By the fucking stars.He’swho I spoke to, the ringleader Scull took orders from. The one at the top of Leviathan’s food chain.
I dig my heels in. “Quinn, wait.”
“I can’t do this without you.” When she turns to me, tears leaking mascara down her cheeks, guilt tips a rusty blade into my ribs. “Please, Poppy. You’re the only person here I know and trust. If it’s not him, I’ll leave. Promise.”
How am I supposed to deny a heartbroken woman? “All right, Henriette. Let’s find Casanova.”
I throw a final glance over my shoulder, but the man is nowhere in sight. He’s watching, though. I can feel those harrowing eyes on the back of my head.
Quinn rushes to the entry hall, politely shoving through oncoming traffic. When we reach the entrance with no Scull in sight, she visibly deflates and sobs into her palms like the fallen angels on the walls.
“I-I swear I thought I saw him.”
“I know.” I wince sympathetically and steer her toward the restroom before she has a humiliating public meltdown. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Quinn rips off her mask, panting at her reflection above the sink as I wipe her bleeding cosmetics with a damp towelette. “I’m so fucking tired of always seeing him. Every day, he’s just around the corner or in someone’s face. I miss him, and I hate it.”
My lips roll into a line. “I’m sorry, Quinn. You deserve better.”
It’s all I can give her without revealing the truth.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You just did.”
Quinn snorts. “Brontë is rubbing off on you.”
“And I’m not complaining.” I smile at her small laugh. “What’s your question?”
“Did you burn or bury the love of my life after Brontë skinned him alive?”
I stiffen. Stare.
Quinn’s teary gaze slides to me. She’s unnervingly still, the calm before the storm. Then she grins like a cat with a canary trapped under its paw.
And it all makes perfect, agonizing sense.
Quinn wasn’t Scull’s little, unsuspecting lamb like we’d thought. No, she’s a lion—just like he’d been.
“You,” I breathe.
She leans in and breathes back, “Me.”
I grab my gun, but she fists my hair and shoves my head into the mirror so hard, my mask crumples. Before I can right myself, something thin and metallic and sharp pricks my neck—a needle.
I gasp, stumbling back and tripping over my own feet. I topple to the floor, my limbs too heavy. Quinn’s sneer blurs as darkness envelopes my vision. She paws through my pockets, stomping on my phone and stealing my weapons. Then she lifts a small device I’ve never seen before.
A tracker.
“Aw, look at this. Your boyfriend has been stalking you.” She crushes the tech beneath her stiletto. “We don’t need him crashing our girls’ night, do we?”
I try clawing her face, but my fingernails graze her skin as harmlessly as feathers.
As my eyes drift shut, Quinn croons, “Sweet dreams, princess. Your reckoning is about to begin.”
RECHERCHÉ
Brontë