son.”
I leave the lights on and a movie running in the theatre room, and some pillows and clothing stuffed under a blanket to form the shape of two people. Anyone peering in the windows to check up on us would assume Gabe and I are conked out in front of the TV.
Instead, I make him leave his cap and half his bling behind, and we climb into Noah’s car. Gabe and I crouch down, remaining hidden from view until Noah hits the freeway.
Instead of heading straight to Tartarus Oaks, Noah turns off at Brawley and drives into a lot of storage lockers. He parks the Lambo and opens a roller door to reveal a beat-up old Chevy Caprice, the kind of car manic pixie dream girls take on road trips across America with a suitcase of drugs in the trunk while bats circle overhead.
“Why are we here?” I glare at him as he unlocks the Chevy and climbs behind the wheel.
“I rented this shed a couple of years back when I started fighting. I figured the guys at the club would get suspicious if I showed up in the Lambo, so I park here and drive this instead.”
Clever. Noah thinks like a criminal. I don’t know whether to be impressed or mortified. I decide on impressed as I watch Noah back the Chevy out of the locker and replace it with the Lambo. Our family could do worse than recruit soldiers like Noah – after all, we offer the same perks as an Ivy League education – wealth, power, status – without the crippling student debt.
But I shouldn’t be thinking like that – like my father. I might be a queen, but my father’s legacy is a broken, thorny crown.
As we pass over the Acheron bridge into the other side of the city, something inside me releases. This side of the city hasn’t felt like an enemy since my parents’ murders. We pass familiar shops and looming gated communities where the most powerful criminals in this city make their homes. We circle around the old opera house where Daddy snuck me into secret parties as a waitress, where I observed the inner workings of the Empire I was expected to one day rule.
There’s a party there tonight – the building is lit up like Fourth of July, and people mill about outside. Even though the temperature has dropped like crazy, couples dine at the outdoor tables of an entire street of Lucian-owned Italian restaurants, and hold hands as they head down to the boardwalk for a romantic stroll by the ocean.
The life that was stolen from me glitters through the car windows in vibrant colors – red lights twinkling against a starless sky.
Beside me, Gabriel reaches across and squeezes my hand. It’s such a tender move, making my heart flip.
I need tonight to go flawlessly. I need answers, and I need the two of them beside me if those answers aren’t what I want to hear.
We head away from the nightlife into an industrial district of towering warehouses. The world darkens. I shift in my seat. “We’re almost there,” Noah says.
The car judders as it bumps over a disused railway line.
I swallow my heart as I squeeze Gabriel’s hand tighter. I’m glad he’s here. I’ll need to borrow strength from both of them.
I’m about to walk back into a world I swore to leave behind.
I’m confronting the empire that might’ve been mine.
I’m about to see for myself if the man I’ve loved as a brother has truly become a monster.
33
Eli
“Why have they come all the way out here?” George’s knuckles whiten as she grips the wheel. “I don’t like this.”
“Her cousin has a club on this side of the city. I bet that’s where they’re going.” I don’t take my eyes off the Chevy in front of us as they cross the railroad tracks and turn again. Luckily, there are several cars on the road alongside us to disguise our pursuit – far too many for a creepy industrial area in the middle of the night.
It’s hard to believe that less than an hour ago I was sound asleep on George’s trundle bed with Gizmo smushed into my armpit. George had a ping on her phone that she was on the move. She woke me up and we piled into her tiny Beetle car to follow them. We caught them just as Noah pulled out of a storage lot behind the wheel of a beat-up Chevy Caprice. The sight of