head. “Compensation?”
“If you’re successful, you’ll each be paid a generous bonus worth more than any of your current contracts.”
They share swift glances, and Kai asks, “What if we can’t find them?”
“No bounty, no reward.”
Vlad barks a laugh. “You want us to play bloodhound blindfolded, but you won’t even cover the difference if we fail to complete a mission you’re forcing us to do?”
“Would you rather we find out if a bullet can make your ugly mug any better?”
Vlad bares his teeth at me, and I bare mine back.
Nik claps his cousin’s shoulder, digging his fingers into Vlad’s shirt to hold him in place. Gray eyes glinting like an ocean predator in the deepest waters, he asks, “Dead or alive, printsessa?”
I’m almost surprised he has the foresight to ask. My habit of offing smaller fish isn’t a secret. We once hunted the streets together. He taught me my best techniques. He knows in what condition I prefer my targets. He also knows this isn’t my typical protocol.
Normally, I’d deploy our cyber team to dig into medical records, criminal histories, camera footage—anything and everything they can get their fingertips on.
Then I’d do the rest myself. But this situation isn’t normal.
I don’t even have a name or affiliation.
I’m working with nothing but a swiftly draining reserve of resources at my disposal.
The Volkovs are my wolves flushing out my prey while I follow at their heels.
“Alive,” I say, exhaling purple smog. “Bring them to Indigo, and call me immediately. The kill is mine.”
Nik nods, muttering something Russian to his cousins as they turn to leave.
That’s it. There’s no handshake, no parting goodbye. Just a final, fleeting glance shared between me and the Volkov who is only breathing because I never told a soul what he did to me.
Not even Emi.