Chapter 38
LOST
Bronte
“Ineed clothes, tampons, vape juice…” Poppy tugs at her overgrown roots with a pout, leaning heavily into my side as I walk her up the basement steps of my beachfront home that I've barely stepped foot in these past few weeks. “Hair dye.”
I offer a grunt, mentally adding to the list of stops to take before returning to Morgenstern Manor.
She wouldn’t let me leave without her to check on Dante after calling him with the news of Scull’s demise and his non-existent knowledge of anything to do with Margot’s disappearance.
In the end, I don't know if the crooked detective spoke true.
As far as I'm concerned, that motherfucker lied through his teeth up to his dying breath.
I skinned him alive and, tearing a page from Poppy’s vigilante handbook, made him choke on his own branded flesh.
Alexander took care of the rest, covering Scull’s death with a forged note about leaving town.
An easy and clean story, given his lack of family and friends to question the sudden departure.
Quinn, however, is devastated. I have yet to see her at work without tears in her eyes. A necessary evil, I keep telling myself as I watch her fall apart without him. I did her a favor, and she’ll never know it.
Emi is digging into the numbers on Scull’s phone, trying to glean the source. All we can do now is wait.
Reaching the top of the steps, I lift Poppy over the threshold to the kitchen.
And stop short.
Dante is sitting at the island, an untouched coffee before him. His head is in his hands, the afternoon sun gilding his silhouette like a halo.
“Brother? Are you all right?”
“I miss her.” He sniffles as he pulls a red box from his hoodie pocket and tosses it onto the countertop. It’s as empty and hollow as a soulless heart. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Too slowly, I realize that today is Valentine’s Day. The anniversary of when Margot disappeared. Brutal timing and an even crueler fate, considering where we hail from.
“Oh, mon ami.” Poppy reaches for him, lurching forward.
And yelps as her stitches pull.
I bark a curse at the same time Dante’s bloodshot eyes widen.
Poppy catches herself on the island, palms slamming down.
Her victorious grin slips as the ring box flips up, somersaults in a golden ray of winter sunshine, and falls back down—straight into the mug.
Coffee splatters Dante, staining his pristine white clothes a shitty brown.
Hissing, I lift Poppy’s layers, peeling the gauze and prodding the sutures. My fingers come away red.
Fucking hell.
“Dante,” Poppy breathes. “I-I’m so sorry.”
His jaw twitches. Then he laughs.
It’s deranged, the guffaw of a madman who’s lost everything and just keeps losing. Poppy sputters and laughs with him. I sigh, wetting a rag and tending to her wound.
As I’m patching her up, she dials Emi with a sly grin on her lips.
“For the love of every angel above,” I gripe, “what chaos are you stirring now, Petit Diable?”
“Tell me, mon roi. Do you start at the end of a book or the beginning?”
“That horse is beyond dead, don’t you think?”
Poppy reaches back and slaps my ass with a wink. “How do your own words taste?”
This little devil.
Just as Emi picks up, I lean down to whisper in Poppy’s free ear, “I’m guessing not as good as your ass tastes, ma reine.”
Her giggle almost makes me forget about that look on my brother’s face when we first walked in. He’s been wearing it for far too long.
How much more can he take before he’s as lost as Margot?