Sweeter Than Sin

by Amelia Wilde

  They are still in the ballroom when dawn breaks.

  There are times when my network is slow to respond. It is especially slow now.

  Of course it is.

  It’s killing me.

  I order attacks around the city. I order compromises. I send men out to the dark places to see if there’s information to be had there. It all bends to my will, aside from two elements.

  Demeter, who is hiding—or lying in wait.

  Brigit, who is lost.

  I create and put down an escalation between the cartels in the southeast. More bickering will have to wait, because if businessmen become consumed with asset protection they spend less of their time in my whorehouse. They become unstable. Reckless. Men under duress are more prone to pick up whores on the street. What they fail to understand is that those women are part of an ecosystem that offers no protection. Not from the women, and not from becoming entangled in far darker enterprises than mine.

  But desperate men will make desperate choices. Anything to ease the tension.

  I cannot afford to be desperate.

  “We have the car.” One of the other men, James’s second, peers down at the screen of his phone, then pinches at the screen. I can tell he’s manipulating a map. My blood races. If I could leave without causing an uproar, I would do it right now. If I could leave without compromising my business, I would.

  But I can’t. “Where is she?”

  No one blinks at she instead of it. The second—his name is utterly irrelevant now—names a smaller town to the north. Its only defining feature is a cathedral that the city’s upper crust like to frequent for their wedding ceremonies.

  My stomach fills with rocks and they pile up in my throat.

  The cathedral.

  For a wedding.

  Jesus, I’ve been blind.

  “Give me the exact location.”

  James takes his tablet back, then names the coordinates of the cathedral, the exits off the highway. “We could send people now.”

  The church is as corrupt as the police. All of them deal in money and power. If John Lowell wants a wedding tomorrow—or fuck forbid, tonight—then all he has to do is pay the priest. At this hour of the night, the priest may be tired. He may not want to get out of his bed to marry them.

  Rushing out of here now will give me away.

  It won’t just give me away. It will give everything away. The moment the city knows the value of the women here is the same moment that all of this crumbles and falls. A panicked man cannot be trusted to be discreet. Nothing can ever bother me.

  And worse—

  It wouldn’t make a difference.

  “Lost it.” James curses. “Off a side street. We’re going to have to send someone in person. If any of our men leave—”

  “Hades,” says Reya.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

  “No, I’m not.” She straightens up in her chair. “He’s closest. It’s morning. They could have the ceremony any time, but I think there’s still a window.”

  “A window.”

  “Guests.” Another list, next to my palm. “He’ll want witnesses. He’ll want a show.”

  A show, because if everyone in the city watches him marry her, then he’ll have one single advantage over me.

  It won’t have anything to do with money.

  It has to do with reputation.

  I have cultivated mine with extreme care over the years. I’ve allowed rumors about bastard children to flare up and burn out. They don’t exist. I’ve allowed rumors about my alleged cruelty to the women, because they will provide the evidence for themselves. Every night, without fail, I appear in the ballroom or the lounge. I am in charge of everything. Nothing happens without my express permission. I’m always here. The whorehouse turns around me. The world, according to these people, turns around me.

  Because.

  The one thing I have never done is steal.

  I have taken deals that were advantageous to me, yes. I have offered places to women who were wanted elsewhere, yes. But I have never stolen a man’s wife.

  In the end, that’s what stands between all of the women here, all of the clients, and destruction.

  I am the richest man in the city, bar none. That makes me an endangered species. With enough coordination between the rest of them there would be consequences.

  All this means that Reya is right, and I hate it. Hate. It burns off a layer of my skin and scorches my gut. Everything. Everything burns. Reya puts a drink in my hand. Whiskey. It chases the same burn, edging it with alcohol, but it does nothing to dull the frustration, which blooms into anger like poison. I get up from my seat and pace toward the fireplace.

  Lives are so fragile, aren’t they? All it takes is one whore to bring the whole house down. Years of work, on the verge of being undone. Lives in the balance. Lives and lives and lives.

  There is no solution that makes it a good idea for me to abandon my people.

  There is no solution that gets me to Brigit faster than Hades.

  It’s a cruel calculus.

  And no matter how I twist the numbers, the result is always the same.

  If I went after her, the entire city would know.

  Anger arcs through my shoulder all the way to my palm and even though I am standing in front of other people, even though they can see me, I throw the glass into the fire. It shatters in a twist of flames, the alcohol burning quickest, and it is my single concession to frustration. By the time I turn around again the mask is back on.

  “I have guests to get back to,” I announce, and there’s a palpable, tired relief in the room. From everyone except Reya. “I want updates every thirty minutes.” A murmur of assent.

  Reya pulls away from the table and hurries to keep up with me. I’ll have my breakfast in the lounge. I’ll supervise the slow bleed from morning to full day.

  But first.

  Hades waits three rings to answer his phone. “We have nothing to discuss tonight.”

  “Oh, but we do.” I stop at the edge of the ballroom and stare out over the ones who have lingered at the end of the night. A few of my women are left, moving slowly around the men who have been pursuing them. The most talented ones can draw out their negotiating process until the sun is up, until it’s too late to do much but entertain for an hour before the rest of the city is open for business. The hive is quiet, but it’s still moving, still alive. Even now, I can’t walk away. “There’s something I need you to retrieve for me.”

  3

  Brigit

  There’s a story about Anne Boleyn I heard during my obsession with the Tudors, around age thirteen. I don’t know if it’s true or not. No one will ever know, because Anne Boleyn is dead, and she can’t tell us. Obviously. The story isn’t much of a story. Only that she thought King Henry might pardon her at the last possible moment. King Henry was an asshole of the first degree and he had a flair for drama. It would have been a grand gesture.

  But he didn’t show up.

  The makeup artist snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Hey, sweetie, I can’t do your eyes when you’re drooping like that.”

  “Oh, sorry.” It’s only when I start to sit up that I realize how far I’ve sagged into the chair. I’m too busy thinking of Anne Boleyn dying at the blade of a French swordsman.

  I would choose a French swordsman over my uncle.

  In the last twenty-four hours, I watched three men get shot. My own father bundled me into the back of a car. I spent last night in a cheap hotel with a hired gun outside the door.

  Today is my wedding day.

  With every hour that’s gone by I feel less and less. Feelings are only going to make it worse. I’ve been sick already this morning, and it won’t do me any favors with my uncle if I hurl all over the dress he so thoughtfully paid for.

  I wonder how much Anne hoped for Henry to arrive and save her. If it was a bright, all-encompassing hope or dull and tarnished.

  I’m dull and t
arnished, despite the frankly miracle-level job being done by this makeup artist. I can’t remember her name, but she’s made me look like I’m still alive, though I’m dead inside. Pale. Listless. I’m annoyed that my heart is still beating. I have to live through this—and why? So my father can have his money.

  As the makeup artist applies fake eyelashes my mind slips, sliding away like a leaf on a river. The day my mother died her skin felt paper-thin and delicate. Powdery. She was so thin. Cancer had wasted her. It chased her in from her garden, at first to the house and then only to a few rooms and finally her bedroom.

  While she died my father paced in the hall, talking on the phone to her brother. Snippets of his conversation drifted in. Access to the trust. You know I’ll do what it takes. Brigit is old enough. I’ll get her to sign the papers. You know I’ll get her to sign the papers. I couldn’t muster up the requisite disgust because she was dying right in front of me, doing the fish out of water breathing that the visiting nurse had talked to me about. Me, and not my father, because he’d been busy watching the news.

  I wanted it to be over.

  That’s the worst thing to remember. Worse than anything that happened with Zeus. Worse than last night. Or was it two nights ago? Nothing matters except that I get married in ninety minutes. The worst thing to remember is that I wanted it to be over. She couldn’t get enough air. Her body was shutting down. And a pit opened up in my stomach. An endless void of fear and pain. I held her hand. I wanted it to be over, for both our sakes.

  “It’s okay, Mama.” Chemo had taken her hair but it was growing back in a thin fuzz, and I stroked it while I talked to her. Her eyelids fluttered. My stomach lurched. If she woke up, if the process started all over again, I didn’t know how I would bear it. “You can go. It’s all right. I love you, and I’m right here.” My throat ached around the words.

  A wedding, then, my father said. I’ll give her away myself. The relief in his voice.

  I knew what he was talking about.

  I knew, because he hadn’t bothered to hide it. My mother had access to her family’s trust. He didn’t. And my uncle was willing to trade for it. He’d spent enough time at family gatherings leering at me. He pretended to be such an upstanding citizen. I saw the rot underneath. How could anyone else miss it?

  At least she’s not here to see this.

  “Blink,” says the makeup artist. The fake eyelashes pick up a tear and she dabs it away without ruining the rest of the makeup. “You look beautiful,” she murmurs. “Your fiancé is going to be stunned.”

  I snort a laugh. “Do you think?”

  “I do.” Either she’s not paying attention or she really believes this.

  Again. French swordsman. That’s my first choice. But my heart is a spiteful bitch. It keeps hoping that Zeus is going to come through the door now and spirit me away.

  He’s not. The swordsman would be more likely.

  When my mother finally died, I didn’t realize it at first. I was too busy waiting to see if she would take her next breath.

  I didn’t know I’d become so fixated on it, so consumed with it, until that next breath didn’t come. A silence lingered in the air, broken only by my father’s phone call promising me in marriage to my uncle.

  Debt, he was saying. Significant debt.

  I waited for the grief to come. For the crying, screaming fit that I’d seen in the movies. Instead, there was only a blank space tinged with disbelief. I rubbed my thumb across the back of her hand for a few more minutes. How awkward would it be if I stopped and she popped up from where she lay on the pillow and said Brigit why did you stop? I’m not done dying. The image made me laugh, which made me feel worse, which reminded me that I was supposed to be paying attention.

  To the time. To the moment. Someone was supposed to be watching.

  I picked up my phone. It was 2:13 in the afternoon on a rainy day, so rainy that the light had the same dull quality all day. I dialed the nurse. “Oh, honey,” she said. “I’ll be right there. I’ll call the funeral home. Don’t worry about that.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” I told her, and then I spent the next forty minutes wondering if it was the wrong thing to say. It was the truth. I wasn’t worried about the funeral home.

  “Did it happen?” My father said, poking his head in.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s gone,” he said.

  “Yes, she is.” He wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to my uncle. His voice retreated down the hall.

  I’ve lost half an hour thinking about it. The next time I resurface from my memories the makeup artist is almost done styling my hair. It turns out she’s a triple threat. She can do makeup and hair and on a person who is barely existing. Her fingers fly over my hair as she surveys her work in the mirror. “Perfect,” she says. “Let’s get you into that dress.”

  There is going to be a photographer, I know that, but not here. You can’t exist in the world without seeing bridal photos. There will be no photos of me with my mother buttoning the back of the dress. Of the two of us clasping arms, smiling at each other with happy tears in our eyes. Of her putting on a necklace for me, carefully fastening it behind my neck. Those won’t ever exist, because she is dead and because it’s the makeup artist slash hair stylist slash dressing room attendant.

  She’s the one to drop the princess gown over my head and tug it into place. She’s the one to do up the sixteen buttons in the back. She’s the one to settle the veil into my hair and lead me to the mirror.

  “I’m going to throw up,” I tell her.

  “Don’t do that.” She grabs a trash bin anyway. I don’t throw up. I only feel like it. This—this is not how I want to look on my wedding day, like my uncle’s idea of an innocent bride. Why did we have to do my hair this way? Right. He specified every detail. He paid for the dress and the makeup artist. He paid my father for the privilege. And my father traded me away.

  “The ceremony is going to start soon,” she soothes. “And then you’re going to feel so much better.”

  Now that I’ve had a chance to assess both situations I can confidently say that selling myself to a stranger was the better option.

  If only it hadn’t resulted in such a wretched, broken heart.

  I lean over the bin, my heartbeat counting out the seconds. My ankles feel unstable, like I might not be able to get down the aisle by myself. I’ll have to hold my father’s arm. My stomach turns at the thought of it.

  But what else am I going to do? Stumble down the aisle like I’m drunk? The least they could do is actually get me drunk. Drug me. Something. Anything.

  “Do you think you might have, in your purse—”

  A knock at the door interrupts me.

  4

  Brigit

  The sound freezes us both in our little tableau, the makeup artist with her trash bin and me with a turning stomach, about to ask her if she has any Xanax or honestly any other drug, anything to take me away from here.

  Lock the door, I want to say.

  “Come in,” she calls, lowering the bin. Her voice is so cheery and bright. In the mirror behind her I’m as pale as the moon. I’d be slightly green if the makeup wasn’t so good. I hope my father gives her a good tip. Maybe that’s what he’s here to do—tip her. A laugh strangles itself in my throat. He wouldn’t bother. He wants money, needs it, and so he’s not going to come down here and fold a bill into this woman’s hand.

  The door opens.

  I’m not facing him. All I can see is his reflection. But bile sears the back of my throat, thick and acid. My kingdom for a French swordsman. Let him be here now.

  “I want to see my bride.” My uncle’s voice is rough, so different from Zeus’s cultured smoothness. Everything Zeus says has been dipped in gold. Everything my uncle says is rotted clear through to its underbelly. “Give us a moment, would you?”

  I reach for her wrist. “We’re not done.”

  Disgust flickers in the makeup artist’s eyes. Not
even fake lashes can hide that. “We’re good, hon.” She gently detaches my hand from her wrist and puts down the bin. “If you need a touch-up before you walk down the aisle, I’ll be waiting in the Sunday school room.”

  “No.” The whisper doesn’t reach my own ears, much less hers, and by the time I can get my breath behind the sound she’s at the door, pressing her back flat against the frame so she doesn’t have to touch my uncle on the way out.

  “Brigit.” Long, thin fingers come down like spider’s legs on the doorknob.

  He closes it behind him.

  He flips the lock.

  If I threw up down the front of my dress right now, they’d have to cancel the wedding.

  “I had three gowns made,” he says casually. “In case you weren’t cooperative.”

  Pinpricks of cold crawl up the back of my neck, the muscles there tensing into painful bunches as he approaches. Thinning gray hair. A sallow face covered in his own makeup. He’s not much older than my father but he looks like it. But he’s not skeletal, no. That would make me brave, I think, if he looked like he could be shattered with a swift kick to the rib. For all the ways his face has deteriorated he still has muscles left beneath the jacket.

  I can’t take my eyes off him.

  And he watches me with those pale, almost colorless eyes, as he gets closer and closer and closer.

  One hand rising.

  It hovers above my shoulder and then—

  Then it comes down.

  My skin is bare. The sweetheart neckline with its off-the-shoulder straps offer no protection. “You look just how I imagined,” he says.

  “You imagined marrying your own niece?”

  He yanks on my shoulder and the styling chair I’m sitting in gives, twisting to face him. It’s even worse like this. His teeth are unnaturally white, and I can see all of them because he’s openly leering at me. “You know, Brigit, you could make this easier on yourself if you wouldn’t take such a tone with me.”

  “I’m not here because of my tone.” My jaw sets, seizing up, like my teeth don’t want to be apart for any reason. “I’m here because—”