by Nora Flite
Lula kicked her leg out, catching him in the knee. Hissing through his teeth, he bent in two. The knife in my sleeve came out with practiced ease; he didn’t see it until I cut him across the wrist, red blood and another gun falling to the mill’s filthy floor.
The smoke was beyond stifling now. “Where are they?” Romeo coughed. “Merrick, Santana! Answer me!”
Fire burned all around us. I sliced Lula’s bonds and pulled her into my arms. The tape was gone, her voice broken in my ears as I considered the black room that would kill us if the men didn’t first. “Help me,” she groaned. My strong sister was frozen with fear. I saw bruises on her arms and rage infected me—what had they done to her? “Please, help me. Tell me it’ll be all right.”
“It’ll be fine,” I whispered, knowing it wouldn’t. Something clicked; it was another gun, and I didn’t know where it was. Bullets hammered off the wall beside my cheek. We couldn’t turn toward the exit—they’d shoot us in an instant. Ducking, I began to run deeper into the mill. There were the stairs leading to the second floor. Hurrying up them, I felt a wooden beam splinter next to me—a bullet. Then another. Flames glowed in the stairwell, smoke thicker than cream chasing us patiently wherever we ran. It was dark outside, the stars taunting us through a long wall of dusty windows.
In my arms, Lula coughed. We were going to suffocate. After all I’d done, it still wasn’t enough.
Then I looked at the windows again.
“Do it,” she croaked, reading my mind.
“There’s nothing to break them with, Lula!”
“Do it!”
She was telling me to risk our lives. That she was okay with it, even if I wasn’t.
Holding her close, I tried to shield her as we jumped through the glass. The frame exploded, shards of the window spinning like razor blades in the air. My eyebrow began to sear; one of the pieces had cut me open straight down to the bridge of my nose. I was blinded by pain, my ears ringing.
We landed heavily; she gasped and whimpered. Fuck, I hated to hear her like that.
Behind and above us, huge plumes of black smoke billowed. The mill was being chewed apart by the fire. I was sure that we were going to be chased, so I scooped Lula up and ran toward my car at the bottom of the hill.
It wasn’t until I set her in the passenger seat that I saw her wounds. Her whole front had been cut open, slashes decorating her body from collar to navel.
“I’m so sorry, Lula, I’m sorry. This is all because of me.” I was rambling and I couldn’t stop.
My sister smiled up at me, tears and blood staining her pearly dress. Why did she always have to wear white? It made her injuries seem even worse. She said, “No. It’s my fault. I did this.”
“Shh, you’re losing too much blood.”
“Costello, listen.” A hint of her haughty self returned. There was a fierceness in the set of her jaw. Even so, she couldn’t smooth the raw guilt in her fracturing voice. “I went to the police station. I was just trying to help, and you said not to tell Dad, so . . .”
My heart shrank into a hard marble. I couldn’t speak. I only listened to her spill her shameful secret while I cranked the key in the ignition to get us away from there.
“One of the cops, he took me aside and said he could help. That he knew about the men after you, he’d been watching them.” Wincing, she pressed her arms to her stomach. I drove faster, my ears straining to listen. “He said I was in danger. That our whole family was, because of Dad’s legacy. Somehow he knew so much . . . and he was so nice, so confident. He looked me in the eye and promised he’d go after the men who were threatening you. Then he insisted he drive me home, to make sure I got somewhere safe. He promised everything would be okay.”
In the mirror I saw the blood streaking down my face. Okay? This was anything but.
“Costello . . . it’s all fuzzy. But I know what he did to me once we were alone on the road. That cop, he attacked me—tied me up. He delivered me to Romeo and his men.”
A dirty cop working for strangers who wanted us dead and didn’t fear the retribution of our family?
If I wasn’t in such a panic, I’d have looked at all the pieces of this attack and tried to make sense of it. All I could think about was getting Lula help.
My car’s tires streaked rubber over the parking lot in front of our estate’s huge garage. I was shouting for help before I opened the doors, my already-ragged lungs tearing more with my desperation.
I’ll never forget the horror in my parents’ eyes. Or the accusation in my father’s.
It was sometime later—after our doctor had arrived and patched Lula up, then tended to my wounds—that Maverick took me aside. We stood outside the door to the room Lula was resting in. I think he arranged that on purpose, knowing that with her so nearby, I’d be reminded of the incident and tell him all the details.
“What happened?” he asked me, his strong hands squeezing my shoulders.
His blue eyes rolled with fear . . . with anger and barely contained disgust. He wanted to hate someone, and I knew that if I told him what Lula had done, there was a chance she’d take the blame for this.
Opening my mouth, I told my first lie. “I was in trouble, and I went to the cops for help. They set me up . . . but Lula took the fall with me. This is my fault.”
My father’s lips spread out, thin and white. “You went to the cops to solve your problems for you? Costello, I raised you better than that.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “You did.”
“You nearly got your sister killed.” As he studied me, I could see the paper-thin disgust in his eyes. I watched it thicken until all that was left in his heart for me was shame. I was his firstborn son, I was the one he’d spent so much time and energy raising to take over for him.
And I was a failure.
“You can’t do this!” Lula screamed.
It had been several days since the attack. She’d recovered, but most of her memory of the events was mush. Her body would always be a reminder, of course—her scars crisscrossed her body, and though they were hidden, unlike mine, I knew she would think about them constantly.
Like everyone else, she’d blame me for those wounds.
“It’s for your own good.” Our father was pulling her into the private garden bedroom in the east wing of our estate. It was a gorgeous room that our mother often saved for guests. Now it was where my father planned to stow Lula away. “You’re still too affected by the attack. Once you calm down, you’ll see everything is fine, that you’re safer here.”
“I already told you,” she hissed, digging her heels in. “You know how I feel about all of this. I don’t want to stay here, not for another day! I’m leaving before anyone else can hurt me because of your cursed blood!”
“Listen to me.” His voice was dark and disturbingly calm. “You’re suffering from trauma. You almost died—”
“Because of you!”
He breathed in deeply. “We’ll talk about this later, once you’ve had time to relax and recover.”
“How nice. When’s a good time for you, Father?”
Looking down his nose at my sister, he gripped the knob tighter. I saw the veins on his hand throbbing even from where I stood in the hall. “Only a few weeks,” he whispered. “After your eighteenth birthday.”
She went pale; together she and I palmed our ribs. I knew every inch of my tattoo, the design we all had cut into our flesh when we turned eighteen. Maverick wanted her to wear the permanent mark of our royal blood. It was our tradition.
“No,” she whispered. His face darkened. Would he force her? Would our mother even allow it?
“Daddy!” Francesca shouted, rushing down the hallway toward us. What had she overheard? “Daddy, why are you doing this to her?”
Ignoring Fran, our father pushed Lula into the room, then shut the door firmly and locked it. We heard her banging on the steel and wood. I was amazed at how calmly his voice came out when he faced us. “No one is to let her o
ut of there.”
Making tiny fists, my littlest sister slammed her heel down. “But why?” She was thirteen and at prime the-world-revolves-around-me age.
Maverick’s stare moved to me. “Because your brother allowed her to be hurt. Now she needs time to recover and come to her senses. Lulabelle is unstable; nothing she says or does should be taken at face value.”
Francesca looked me up and down as her mouth twisted. “Then it’s true what I heard the maids whispering about. Lula nearly died because of you. And now she has to be locked away so she can get better. Are you even sorry?”
“Of course I am,” I said quickly. My tongue was heavy with my pounds of guilt. “I’m incredibly sorry, Frannie. I never meant—”
“I hate you,” she spit, ending my apology. It wouldn’t be my last one, but it didn’t matter. My little sister would never forgive me.
She spun around and swished past me. My father’s hand closed on mine; he showed me a key. “You caused all of this. It’s now your job to make amends. Guard the door, no one goes in or out.”
I gripped the heavy key. It felt like a knife, reminding me of how hard I’d fought to save Lula. How hard I’d failed. Looking up at the door, I debated what to do. There was a small sound behind me. I almost missed it, but after the attack, I’d become hyperaware; I didn’t know how to turn it off.
Kain was standing in the hallway. With Fran gone, and now our father, it was just us. His eyebrows were low over his narrowed eyes. “I’m going to get her out of there,” he said flatly.
I was already shaking my head. “You can’t. You won’t.”
“Are you going to stop me?”
My mouth opened, but I held my tongue. If Kain releases her, he’ll take the blame. My brother’s pride would have him announcing how he’d freed Lula. And then our father would turn his anger on him.
I couldn’t let anyone else suffer. Especially not when all of this came back to me.
If I couldn’t be a graceful king . . .
I’d settle for being a martyr.
“Kain,” I began, “Lula will be fine. Dad isn’t going to hurt her. She’s safe in there, and she needs time to get over what went down.”
“You mean what you did?” He could be as fierce as Francesca, his twin. Just as unforgiving. My heart cracked more and more, and I wondered if I’d survive my own family. If I even deserved to.
He left me there. They all did.
My father and my mother and the rest of the world ignored me. I had one job: watch Lula and make sure no one let her out. Maverick had everyone convinced that once she got over her trauma from the attack—which I was responsible for, he reminded them—Lula would rejoin us peacefully. Happily.
But each night that we talked, I realized the truth.
She was never going to forgive this family.
“You know,” she said, sitting on the giant round bed as we gazed up at the stars, “if Dad doesn’t tell everyone what happened, that we were attacked because of his heritage, I’ll do it. When I get out of here, I mean.”
I winced. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“This whole family will fracture if you try and put a divide between them and Dad. Besides, it was the cop who told you that, right? He lied about a ton of things.”
“It wasn’t a lie, Costello!” She hunched in my direction. “We both heard what Romeo said. For some reason, he wanted us dead. ‘One prince and one princess down,’ right?”
My guts contracted painfully. “I heard him. But what do we even do with that info? Scare everyone in the family? Romeo and his goons . . . they probably died in that fire.”
She sat back, looking at the wall. “Maybe. But where does that leave me? I’m not going to sit here and let him cut a tattoo into my skin.”
Her venom made me lean away. “It’s tradition. This crown tattoo is who we are.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she whispered, putting her chin on her knees.
My veins throbbed; I bent closer. “What are you saying?”
Lula’s eyes went glossy. I was staring into polished onyx and thought I’d see my own secrets reflected back if I looked long enough. “I could run away. We both could, Costello. Hell, I could tell Fran, she’d want to come with me, and . . .”
She was budding with excitement. I had to crush it, because reality isn’t as simple as what we want sometimes. “Lula, if you try and run with everyone, it won’t work.” Overhead I spotted the red flicker of a plane through the huge window. “The only way you can escape . . . is if you go alone. I’ll help you.”
Breathing in sharply, she asked, “What?”
“It’s the only thing I can do,” I whispered. Shutting my eyes, I clenched my molars. I had to gather myself for this; otherwise I was sure I’d crumble and become useless. “Your injuries . . . your hatred for our father . . . being locked in here . . . it’s all because of me. I can’t say it enough times, but I’m sorry. I need you to know that. You alone, and that would be enough. Everyone else can keep on hating me.”
My sister gazed at me with growing unease. “What do you mean, they hate you? What did you . . .”
I hadn’t told her I’d taken the blame for involving the cops. I didn’t plan to now, she’d try and mend it all with her righteous beliefs, and that’d ruin everything. It was easier . . . better . . . if my family continued to hate me. “I know how to get you out of here. I can slip you out of the gardens, there’s a loose part of the fence there. If you walk into the city and call Grannie Cassava, she’ll help you.”
“Grannie lives in Italy,” she said in wonderment. Then it clicked. “You’re serious. You’ll help me run away even if everyone knows it was you who let me out?”
Smiling slyly, I shrugged. “I’ll say I forgot to lock you in. I’m already a fuckup in their eyes, what’s a little more?”
“Costello . . .”
“It has to be now. If we do this, we go tonight.”
Lulabelle stared at me as I rose from the bed. I’d put my sister through hell, and in releasing her, I was about to chain myself tighter to the fire and brimstone. She could run . . . but not me. Not ever.
I owed a debt to this family for what I’d done . . .
And what I was about to do.
As I led Lulabelle into the gardens, dodging our security cameras and guards, I held her hand, pushed her through the black fence bars, and thought of only one thing.
I promised I’d save her.
Setting her free was the closest I could get.
- CHAPTER TWENTY -
SCOTCH
My heart was in my mouth, and all I could taste was sadness.
I didn’t even feel the cold anymore.
“Costello,” I whispered, reaching for him. He didn’t pull away. Not when I touched his scar, and not when I pulled him into my arms for an embrace that was meant to wrench him out of his painful memories.
When he hugged me back, I knew I had.
“There it is,” he said softly. He laughed and it was like cracking bones. “Now you know it all.”
Snowflakes had gathered on his hair. I wiped them away; all I wanted to do was help him, do any tiny little act of kindness. This man had told me a story, but he’d given me so much more.
Stroking his jaw, I said, “I couldn’t have known.”
“No. Of course not.”
“If you’d told me early on . . .”
“You probably would have never brought me here.” He lifted his eyes enough to look at my mother’s house.
I followed his stare, saying, “Did you ever learn who the dirty cop was that betrayed your sister?”
Costello tightened his hold on me. He was so drained. “No. I’d never seen him, and so I had to look even more foolish when I couldn’t identify him or describe his face to my father.”
“Did Lulabelle not . . . say anything about the attack?”
He grimaced. “She said some things, but after how she’d suffered, no one
tried to drill her for info, especially not me. And then she was gone.”
“And the others, Romeo and his guys?”
“They probably died in the fire. If not, they might as well have.”
His implication was dark. He wants those men dead. So does his father. It was the same reason I was still running. I wondered why Romeo had been brave enough—or stupid enough—to mess with the Badds. And how had he gotten a cop to help him?
I had no answers. But I did understand Costello’s hang-ups, finally.
“Let’s go inside,” he said.
“Are you sure? We don’t have to, I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave.”
He leaned away so he could squint down at me. His hands were cool from the air, but when they touched my cheeks, I warmed. He could have been made of ice—and once I’d thought he was—and I’d still want him to hold me.
His kiss wasn’t soft. This was greedy, the mouth of a man who had given something special to me and now wanted to fill the hole it had left with whatever I could give. In my ear he whispered, “You really think I’d abandon you, after everything?” Weakness spread through my legs.
“No. But I’m still having trouble picturing you working with my uncle to solve this Darien problem.”
Fuck, I loved when he smiled. “It’ll be hard. So let’s go back in there before he thinks even worse things about me. Like the fact I’m hiding in the backyard with his niece.”
I enjoyed thinking about these worse things, but he was right: it was time to get out of the snow. We pushed the back door open, and as we did, Gina ran around the corner. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop!” she cried.
Chasing her down, I shook snow off my hair and onto her. “Uh-huh. Sure.” My laughter faded when I saw my mother and uncle at the kitchen table. My father was sitting with them, and every set of those eyes was fixed with distrust on the man standing at my side.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Heather.” It was my father who spoke first. I came toward him, and he rose to limp my way.
“No, Dad, just sit.” I waved my hands at him until he sank back onto the chair. “Everyone, just let me explain.”
