Chapter 15
TRAITOROUS
Poppy
Istare at the demonic skull in my text thread with Bronte, head pounding and mind reeling as he drives me home.
“Is that what I think it is?” His knuckles bleach on the shifter and steering wheel.
He’s been tense since we left Indigo, and his discomfort is beginning to chafe my suspicion.
Noting my slitted stare, he adds, “I’ve heard of cults branding their members, but it’s different seeing it with my own eyes. ”
I catalogue his careful wording for later dissection. He didn’t say he never saw something like this before. But my brain is still splitting in two, my critical thinking skills suffering alongside it.
“This is the mark of a cult named Leviathan,” I divulge.
“If my family is the crown of this city, Leviathan is the church. Grandpapa Lucian told me stories about them when I was little. Their origins go as far back as our own. They are an organized operation spearheaded by nine individual Masters that specialize in their own respective subdivisions composed of Magi and Acolytes. The Volkovs were once members of Leviathan’s assassin guild, but they disaffiliated with the cult once they had enough power to wage war with us.
I’m surprised Leviathan took them back. I’m even more worried about why. ”
“Do you know who the Masters are?”
“No one does. Finding them is an impossible feat anyway. They’re a true shadow organization that doesn’t exist anywhere.
No recording, no camera, and no book will have any documentation on them.
The only reason I know is because of my papa and grandpapa, who were told the same by their forefathers.
Leviathan was once close friends with the Morgensterns.
Since then, though, the connections have faded. ”
“Until now.”
“Right.” I peel off my sweaty jacket and lean my aching head back, lifting my cell and dialing Papa. “Now would be the part where you pray for me, monsieur.”
My father answers, listening to my report with growing agitation. When I’m finished, he hisses black curses. Glass shatters in the background, taking an axe to my bleeding brain. I hear Mama’s curt tone before the phone is passed to her.
“Where is the last Volkov boy, Poppy?”
“I don’t know, Mama. No one has seen or heard from him. I’ll keep trying—”
“No.” A single syllable, yet it’s sharp as a scythe. “You will not try anything. You will do as commanded. Find Nikolai. Bring him to us. You cannot fail.”
“Hai, Mama. I—” The line goes silent, and I gape at the screen. “She hung up on me.”
Shame pushes me deeper into the seat as white noise swarms my skull. I attempt to swallow several times, but it feels like I’ve traded places with my targets. Like I’m the one gagged and destined to die.
The first tear balances on my lashes. It may as well be my soul tiptoeing the edge of a knife. I’m breathing like I just sprinted a marathon, fingers forming talons in my hair.
You cannot fail.
Bronte says something I don’t hear as I dial another number. My heart clamors to the beat of my wrath as I bounce my leg and rake my nails over my scalp.
“Pick up, you fucking coward.” When I’m unsurprisingly pushed to voicemail, I inhale the calming scent of bourbon and cherry smoke. “Nikolai Volkov, if you ever gave a damn about me, call me back…please.”
I send texts to what’s left of my cyber team, the sticky grit of Kai’s blood on my fingers smearing over the screen. Anxiety rises alongside bile in my throat as the fear of failure burns in my bones like corroding acid.
Bronte is still talking, but all I hear is: You cannot fail.
My gaze floats down to the dragon tattoo on my arm. Its stare traps me like a spiderweb.
“You cannot fail,” it coos.
My lips numb, and my mind goes dark. Dark as a locked room.
The world around me fades in and out. Until I can only see that dragon and its jaws opening wider and wider to devour my black soul—
“Poppy.” I glance up to see Bronte watching me from the driver’s seat as he parks us outside Beelzebub’s. The sight genuinely shocks me. I didn’t even feel the time pass. “What’s wrong?”
Kuso. This cannot be happening. Not now, when I need my mind to remain sharp and focused. Panic attacks haven’t haunted me in years, since I started self-medicating with my vape.
Should I be seeing a therapist? Probably.
But who am I going to talk to about all my problems as a crime lord’s daughter set to inherit a crooked kingdom without earning myself a pair of silver bracelets and a wardrobe of orange jumpsuits to match?
“Nothing is wrong.” The lie tastes like ash, and his nostrils flare as if he can smell it.
But I’m already plastering on a plastic smile.
There’s one more thing I need to do while I’m thinking clearly enough to get it done.
“Now that the mystery has been solved, you’re hereby released from our bargain.
Keep your pretty mouth shut, and you won’t have to worry about dropping the soap. ”
I wave with a forced flourish and open the door.
Bronte lunges across me to whip it shut. The locks slam down like prison bars.
In the span of a blink, I’m trapped in a car with a man I barely know.
A man who, not so long ago, wanted me dead.
A man who killed a trained assassin tonight with his bare hands.
A man who seems to have no qualms taking lives without batting an eye.
He’s so close, I can taste the smoke on his breath and feel his body heat wrapping me in thawing warmth like a hot fire on a cold night.
With lethal calm, he demands, “What are you doing, Poppy?”
I jiggle the handle with a sweaty palm, but it doesn’t budge. “Trying to leave so I can scrub death from my pores and cuddle my cat. Maybe squeeze in a chapter or two of a steamy romance before bed.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He leans back, resting a thick arm roped in dangerous amounts of muscle on the center console. “You’re not even queen yet, and you’re drowning.”
I bristle, going from nervous to disgruntled in a heartbeat. “What?”
Bronte angles his jaw, studying me like he can see through every layer of my skin. “Have you considered not taking your father’s place?”
I rub my aching temple, repeating, “What?”
“You’re working yourself into the ground, and you can’t even see it.
” He points to my white-knuckled grip around my phone.
“You’re clearly struggling to keep your head above water.
At this rate, even if you do manage to conquer your little cult problem, you’re going to sink faster than you can swim. ”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“How would you know?”
“Because you don’t have the faintest inkling of what it’s like to live in someone else’s shadow, nor do you know what it’s like to be a criminal beyond your little Etsy shop of horrors.”
Bronte’s eyes burn with hellfire and brimstone. “First of all, don’t ever condescend me. It’s petty and immature and disrespectful as fuck. Second, don’t sit here and pretend like you know me. You don’t.”
This gives me pause. No, I don’t know him.
Only the snippets I’ve been able to glean from breaking into his house and violating his privacy.
What other skeletons are in his closet besides his questionable hobbies?
Judging by the ghosts haunting his darkening gaze, he may have more specters in his shadow than me.
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I mumble, “Sorry.”
As if the entire universe is listening, Bronte asks quietly, “Have you thought about turning your back on it all? Refusing to take the Morgenstern crown and living a relatively normal life?”
“Not an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” My retaliation stops there. My gaze drops to my scarred hands.
I never questioned my future. A future that could become someone else’s.
What would the king of Salem say? What would he do if I told him no? Me, his only child whom he raised to continue his legacy that was his father’s and his father’s father’s and so on? I know what he’d do: he’d never speak to me again.
A single tear carves a traitorous path down my cheek.
Bronte tracks the teardrop all the way down to my chin.
It wobbles then slips free and crashes to my lap.
He lifts a hand, reaching for me. His fingertips feather my hair, a mere flirt with the strands like he’s testing an invisible line.
He touched me earlier, but not like this.
He inches closer, his hand seeking my wet cheek.
His skin barely brushes mine. It’s such a soft, reverent touch that I flinch like it’ll sting.
His arm falls, his jaw ticking. “Our deal isn’t done, Petit Diable.”
“You helped to unmask Leviathan, and I lended Emi. We both upheld our ends. Unless I missed something…?”
“You still have a rogue Volkov on your hands, and I still have a thief to find. Our bargain has only just begun.”
I bite my bottom lip, tasting iron. To turn down his help now would be foolish. I don’t trust him. There’s too much being left unsaid to put my faith in his intentions. But he’s declared himself my ally and saved my life. Twice.
Right now, I need more friends than enemies.
My gaze drifts out the tinted window and to the mockingly bright city lights beyond. “If it’ll keep you from wrapping me around my favorite book.”
“I don’t want that, Poppy.”
“You did.”
“Not anymore.”
There’s too much in that single statement to unpack while concussed.
Tugging on the door handle, I rasp, “Mind letting me out of this cage now?”
Bronte exhales through his nose but immediately unlocks the car. “Stay awake for a while. Monitor your symptoms. If you start to feel worse, call me.”
I nod and dash out, warmth quickly bleeding from my bones in the moonless night.
An hour later, I peek through the washroom windows brimming with frost. He’s still there, his ‘Vette rumbling in the lot. The cherry of his cigar blazes red from behind the windshield, gray smog filtering from the car like a living beast. I sit at my desk, pretending to read while cuddling Jezebel.
He doesn’t leave until I blow out my candles.
I watch his car’s taillights fade into the night, mindlessly rubbing the dragon on my arm and shivering like I’ve been left outside for too long, abandoned in the cold.
When I fall asleep in bed with Jezebel purring beside me, I dream of Grandpapa Lucian teaching me the origins of our family.
Of the Morgensterns helping people rather than harming them.
He even takes my hand and leads me back in time to seventeenth-century Salem.
Showing me my ancestors as they brewed potions and crafted crystals for the townsfolk.
When I wake up, I wish it hadn’t been a dream at all.