Chapter 14
HELL’S GARDEN
Poppy
If Beelzebub’s is hell’s library, Indigo is hell’s garden.
I lift my hand, fingertips grazing the soft petals of blue bleeding hearts and baby’s breath and sapphire roses weaving through the overhead rafters. Every candlelit surface is kissed by deep sapphire floral patterns and potted plants all ranging from sky blue to midnight violet.
Slipping my mini Glock into its holster at my hip, I nod to the mountainous bouncers and weave through the crowd singing and swaying to the live indie band playing beside the bar.
Circe Castellanos, a curvaceous woman with rich brown skin and electric yellow hair in a blue lace jumpsuit, saunters over and leans her palms on the counter with a secret smile.
“Evening, boss. Here for dinner?”
I nod, but I don’t return her grin as I order a drink.
The high of solving Jett’s murder died the moment I realized it wasn’t a win.
This is exactly what happened to the Volkovs when our families were at war.
The Morgenstern empire is as stable as a house of cards.
We’ve already lost significant forces, significant power.
How much more can we lose until we fall into our own tomb?
The only sliver of light on this dark day is that Circe, my friend and the most coveted informant in my arsenal, found Kai.
I trusted her with the intel of my family’s disarray and Kai’s hand in the scheme.
She snatched him from whichever gambling den he’d been pissing away his time and money in.
The backstabbing mole is safely stashed in the freezer, patiently waiting for my arrival after having undergone several beatings by the largest bouncers here for his insubordination.
I’m in no rush to meet with him, though. Perhaps his balls will do me a favor and fall off while I sit here and enjoy myself.
Relishing the bourbon’s burn, I ask, “Have you been able to find Nik?”
Since Vlad and Kai have shown their true colors and turned against my family, I’ve placed a bounty on Nik’s head. If anyone can sniff him out, it’s Circe.
But she’s shaking her head, snuffing my confidence. “No such luck.”
“Kuso. Do you have any good news up your sleeves?”
“The opposite, actually.” Circe grimaces, leaning closer and lowering her voice. “Do you remember the arms dealer, Vanessa Crowe?”
I know everyone who works for my family, especially when they’ve deserted us. “Hai. She was the first turncoat. What about her?”
“I broke into her apartment, and I’ve never left a place faster in my life. Dirty dishes rotting in the sink. Mold everywhere. It’s like she hadn’t been there in months.”
“Not a surprise. Vanessa probably used her brain and moved.”
Circe shakes her head. “You know the webs I weave. I pulled every string to find her and came up short. It’s like she never existed. Same goes for the others you mentioned. I don’t think they’ve defected, boss. I think they’re dead.”
I wasn’t in a particularly good mood before, but now?
Now, I’m pissed.
I knock back my drink and plop the empty glass on the counter. “About that dinner…”
Flagging a pair of bouncers, Circe leads us to the hallway hidden by a blue velvet curtain behind the bar. She unlatches an industrial door on the left wall, revealing the frosted innards and my mole handcuffed to a metal chair coated in ice.
Malakai, spitting blood from his last beating onto the frozen floor, glances up and blanches. “Jesus.”
“Wrong Christ,” I croon as the guards grab his chair and drag it to the next room.
Circe’s tattoo parlor is a neat and tidy space. On the far wall, a screen streams an underworld news broadcast on mute, subtitles scrolling rhythmically. A neon sign above the entrance door across the room reads: Fuck therapy, get a tattoo.
“Leave us.” I wave a lazy hand toward the hallway. “Make sure no one gets lost looking for the bathroom.”
Circe follows the bouncers out, her chortles echoing in the dark.
Prowling in a slow circle around Kai, I take my time making him nervous.
I never had a problem with him. Aside from inheriting the same pompous attitude as his cousins, Kai does what he’s told without much bitching.
He avoids looking at me with those Volkov-gray eyes, his fear prominent without his cousins present.
Fear—and guilt.
I pause behind him and noisily prep a tattoo gun, watching goosebumps pebble his nape. “You turned your back on me then murdered Jett. Why?”
“Y-you killed Vlad.”
“Vlad killed himself the moment he attacked me.” I test the needle, smirking as he twitches. “Whose shadow are you cowering under now?”
The beat of the music pounds through the silence.
“I know you’re not as foolish as Vlad.” I trail the needle over his shoulders. “Answer my questions, or I choose where you get your next tattoo.”
Kai glares back at me with pure hate. “Fuck you, printsessa.”
I grab his jaw, forcing his head back and hovering the needle above his left eye. “Care to repeat that?”
“Fuck. You.”
“If you insist. Take a deep breath now. This is going to hurt a little.”
I jam the needle into his eye and pull the trigger, carving through the lid when he squeezes it shut. His snarl rises to a scream as I break the skin and pierce the sclera. He thrashes in my grip, inadvertently shredding his own eyeball.
“That’s for Jett, you piece of shit,” I spit, tugging the needle free. Blood squirts from the gore. Vessels dangle limply from the tattoo gun’s tip as I hang it over his other eye. “Tell me who you're working with.”
Malakai laughs. I realize why a moment before I hear his metal cuffs clang against the floor. He grabs my arms and wrangles me back against the wall, knocking the tattoo gun from my grip. I knee him in the groin, scrambling for my Glock as he curls in on himself.
I aim at his face at the same time he rams his shoulder into my gut.
“This is for Vlad.” His hands snare my throat, slamming my skull into the wall. "Deep breath. This is going to hurt."
My head crashes against the hard surface again and again. It feels like a jackhammer is splitting my brain in half over and over until my vision blackens—
Kai is suddenly wrenched backward. Gravity pulls me down as my blurry sight tracks another silhouette tackling the assassin to the floor.
Crack, crack, crack, his cranium claps as my savior bashes his head on the unforgiving linoleum.
The assault stops when Kai’s brains are splattered around him like a gruesome halo.
Karma is truly a savage bitch.
I blink my swimming vision clear, unsure of what I’m seeing. “Bronte?”
Those beautiful hazel orbs find me, an inferno of rage burning within them. He abandons Kai, kneeling by my side with a bloodstained scowl. “This is the second time I’ve saved your ass, Petit Diable. It’s getting inconvenient.”
I snort and immediately regret it when pain ricochets from my neck to the backs of my eyes. He reaches for me but pauses.
“May I?”
“Such a gentleman.” My grin falters into a wince. “Be my guest.”
With more care than I’ve ever been shown, Bronte wraps an arm around my chest and folds a hand over my nape. His skin is warm, his touch gentle as he shifts me forward and prods the back of my head.
“No open wounds, but you probably have a concussion. You’re going to feel like shit for a few days after it wears off.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I squint at the open entrance door he must’ve come through. “Why are you here?”
Bronte eases me back against the wall and pulls Kai’s pulverized corpse over to my side.
He reminds me of a cat bringing a dead rat to another cat, and I nearly giggle as he crouches, ripping the assassin’s shirt open.
The laughter bubbling in my throat sinks when I see it—the demonic skull branded on Kai’s right pec.
My lungs stall. We aren’t just fucked.
We’re fucking doomed.