Chapter 6
BIBLIOPHILE
Bronte
“We’ve been here for over an hour,” I grumble, nursing my second cup of black and paging through the same book I’ve been pretending to read since grabbing it off a shelf labeled: Midnight Steam.
All we’ve seen so far on this ridiculously amateur stakeout is too many living people, and none of them have been Poppy. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Oui.” Dante nods from his seat across the table, his candlelit gaze lingering on the empty corner alcove nestled on the other side of the bustling coffee bar. “She’s usually over there with her pack of misfits and her pet panther.”
I pause mid-sip. “Pet panther?”
“Mhm. Big black beauty named Jezebel. Sweet as pie.”
My lashes narrow on my twin. “Have you stalked Poppy before?”
“No.” He snorts, lapping at the cream Kilimanjaro piled atop his caramel latte. “I stalked her best friend, Remiel Hale.”
I rub a sudden ache in my temple. “Fuck’s sake, Dante.”
“Listen, she stalked me first. Besides, I only did it a few times, and it was more like recon anyway. She’s—”
“—Halestorm. Just as painfully obvious as you with LuciImHome.”
He tilts his head back against his chair and sighs up at the wisteria weeping from the rafters. “You seriously need to get laid.”
I roll my eyes, returning my attention to the book with a list of content warnings longer than a restaurant menu. Among them, a personal note from the author apologizing for ruining ice cream. Impossible.
Dante kicks me under the table. “There she is.”
My focus snaps up, panning through the bookcases and spying a group of dangerously beautiful people strolling through the café. Dante leans close and rattles off details of each one in order of appearance: Castor, the chop shop operator; Fiona, the loan shark; Remiel, the freelancing hacker.
If I wasn’t convinced of my brother’s claim before, I certainly am now. They’re all criminals.
Then I see her.
For a single moment, the planet stops spinning.
She’s a blue-eyed samurai living in the age of leather and crop tops.
Her combat boots boost her a few inches past five-foot-five.
Her sleek, pastel pink locks frame knuckle-breaking cheekbones, a sophisticated nose, heart-shaped lips, and upswept baby blues winged at the corners.
In another life, she’d be painted in the Palace of Versailles, alongside panoramic frescoes depicting winged angels flying through the gilded clouds of heaven.
Easily. She is easily the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen.
“Poppy Morgenstern, daughter of Alexander Morgenstern,” Dante murmurs with a hint of misplaced admiration. “Assassin and princess of Salem’s underworld.”
Murderer and monarch; a deadly combination.
My heart jolts as if struck by the kickback of a gun the moment I look into those knife-bright eyes edged by a fringe pointing straight down to hell.
No, she’s not a woman. She’s a devil.
Beside her is Miss Murder Mittens herself.
Jezebel spots Dante and I as the group closes in on their corner. Long tail flicking, the big cat slinks over to us and peers up at me. Her irises are such a silvery azure, the sable slits are as depthless as oceanic trenches. Not once does she blink.
Dante kicks me again. “Think she’s imagining you with a giant apple in your mouth?”
“Piss off, Ghostface.”
“With gravy drizzled all over your—” My glare shuts him up.
Then Jezebel pounces.
Gasps stream somewhere behind the wall of compact muscle and black fur tackling me. I’m convinced I’m a dead man. That is, until a barbed tongue tickles my face.
“Jezebel Lilith Morgenstern!” Poppy grabs the panther’s scruff, hauling her off with impressive strength and passing her to a startled Remiel. As soon as I can breathe again, Poppy wrings her hands, looking utterly distraught. “I’m so sorry. Did she hurt you? Are you in any pain?”
What strange things for a murderer to ask.
I slip on an easy smile. “Not at all. She attacked with tongue, not teeth.”
“Thank the stars.” Angels above, her rasp is as heady as smoke. She waves off her comrades and rifles through her pockets, pulling out a wad of cash and sliding multiple big bills under my forgotten book. “This should cover everything you and your friend ordered tonight.”
“How generous of you,” Dante drawls, drawing her attention to him, “but if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be his friend.”
Poppy blinks at my brother as if she’s just now noticing his presence. “Dante Bourbon? Is that you?”
Ignoring my perplexed stare, he grins. “In the flesh.”
“Kuso.” She chortles, shrugging off her jacket and revealing a masterpiece Japanese dragon in black and pink ink coiling up her right arm. “How’s Margot? I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Très bien,” Dante lies without losing his leisurely smile. “We’ve been busy living the dream.”
“Good for you, mon ami.” Poppy flicks her gaze to me.
This close, I can see every shade of blue in her eyes: sky and sea, cobalt and sapphire.
Hints of silver thread through her irises like spools of unraveling starlight.
“So, this is the recluse coroner who never climbs out of his shell? Bronte, right?”
I refrain from lancing Dante with a what the fuck look as I manage a tight, “Oui, that’s me.”
A curious smile tugs at her lips. She scans me from boot to brow, latching onto the runes on my knuckles, then the army of angels and demons sprawling up from the V of my shirt to the edge of my jawline. “Nice ink.”
“Merci.” I nod toward her own skin art. “Very Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
“You know, I didn’t care for that book. Couldn’t figure out what made Lisbeth so special aside from her tat.”
“It’s not about the ink. It’s about how her persistence helped to solve the investigation of a serial killer.”
I realize I’m about a thousand shades of stupid as Poppy cants her head, her small smile fading. “Is that so?”
Dante clears his throat, lashing me with an admonishing glare. “Did I ever tell you about Bronte’s Etsy shop, Bourbon Binds?” He pulls up my small business page on his phone.
Poppy’s umber eyebrows hike the further he scrolls. “You take custom orders?”
Not from killers.
Dante’s don’t be suspicious stare drills into my profile.
“Oui.” I nod. “The queue is long, but I can be persuaded to take on a new project for a fellow bibliophile.”
A squeal unlike anything I’ve ever heard bursts out of her, and she commands me to stay put before darting into the kitchen.
Feeling eyes on me from the opposite corner full of criminals, I casually lean toward Dante and, with a stiff grin on my face, growl, “Care to explain yourself, brother?”
“The Morgensterns own Salem, Bronte. You need to know what you’re dealing with, and this is the only way to do it.
If you want justice against the heiress of the most infamous family in this city, you need to play your cards right.
So, stop acting shady and take this golden opportunity to learn thy enemy. ”
Poppy reappears, carrying an ancient, decrepit copy of Inferno that I’d personally burn just to put it to rest. “It’s obviously on its deathbed, but it has sentimental value. Any chance you could work your magic and resurrect it for me?”
Such a hypocrite, this devil who takes lives asking for me to breathe life back into, of all things, a fucking book.
Learn thy enemy. What a joke. I’ve learned enough.
Perhaps justice will be her hide wrapped around the story of a man traveling to hell.
I offer my palm. “Let me have a look.”
Poppy passes over the worn tome. Her bittersweet scent of coffee and cotton candy blankets me in an intoxicating cloud.
I hold my breath as her slender fingers brush mine.
I feel every scar flecking her digits. The wounds are old, unmistakably made by blades.
There are as many embedded in her skin as there are marring this heap of coffee-stained parchment barely clinging to its broken spine.
Only killers have that many scars.
Checkmate, you little devil.
Gently dusting the cracked front cover, I grin in the face of the murderer I’ve spent the last decade of my life chasing. “If Frankenstein did it, so can I.”