by Fiona Zedde
The justiciar taps his gavel. “In light of the unusual circumstances with the accused’s family, is there anything else the enforcers would like to add?”
Across the room and too far away for me to touch, Mai tenses up. Her family looks confident—Mandaia and Cayman, Caressa, plus the two others who’ve come to testify for Ethan Redstone. Abi sits next to Mai, holding her sister’s hand.
What the hell else could there be for me to say? Then I get over myself and push away the anger clouding my thinking. The justiciar wouldn’t ask unless there was something else at work that wouldn’t make normal rules apply.
My boots are silent against the white marble floor when I step forward again.
“The on-scene enforcers caught Ethan Redstone in the act of trying to kill Mai Redstone. Ethan Redstone used instruments of torture on his cousin with deadly force. If we had not arrived in that key moment, the heir to Redstone would have likely been killed.”
Obviously, that was laying it on a bit thick. Mandaia Redstone has two other children, one of them a woman. Given the relationship between Mai and her mother, the matriarch may very well use any legal means necessary to bypass the child she named after herself as heir. But few outside the family know that. Meaning nobody except for me.
“Thank you, Commander.” The justiciar taps his gavel and dismisses me, allowing me to slip back into formation with the other enforcers. “Will anyone here speak on the criminal’s behalf?” The justiciar sweeps an inquiring gaze around the room.
A pause.
“I will, Justiciar.” Mandaia Redstone stands up for her nephew and simultaneously crushes everyone else under her heel.
The significance of what she’s doing isn’t lost on anyone. Mai’s face doesn’t change, but I can feel her sadness and the sickening kick of betrayal in her belly. It almost breaks me, but I force myself to stand still. Silent and impassive.
Mai needs someone with her to understand what she’s going through. She’s not like me.
“You don’t have to stay here for this, Mai.” Abi puts an arm around her sister, her own face naked with disappointment and surprise. Maybe she didn’t really believe Mandaia would speak up for her nephew—and against her own daughter—until right now.
But Mai stays right where she is. Not responding to Abi, or at least not in words. She does stay under the comfort of her sister’s arm and listens while her mother and then her brother defend Ethan Redstone and his actions.
Behind my back, my linked hands tighten into trembling fists. Heat rolls under my uniform, and the room feels like I’m watching it through a haze of fire.
I could kill them.
Very easily slip into that wide-open mansion of theirs and steal their lives the way Ethan Redstone stole my sister’s. It wouldn’t bring Ixchel back. It wouldn’t take my woman’s pain away. But it would make me feel better.
I feel the other enforcers in line with me begin to move restlessly. A whisper of cloth. Eyes shifting the bare amount to look at me. Shit. I’m disturbing them. Power hums under my skin, beginning to flow out into the room. It burns through me, sparking along my nerve endings and howling for release.
Normally, I have more control than this.
No, I do have control.
With a quiet breath, I yank my power back in. Slowly, the heat slips away. The threat of fire disappears. The other enforcers simmer down.
“—won’t make a decision today though we all know this is highly unusual,” the justiciar says, continuing a sentence I didn’t hear the beginning of.
Okay. Pay attention. This is important.
On the other side of the courtroom, Mai and her sister sit tensely with their eyes straight ahead. The other Redstones calmly watch the judge. Like this is all going just as they planned.
Justice is not for sale among us. That’s the main reason enforcers are above the jurisdiction of Families, no matter the level of their power. But maybe justice had not found the right price until now.
The urge to murder flares through me again, a pulse of fire under my skin. But I’m ready for it and easily wrestle it into submission. If the justiciar eventually rules for release, I’ll just catch Redstone again. Then kill him before anyone can think of dragging him in front of another court.
The rest of the hearing passes by in a blur of anger. When the justiciar calls for the prisoner to be led away, I signal to one of the others to do it. If I touch him, I won’t let him go in one piece.
“This isn’t what we do.” Nuala, one of the enforcers who was there that day and saw what Ethan had done to Mai, walks quietly at my side as we leave the courtroom. Enforcers walk out before anyone else so we can’t be followed and our identities discovered.
Denali, who is based in Atlanta and has worked closely with Mai as Mercy, looks as angry as I feel. “Don’t think this is a regular occurrence, Commander,” he says to me. “Nuala is right. In our territory, the guilty always get punished.”
Ty, the third member of their team, walks with us but says nothing.
“I doubt anyone as powerful as a Redstone has been caught doing something like this. The entire community of Metas is watching to see how we handle the situation.” My words are the height of rationality. They don’t hint at how much I want to tear Ethan Redstone apart then go after the rest of his corrupt family.
“You’re right, Commander,” Nuala says. “If we handle this the wrong way then all the ones we’ve kept in check with our reputation and strength will feel free to do whatever they want and to whoever they want, Meta or human.” Her eyes flit minutely from side to side, like she’s mentally scrolling through a list of Metas she knows personally who will react just in that way once they feel let off the leash.
I have a list myself, and although it’s not long, even a halfway powerful Meta who thinks they can get away with anything is more dangerous than I want to think about.
Damn Mandaia Redstone. She’s sacrificing her own child and the safety of the Meta community. How can she live with herself doing something like this?
“We can’t let this happen,” Denali says. A wave of his hand opens a rippling field of space—our gateway from the hearing and to the enforcer headquarters in Atlanta.
The familiar icy feeling of teleporting comes over me for just a few breaths before we are in the closed Atlanta office belonging to Denali and the enforcers on his team. Ty and Nuala step through the portal with me.
“What he was trying to do to Mai Redstone… Fuck!” Nuala rips off her face covering and stuffs it into her belt. “I don’t know why she didn’t just kill him then and there. She obviously has the power.”
“It’s harder killing family than you think,” I tell her dryly. Although I’m sure if I hadn’t been there to stop Mai that day, she’d have torn her cousin to pieces and not been the least bit sorry.
Nuala makes a rough sound and turns away. The other two take their masks off, a silent show of trust. We only hide our real faces from non-enforcers. I’ve been short on trust for years now, so I only remove the sleek balaclava-style mask. I keep on the other mask that looks like a human face, close to mine but so far from it that they wouldn’t know the real me if I bumped into them on the street. Mai knows me. My aunts know me. And my own enforcer team. That’s all.
I don’t miss the looks of surprise from the three enforcers, first at me then at each other, when I keep my real face covered.
“We need a plan in case the justiciars let Redstone go,” Nuala says after chewing on air for a few minutes.
I cross my arms, watching her steadily. “What do you mean?” Although I’m pretty sure it’s clear to all of us what she’s suggesting.
Sure, I have my own plan, but they don’t need to know that.
“He can’t go free. That’s not an option. I didn’t give up years of my life to train as an enforcer and keep Metas safe just to let this piec
e of shit loose.” Hand fisted, she turns to face us all. “He’ll kill again. And the next time he’ll be smarter about it so he won’t get caught. It won’t be long before we start finding more Absolution victims.”
No lies there. Well, except for the last part.
With all the vigilante talk, this is getting to be a little too much like a club meeting. Before Nuala starts suggesting we gang up to do something stupid like meet privately later to propose next steps, I clear my throat. “Since I’m the visiting out-of-towner here, I’ll say this is my cue to leave. You all do what you like, but I need to check in with my chief and let him know the justiciar decision about Redstone.”
“That so-called decision is so off the wall that I’m sure he already knows,” Ty says, and it’s the first time I hear him speak. His voice is a hoarse rasp, a ruin.
As wound up as he is, he’s not stupid enough to confront me. More than my higher rank, his ignorance about what power I have keeps him in check.
“You may be right, Ty, but I’d rather my chief find out from me just the same.” With both masks back on, I give them a quick salute and head for the door, already thinking about Mai and the devastation pouring out of her like tears in that hearing. I have to go to her. “Have a good afternoon, all.”
“Isn’t she supposed to be some kind of badass?” the idiot snarls anyway, just after I close the door behind me. “She shouldn’t be afraid to go after some real justice off the books.”
“None of us knows what she is, so you better watch yourself,” Nuala says, although she sounds as frustrated as her teammate.
She’s not wrong.
Chapter 11
As soon as I step outside the door and leave the other enforcer team behind, I port away using my own sluggish but effective enough power. Although I took an Uber to the enforcer building to meet Denali and the others, there isn’t an ounce of patience left in me to endure that slow means of human transport again. Not when anger and helplessness roils under my skin like this.
Once in Mai’s living room, I allow myself a relieved sigh even though my belly is locked in the icy cage that the act of porting clamps around me. Only then do I take off my mask, my gloves. Releasing another sigh, I rub a hand over my naked face. The familiar planes of bone and muscle clothed in skin help me settle into my skin again. Slowly, the anger bleeds away.
The reality of my life, though, stubbornly remains.
Late-afternoon sun drapes the room in gold. The sofa with the blanket I had draped over my lap only a few hours ago. The large blue-and-mink rug where Mai and I wrestled last night when I tried to distract her from the upcoming hearing. Small parts of the home she invited me to share with her. Despite the clear illumination of the sun, this room—this life—feels blurred and insubstantial, on the verge of slipping away.
My knees tremble and lock up.
This situation with Ethan Redstone is only going to get worse. Mandaia Redstone has gone way past words thrown around at a dinner table to actively defending this piece of shit. The wrongness of it pricks tears at the corners of my eyes.
Mandaia’s defense isn’t only about upping the chance that Ethan will get free. It also means a sharpening of the betrayal Mai must feel.
Shit… The look on her face when Mandaia stood up. Mai’s pain seeped into the air then, leaving a bitterness at the back of my throat. The burn of anger on behalf of Mai. Every word Mandaia spoke in support of Ethan was like a physical blow against her daughter.
Mothers are supposed to protect their children, not do…this.
My neck pops when I roll it from side to side to get rid of some of its tension.
Mai needs to be cared for.
A hot bath. Maybe dinner. Takeout from her favorite French restaurant.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do for her when she gets back.
Decision made, I head for the bedroom. There, I discard my boots and socks and toss my gloves in the small basket meant for parts of my uniform, all the while contemplating what else to do for her. I’m not sure anything can soothe that wounded look I saw on her face across the courtroom. That wound is deep. All I can do now is prevent it from becoming the kind that gets infected and completely breaks down the body.
A quiver in the atmosphere warns me a millisecond before a voice drags me back to the moment.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I whirl around, heat quickly gathered in my clenched fists.
Pascale. The breath leaves me in a hiss.
He stands there in normal clothes, jeans and a T-shirt, a light leather jacket over his broad shoulders. His sharp eyes dart around the bedroom, obviously spotting the photo of Mai and me that she insisted on putting on the bedside table next to the one of her and Abi, both wearing identical smiles of happiness.
My limbs turn to ice, but I release the dangerous heat in my fists, lower my hands. “Pascale.” I greet him with a nod, playing it cool. “What are you doing here?”
There’s no denying where I am. I’m in Mai’s bedroom, obviously comfortable enough to take off my masks and my boots. Nothing about this looks like an enforcer paying a professional visit.
“What am I—?” He sputters, words coming to a halt before starting up again. “I followed your signature here and made sure you were alone before I—” Once again, Pascale’s words fall away. His eyes blaze with a thousand questions. “This is nuts! Are you—are you fucking Mai Redstone? Her sister? Both of th—?”
“Hell no!” I interrupt before he can make any more crazy guesses. The idea of bedding young Abi makes me all sorts of uncomfortable, like ants crawling across my eyeballs. She’s Mai’s sister, and that’s enough to make her a sister to me, too. “I mean, I’m fucking Mai, yes. Not—not the other one.”
Before I even finish talking, he turns away from me, cursing. “Commander…I don’t— Do you know how crazy this is?”
Well, I do and I don’t.
When I first saw Mai and wanted her, nothing else mattered. As suspicious as I was of her family and as much as I wanted to convince myself that I only seduced her to get close to her and keep her off guard, the truth of it was I started falling for her the moment she opened her mouth and said my name. My jaw aches from its clench.
“Let’s talk about this someplace else.” I don’t want to talk about it at all, but more so, I don’t want Mai to come home to this confrontation between me and Pascale. With jerking movements, I pull back on my boots and socks, my gloves.
“Uh…yeah, sure.” His pale eyes are a whirling mixture of confusion and betrayal. He holds out a hand and, without hesitation, I take it.
The expected chill of porting comes, washing over me and shuddering away my heat. We appear in the dark. A familiar smell penetrates my nose. A different kind of cold brushes over my face.
Giving him a grunt of approval at his choice of meeting place, I feel along the wall for the light switch. A sharp click illuminates the low-ceilinged room, the tightly packed wall of waist-high human bones along the four walls. Five low wooden stools sit in a circle around a matching table. An iron gate and a black-out curtain stand between us and the single entrance. Pascale’s bald head gleams under the low light.
We’re almost seventy feet below Paris, surrounded by the city’s ancient dead and tucked away in one of the secret tunnels under the city that make up the catacombs, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city. This room, along with the tunnels leading to and from it, aren’t on any of the official maps. We prefer it that way.
Pascale flips up the collar of his jacket in flimsy protection against the damp, subterranean chill. “What’s going on, Xóchitl?” Before I get the chance to say anything, he barrels on. “You know this doesn’t look good, right?”
Because I wasn’t born yesterday, he’s not saying anything I don’t expect. “I don’t care how it looks, I’m in love with Mai Redstone and
I’m not letting her go.” How’s that for honesty?
“Shit!” His eyes widen. “It’s like that?”
He curses again and makes a full circuit of the underground room, the heels of his leather boots nearly silent on the limestone floor. When he finally stops, his mouth is tight. Pascale jams his hands into his pants pockets. “Who knows about this?”
“My tias. You. Mai’s family. But they don’t know I’m an enforcer.”
“Jesus… You never make things easy, do you?”
“Not on purpose. This thing with Mai just…happened.”
“Knowing you, that’s not exactly true. Did you track her down because of Stephen Redstone?”
My cheeks flush with furious heat. Our team works so closely together that we don’t keep secrets from each other. Especially not dangerous ones.
When Ixchel was killed, I lived in a constant state of murderous rage, and the team knew it. At first, they tried to soothe me, but once I started talking about the Redstones and my suspicion about what Stephen and Ethan were up to, they encouraged me to deal with the situation then come back to work in a more rational frame of mind.
I did, and then I did.
Although Pascale, Farr, and Caleb don’t know I’m the Absolution Killer, they’ve accepted everything else about me. I have their loyalty and trust, just like they (mostly) have mine. What I found with Mai just felt too…tender to share with them. Or maybe I was just too scared of what they’d think.
“Yes.” I finally answer Pascale’s question with a slither of regret in my belly. “In the beginning, I did use Mai to get to her family.”
Though I didn’t know it at the time, Mai deserves more than to be the pawn in a game started by her uncle.
“How did it happen?” Pascale asks.
Because he deserves the real answer, I spill everything that’s happened between me and Mai and her family since the start of my hunt for Stephen Redstone.
