Chapter 11
PETIT DIABLE
Poppy
I’ve learned three things about Bronte Bourbon: he’s bitter, broody, and unbearably beautiful.
Bronte is a living replica of a literal deity—deeply bronzed skin; charcoal hair trimmed to a faded undercut rebelling from its slicked style to frame sharp cheekbones; tattoos of angels and demons starting just beneath his aggressive jawline and disappearing beneath the deep V of his black tee.
Most mesmerizing is his smolder. Fuck, it could crack any chastity belt.
He’s the kind of man built to make mothers hide their daughters.
Bronte slides out a spine from the bookshelf beside my bed, where I’m cuddling Jezebel as we tolerate his unwelcome perusal of my room. “You’re a vamp girl?”
“Not at all. I’m an Anne Rice girl.”
He pulls another vampire fiction novel by a different author. “You sure?”
“That is a very unique fantasy where vamps have wings.”
The bastard spies another, smirking as he drawls, “Who taught you more French: Lestat de Lioncourt or Gabriel de León?”
My teeth grind. He’s too perceptive for his own good. “Are you done stalling?”
“I’m not stalling.” He slips the books back into place and leans against my desk in an attempt to look casual. He looks as comfortable as a priest in a brothel. “I’m waiting for you to start.”
“I don’t know where to start.” I rake my fingers through my soggy hair. It still looks like pink seaweed streaked with the blood of a traitor.
Thankfully, most of the evidence of Vlad’s death was washed off by the storm before we came in through the back and headed upstairs.
Kahula didn’t even notice; the baker was too busy cleaning up for the night and singing along to Dove Cameron’s Lethal Woman.
Emi, on the other hand, did not miss the blood on me as we passed her room.
I’m so not looking forward to that particular interrogation…
“Do you start a book at the end or the beginning?” Bronte retorts, his tone as lifeless as a flatline. Sarcasm, I’m learning, is his first language.
“I think you missed your calling in stand-up, monsieur.”
“Unfortunately, that involves dealing with the worst kind of people.”
“The cheerful?”
“The living.”
I snort, and he almost—almost—cracks a smile.
An awkward silence ensues. He watches me as I watch him. What does he see? A woman or a monster?
Candlelight twirls through his multi-hued irises, blooming the ochre, burning the evergreen, charring the speckled patches of sunshine. All surrounded by enviously thick lashes and several creases at the edges betraying a life of laughter.
I can’t help but wonder if he laughs most with the living or the dead.
“Sit.” I point to the plush wingback at my desk. “You look uncomfortable, and it’s making me uncomfortable.”
I’m surprised when he doesn’t deny my assumption and does what I ask.
Shirking off his damp jacket and hanging it on the back of the closed door, Bronte lowers onto the seat.
He rolls his sleeves, revealing a scrawling portrait of more ethereal beings inked on his arms. Arms that are roped in thick muscle.
His eyes flick briefly to my pink skull mask wedged between books on my nightstand.
“I just have one question.” Impressed he’s capping his curiosity, I nod for him to continue. “Are you in a cult?”
I blink then bark a laugh. “What kind of question is that?”
“The valid kind. You draw pentagrams with your victims’ blood and say shit like ‘by the stars.’”
“Tradition passed down through each Morgenstern generation since the day some distant ancestor supposedly made a deal with the Devil.” I wave off his blank stare, eyes rolling. “We’re an empire, not a cult.”
“Fair enough.” Bronte drags a hand over the bruises blooming along his temple and jaw from Vlad’s brass knuckles. Then he draws a folded note from his pocket. The note. “Perhaps you can begin by explaining what this means.”
It’s as good a starting point as any.
Bronte listens better than anyone I’ve ever met. Not once does he interrupt. He embodies patience, entirely calm and unbothered up to the yawning end of my long-winded monologue. Exhaustion has steadily pushed me down to the mattress, where I’m now sprawled on my stomach beside a snoring Jezebel.
“So,” Bronte says, leaning his elbows on his knees and scanning me as if assessing through a new lens, “you really are a princess.”
“That’s not exactly a normal response to someone telling you they’re a rising crime lord.”
“I’ve seen your kind before.”
I shouldn’t be intrigued. I may have given him a slice of my history, but he owes me nothing in return. Certainly not his childhood story that clearly didn’t involve a cute puppy or surprise trip to Disney.
I can relate.
Snuffing my curiosity, I get to the point. “Then you understand the importance of my mission. Whoever this saboteur is that Vlad had been working with, they must be stopped before innocents are caught in this war.”
Bronte inclines his head. “How can I help?”
The ultimate question I’ve been mulling over for weeks. I straighten, folding my legs beneath me and linking my fingers in my lap.
“As a coroner, you have unlimited access to specific databases I don’t. I need you to find out what you can about any casualties within the city, including those brought on my own hand.”
“So we don’t overlook any of your victims who could’ve been connected to this saboteur.”
“Exactly. I don’t care what the cases were closed as. Even if it’s not murder, you and I both know most deaths are covered up by lies and red tape. From this point on, you’re also going to be monitoring future deaths for the same information.”
He nods, catching on quickly. “Find the roots, cut out the cancer.”
“Permanently.”
“What about the remaining Volkovs? How do you plan to assess if they’ve jumped ship like your Brutus lying in my trunk?”
I blow out a long breath, my shoulders falling. “Nik and Kai are my own demons to drown.”
For just a moment, I let myself glimpse that faraway dream of my future as queen of Salem’s underworld. In it, I wouldn’t need to worry about the Volkovs turning their backs on me. Because I wouldn’t employ people like them to begin with.
I blink the vision away before any traitorous tears can rise to the surface.
Bronte searches my eyes, though what he’s looking for, I don’t know.
I’m still shivering. My throat and face have their own separate pulses of raw, aching pain.
I’m craving a bath, but I can barely keep my eyelids from drooping.
I’m edging dangerously on crabby the longer he sits there and stares at me.
My teeth graze a split in my bottom lip, and I taste blood. “This is the part where you tell me if you’re in or out.”
“No. This is the part where I tell you what I expect in return for accepting this deal after saving your life and owing you nothing.”
Clever and beautiful, a dangerous cocktail. Sexy as hell, too. “Name your price. I’ll wire half the funds now, half when we’re done.”
“I don’t want your money, Poppy. I want your hacker.”
“Which one? I have dozens…for now.”
“Not a Morgenstern hacker.” Bronte taps a tattooed knuckle against my desktop screensaver displaying a photo of me and Emi at last year’s Comic Con. “Your freelancing friend.”
My frown furrows years into my skin. “What do you need her to do?”
He unlocks his phone and flashes a photo of a familiar tall blond. She’s a bombshell with chocolate eyes and serpentine curves, absorbing the all-consuming embrace of his twin brother.
“I need her to find Margot. Dante and I will take care of the rest ourselves.”
Emi’s help is a small price to pay, yet it’s the most he could’ve ever asked of me.
This is exactly what I was trying to avoid, isn’t it?
Pulling Emi deeper into the abyss? Hacking on her own terms is one thing; but this, searching for someone who may not want to be found, could lead her down a rabbit hole with no escape.
I shake my head. “Emi isn’t on the table.”
“Then find yourself a new coroner willing to play criminal.”
“I could force you to help me. I found your pretty skeletons, remember?”
“Indeed, you did. On camera, might I add. Let’s not stop there, though, because you spent the past hour admitting to me, a public official, that you’re a crime lord’s daughter with an entire necropolis in your own closet.
Who will a jury believe, hm? The criminal or the coroner who’s been cleaning up her messes for the last decade? ”
I bristle, but he’s not wrong. I have dirt on him, and he has dirt on me. Our swords are poised at each other’s throats. A single wrong move, and we’re both dead.
“If Emi doesn’t want to help,” I warn, “you’ll get someone else.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Deal.”
I shift forward, offering my hand. “Allies, monsieur?”
Like a Victorian Era gentleman, Bronte curls his fingers around mine. They’re warm and calloused and unexpectedly comforting. My heart stumbles into an uneven rhythm as he lifts my knuckles to his lips and presses a soft, almost reverent kiss to the knobs of bone.
“Allies,” he murmurs against my skin, “Petit Diable.”