by Amanda Foody
Head swimming with old fear, Enne cringed as she pulled the trigger.
The noise of it rang in her ears—drowning out the ticking of the timer, drowning out everything she’d been feeling all morning—and her bullet landed several inches below the paper. She frowned.
“You’re distracted,” Grace said. “You need to aim. You’re not focused on the target.”
When Enne raised the gun again, a different image came to mind. She was lying on the grass in front of the House of Shadows, and Sedric Torren was pointing the gun at her. Fear and anger bubbled up inside her at the thought of him. She’d been so certain, so determined when she killed him, and she would always make the same choice when it came to him. So when Enne fired the second time, she tried to hold on to that conviction, to picture his sickening smile at the target’s center.
This one landed even farther than the one before.
Grace walked over to Enne and adjusted her posture. In the corner of the room, Lola had her arms crossed protectively around herself. Enne sent her a look of concern, remembering how much Lola hated guns, but her second motioned for Enne to continue practicing.
“Take a deep breath and relax,” Grace instructed. “You don’t need to perfect this overnight.”
Except Enne did, and always had. When Vianca had asked her to poison Sedric, Enne hadn’t been given time to prepare. When Lola had threatened to kill her, Enne had no choice but to act. When she realized Levi was in danger and the Shadow Game was already beginning, she’d run inside after him.
A whole ocean away, in a finishing school much like this one, Enne had been mediocre, invisible. But for the first time, Enne had new ambitions. And maybe it was her own worst qualities talking—her pettiness, her competitiveness—but if Levi believed he could make an impression on this city, then so could she. If she was thrown into an array of parties and asked to be a lady, then she would charm. If she was seated at a table with notorious street legends, then she would impress. If she was invited to play a game with the City of Sin, then she would win.
And when she crossed paths with the Phoenix Club again...?
Enne pulled the trigger.
5
“Before Ivory was the Dove Lord, she was part of a different gang. More like a cult, I’ve heard. The lord, Abbess, kept a journal, and in the weeks leading up to her murder, she wrote that she was being stalked by a figure in white. Some credit that person as Ivory. Me? I think it was Death.”
—A legend of the North Side
JAC
Two weeks had passed since Jac saw Levi at the Catacombs. Whatever thickheaded plan he’d been concocting since then, Jac couldn’t worry about it—not when he really needed to worry about himself.
He stood in a back office at Liver Shot. One of his associates—Ken, the opponent he’d fought his first night—was bent over the desk, a cigar dangling out of his mouth. Since he’d started work, Jac had learned all their names, what other dens they liked, how they got paid, how much Rapture they sold...but he’d only learned two things that truly mattered.
One, the Torren Family was assuredly without a don. The volts for this den came from Delia Torren, but other dens worked under Charles. The empire was split in two, and it was only a matter of time before all of them were recruited into a war between the siblings—a fact none of his co-workers seemed to consider or worry about.
And two, Jac’s boss knew exactly who he was.
Sophia Caro hadn’t come right out and said it, of course, otherwise Jac would’ve left by now. But the air between them always felt charged with secrets. At every opportunity, her eyes flickered to his arms, as if she could see his Iron tattoos through the sleeves. Once, she’d laughed and flicked his glasses, claiming he had the best vision in the world for someone with bad eyesight, after he’d read her the scoreboard numbers from across the room. And just last night, she’d run her hands through his hair—an act that left him both nervous and weak-kneed—and told him that black really was his color after all.
Each time, Jac wasn’t sure if it was flirting or blackmail. It didn’t matter if they were alone or not; she always acted this way. The others all thought she was in love with him, and half of them were in love with her.
“Delia sent us a message,” Ken said, reading over a note on the desk, one stapled to an obituary photo of Sedric Torren. “She wants us to pick up at a new location. It’s not far from Chain Street.”
“She’s taking us out of the way of Insomnia.” That was a Charles-claimed tavern.
Ken shook his head. “You’re so paranoid about all this. It’s probably just routine.”
Jac attempted to look sheepish and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’d know better than me.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m not going to worry. That’s Sophia’s job.” Sophia was the only one of them who communicated directly with Delia.
“Did I hear my name?” Sophia popped her head in through the doorway. Jac yelped and instantly grabbed his Creed necklace. Sophia smirked. “That was cute.”
“Todd’s being a downer again,” Ken said.
Sophia sauntered into the room and slapped a volt jar. “We talked about this, Todd. Pay up.”
Jac frowned. “You guys already have half my paycheck in there.”
“It’s our tab tonight at Kaleidoscope,” Sophia said. Their group often liked to finish a shift at this den and immediately patron another. “We keep toasting to more misfortune. You keep our glasses full.” Then, without warning, Sophia ran her thumb over Jac’s brow and forehead, as though wiping away a stain. “They didn’t get that right, did they?”
Jac flinched, assuming she was referring to the scar he’d earned a few weeks back—a scar that wasn’t on his wanted poster.
“I’m going to check on the others,” Ken said. He shot Jac a wink as he left—he had a bad habit of constantly leaving them alone. Sophia might have been stunningly beautiful—the type anyone would want flirting with them—but at this point, every kiss she blew at him seemed more like a threat.
Ken closed the door, leaving them alone.
Jac shoved the volt jar away. “I’m not paying. You’re all running me broke.”
“Fine, don’t pay.” Sophia shrugged. “You’re lucky I won’t tell anyone.” Jac knew that statement wasn’t about the volts.
“Stop doing that,” he growled.
“Doing what?”
“Oh, you know exactly what you’re doing.” Confrontation was a dangerous move—Sophia had all the leverage, and Jac had nothing. He didn’t know anything about her. Not where she lived, not how she’d gotten this job, not what her talents were. She was a complete mystery.
She pulled a taffy from her pocket and unwrapped it, leaning against the desk. “I keep waiting for you to ask me. After all this flirting the past two weeks, I figured you eventually would.”
Jac’s mouth went dry. Did she... Did she think he was going to ask her out? He was far more concerned about the thousand volts on his head, dead or alive. She looked like the sort of girl who might take her men either way.
“Ask you what?” he managed.
She grinned and popped the candy in her mouth before saying, “Walk with me, Todd.”
And so he did, because he felt like he didn’t have a choice. Jac followed her into the hallway and out the den’s back door. It was dusk, and the rain from earlier had lightened into a drizzle. Sophia marched forward, paying no mind to getting wet.
“Where are we going?” Jac asked.
“We’re going to meet with Delia. She wants to reorganize our pickup locations again,” Sophia answered. “Normally I go to those meetings alone, but it’s been sort of touchy around here lately. Plus...” She winked at him. “I thought we could use a little alone time.”
Jac wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. He wouldn’t have thought it possible to be as frightened of someone as he was attracted to them, but so it was between him and Sophia.
But this could be a gr
eat opportunity to gather information for Harrison. Too great of an opportunity to pass up.
“Touchy?” he pressed, ignoring her other statement.
“The state of the Torren business is...precarious,” Sophia told him. “Neither Delia nor Charles want a messy war. But the Apothecaries, the ones with the talent for brewing their drugs, are loyal to different siblings. If it gets too messy, some of them might turn toward the Augustines instead.”
“So what’s going to happen?” Jac asked.
“Either Delia and Charles fight petty territory battles until the other goes broke...or real blood gets spilled, and all of this goes to hell.” She unwrapped another taffy and popped it into her mouth. It was a wonder her teeth weren’t rotten through with all the sugar she ate. “One can only hope.”
One can only hope what? Jac wanted to ask, then thought better of it.
They turned down Tropps Street in the direction of Luckluster Casino, and even from a distance, its lights shone scarlet into the overcast evening sky.
“So whoever has the favor of the Apothecaries wins the empire?” he asked.
“Yes, and no. The Apothecaries are vital, but the hierarchy is far larger than that. At the top of the Family is the don, which was previously Sedric Torren, and not long before him, his father, Garth Torren.” Jac nodded—this was all information everyone in New Reynes already knew. “Then there are the other family members, mainly Charles and Delia, Sedric’s cousins. They’re followed by consiglieres, advisors, underbosses, bookkeepers, den owners...it all filters down to people like you and me at Liver Shot.”
Jac furrowed his eyebrows, trying to follow. This information was new. “Are the Augustines the same?”
“Yes, except Vianca has no family left. She has no heir. She’s destined to fall.”
“One can only hope,” Jac echoed. “So do you know all this just from working at Liver Shot?”
“Not exactly.”
Before Jac could ask her to elaborate, Sophia stopped them in front of an alley, dark enough that Jac couldn’t see the end of it. She pulled a coin out of her pocket, flipped it, and caught it again. It landed on heads. “Fifty-three,” she muttered.
“What’s that about?” he asked.
“It means we won’t encounter any danger,” she said, pushing him forward into the darkness.
Jac knew a lot of superstitions, but he’d never encountered one like that before. And even if Sophia strolled with confidence—her thigh-high boots clicking with every step—he couldn’t be certain some Charles-paid Dove wasn’t waiting for them at the alley’s end. So he kept his eyes trained ahead and one hand on the gun in his pocket.
Eventually, they approached a set of double doors. Sophia opened them, and they entered a cheap hotel—the counters nicked, the floor stained, the floral wallpaper faded. A few men and women, all Jac’s size or larger, played a game of Tropps at a table in the corner. Several others stood in front of an elevator, dressed in dark suits and red ties—Luckluster colors. They nodded at Sophia as she approached and stepped aside for her and Jac to pass.
It wasn’t until the elevator’s gate closed that Jac realized what was about to happen. He was going to come face-to-face with Delia Torren, an actual member of the Family that had nearly destroyed his life. Jac had never met Sedric or Garth, never had a living face to attach to the evils of the Torren empire.
Until now.
“Don’t make a face. Don’t say anything,” Sophia warned him. “Especially about the smell.”
“The smell?” Jac asked, then quickly went silent as the elevator lurched to a halt. The doors opened to reveal a room cloudy with cigarette smoke and filled with steel tables, lining the walls side by side, gleaming under bright fluorescent lights.
Each of them held a body.
Jac couldn’t help it. He grimaced and swallowed down a wave of nausea. The room looked like a morgue, and it reeked—not just of cigarettes, but of whatever slew of concoctions boiled in the glass beakers on the shelves, of the phlegmy coughs of those lying on the tables. It smelled chemical and rotten, and even when he snapped his mouth shut, he could still taste the stench on his tongue.
He would’ve almost preferred the bodies to be dead. Instead, he stared, horrified, at the labored rising and falling of their chests, at the empty looks in their eyes, at the IV drips in their arms.
A woman—Delia Torren, he assumed—stood over one of them, attaching a new packet of saline to the IV. Her brown hair was tied back in a slick, low ponytail, and she wore a pair of glasses and a pristinely white lab coat, its pockets overflowing with paper receipts, pens, and vials. Jac had seen Sedric’s picture a few times in the papers, and Delia looked at least ten years older than him—almost forty, with a seriousness so unlike Sedric’s pursuits of bright lights and constant entertainment.
She looked up as Jac and Sophia entered, then abandoned the man trembling beneath her on the table and walked toward them. “Sophia,” she cooed. Her voice was comically high-pitched, and she herself was quite petite. “You’re early.”
“I’m always early,” Sophia pointed out.
Delia raised an overgrown eyebrow. “Yes, always hoping you’ll cross paths with whoever pays a visit before you. I know how you think. So ambitious for a den manager. My consigliere thinks you’re a spy.”
Jac caught his breath—even if Delia didn’t sound angry, it was clearly a threat. But Sophia didn’t even stiffen. Instead, her gaze roamed around the room until it settled on one of the tables. “That consigliere?” she asked, nodding at a balding man whose skin was a strange green color, matching the liquid that flowed in through his IV.
“Yes,” Delia answered, her lips pursed with disappointment. “As you can see, I didn’t take his advice.”
Jac had heard appalling rumors about the Torrens—so many it was impossible to believe them all. But here, he could see that the truth surpassed even the most monstrous tales. To Delia, these bodies weren’t people—they were experiments.
This was the woman he worked for at Liver Shot. Whenever he played bouncer at the door or referee to the boxing pit, she benefited from the profits. The thought made him sick.
“I’m accepting your request for increased shipments,” Delia told Sophia. “I managed to sway the Arzt family to my side. They find my brother...distasteful.”
If they preferred Delia to Charles, Jac wondered, what must Charles be like?
“That means you’ll run him out by August,” Sophia said. “He won’t get by without being able to sell Rapture.”
Jac perked up. That was all the information he needed to call Harrison and give him Delia’s name. Then Jac could return to being the second of the Irons and leave the Torren Empire behind him.
“That’s true,” Delia mused. “But I don’t expect Charlie to be so easily defeated. He lashes out when he feels threatened.” She handed Sophia a folder of documents. “These are the new pickup locations. I’m glad you brought muscle with you, by the way.” She nodded at Jac, making him stiffen. “I’d play it safe until this finally ends. Double up the men on each pickup and the bouncers at the den. Start denying firearms at the door. I don’t want mess or headlines.”
Sophia nodded and tucked the folder into her bag, then pulled out several green saltwater taffies. She offered one to Delia. “Candy?”
“Trying to poison a split Apothecary?”
Sophia rolled her eyes. “They’re just Tiggy’s.”
Delia smirked and drew something out of her own pocket—a coin. Jac frowned as she flipped it, repeating the same ritual Sophia had only minutes earlier. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand it. The coin landed heads, and Delia reached forward to snatch the taffy.
“One day,” Sophia said, “you’ll explain that trick of yours to me.”
Jac frowned deeper. Was Sophia playing thick?
“You act too confident around me. Are you so eager to take his place?” Delia nodded at her green-skinned consigliere on the other side of the
room.
Sophia shrugged. “You’re right. I’d rather wait until you’re in Luckluster.”
Delia smiled. Then she wrapped an affectionate arm around Sophia, and this time, Sophia did stiffen. Jolted, even.
The coin Jac had seen her flip earlier slipped from Sophia’s pocket and clinked to the tiled floor. Sophia hitched her breath as Delia bent down to pick it up.
“How curious,” Delia murmured. She held up the coin to the light to inspect it. It was cheap nickel, like something from a carnival. Delia retrieved her own gold coin from her pocket. “We match.”
Sophia laughed. “It’s just a memento. Something from an old boyfriend.”
Delia narrowed her eyes, and Jac’s heart began to race. He had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t like it.
Then Jac noticed something strange: a flicker of Sophia’s reflection in Delia’s glasses. It didn’t match the face Jac saw before him. Her deep green eyes, her fair skin, her everything...
She was a different person. A different girl.
Then Delia turned, and Jac lost sight of the reflection. She dropped the coin back in Sophia’s palm. “Better not lose it, then.”
She waved her hand, dismissing them both. As they returned to the elevator, Jac sighed with relief, more than ready to escape the unnerving presence of Delia Torren and the putrid smell of her lair.
“So,” he said darkly, once the doors closed and they began to descend. “Is this when you tell me what sort of game you’re playing?”
Sophia laughed hollowly. “You don’t get to ask me that.”
“Then how about this?” Jac retorted. “How could you want to be an assistant to that...monster?”
“I don’t. Not exactly.” Again, she didn’t elaborate, and Jac decided that was for the best. He didn’t care, anyway. He had the information he needed to leave Liver Shot tonight.
