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“Mom,” Shay said again, the word a hollow whisper. Her eyes flicked to her neighbor, Claudia, propped up like a dummy on the couch, blood streaming into her lap. Her eyes were bolted open, the silver rings around her pupils already dull. Shay swallowed the urge to retch. “What did you do?”
“I had to get in here somehow,” Athene said with a cluck of her tongue, her tone implying she thought Shay was stupid. “What did you expect me to do, wait outside in the cold until you came home?” She tutted. “Home.” A harsh laugh scraped out of her, and her eyes darkened with the Sight—something Shay seldom saw in her mother’s eyes, but never failed to frighten her, the black so at odds with her striking face. “Have you created a home for yourself here, Shayla? Is the House of Blue not good enough for you?”
Shay was shaking her head. “That’s not it.”
“How long have you had this place?”
“Three months,” she lied.
“There you go again with the lying.”
“I’m not lying,” she said, but it was no use. Her mother had taken her by such surprise, she could not even call upon her magic to aid her tonight. No lightning would save her, and neither would illusion. Her mother was gifted with the same magic as Shay, and therefore had immunity to its effects; if Shay cast an illusion, her mother would be able to see right through it.
“I paid a visit to your landlord,” Athene went on. “That tubby warlock in apartment number forty-three. He gave me this big, long boring spiel about tenant privacy, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.” A beat of tense silence. “You don’t have a landlord anymore, Shayla—if you’d like to see him one last time, you’ll have to go dumpster diving out back. Hopefully the demons haven’t already picked his bones clean.”
Shay’s hands curled into fists, temples pulsing. “You’re sick.”
“If sick is what I have to be to get things done, sick I shall be,” she said, those eyes so black, that expression so hateful, Shay hardly recognized the woman who’d birthed her. This…thing sitting on her couch was no mother—she was a threat. As much a demon as the ones feasting out back on her landlord’s body. “Now that that waste of skin is gone,” Athene continued, “with the pull of a few strings, this sad excuse for an apartment building will be mine, and I shall sell it.” She gave her a hard stare, those eyes glinting like black holes. “Any objections from my least favorite daughter?”
“Your only daughter,” Shay corrected, the reality of that statement silencing her words to barely a breath. “Anna’s dead.” Saying the truth aloud felt like punching herself in the stomach.
Athene did not react. If Shay didn’t know any better, she’d think her mother already knew—had known this whole time.
Maybe she had.
Athene uncrossed her toned legs and rose with one fluid movement. “This is the last time I’ll say this,” she began, stilettos clicking sharply as she crossed the room. “You are never to see Roman Devlin again. And if you do…” She stopped barely a foot from Shay. “I will see to it that Donovan has him tortured and killed in whatever creative way he finds fitting.”
There was a lump in her throat, and she couldn’t swallow it. “I haven’t seen Roman—”
“You don’t really think Claudia didn’t talk before I slit her throat, do you?” Athene interrupted, glaring down at her. “The bitch saw him standing outside last night. Said he came here looking for you. He was shouting up at your window like the heartthrobs in all those tacky romance movies.” Those eyes shone blacker.
“It’s a lie,” she tried.
“You’re the only one who’s lying, Shayla.” She strode past, wafting her with that syrupy perfume. “And your lying will be the death of that Shadowmaster if you don’t wisen up.” She opened the front door. “Pack your things. I expect you back at the House of Blue full-time starting tomorrow.”
She left, leaving Shay alone in her apartment with a dead woman.
Roman stood in the alley beside Shay’s apartment building, fighting to keep his footing as Adham—one of Don’s men—kept choking him with that fishing line. He felt his face turning purple, felt the wire cutting into his skin, his fingers uselessly grasping for it, trying and failing to get space between the wire and his skin. Space to breathe. The van idled nearby, Paxton and Eugene banging on the glass of the window. Screaming their lungs out.
Gravel crunched under boots as Don stalked up to Roman, so heavily wreathed in shadows he was nearly invisible. Several more of his men hung back, watching the scene unfold with sick amusement.
“Hello, Roman,” Donovan said, as if they were taking a walk in the damn park. Behind him stalked his two-headed wolf Familiar, a hulking beast with glowing crimson eyes.
Roman couldn’t get a breath down. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t respond.
Don beckoned to Adham, who let up on the wire—barely enough for Roman to suck in a thin stream of air. Adham kept the wire poised, pressing deep enough that the slightest of movements would cut off his oxygen again.
“I figured you’d be coming here tonight,” Don said. “So I decided to join you. As a family instead.” He cast a look of sick delight at the van, where his youngest son continued to pound on the window. “Isn’t this wonderful?”
“What do you want?” Roman managed to bite out. His question caused Adham to tighten up again.
“What do I want?” Don chuckled, the sound short and harsh. The shadows wreathing his hands spread up his arms, threading around his neck and head like snakes waiting to bite. “I want a son who respects me. Who listens to me,” he hissed through bared teeth. “What did you think was going to happen, Roman? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Did you think you could somehow get away with breaking one of the most important rules in my city without my knowing about it?”
Even if Roman had wanted to reply, he couldn’t—Adham had tightened his hold again, the wire cutting in. Sharp as a knife.
Don stepped up, getting right up in Roman’s face like he so often did, and began with a whisper his shadows echoed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. If you step out of line again, she,” he pointed a finger up at Shay’s window, “will be raped bloody by several of my men.”
Roman fought, but the wire only tightened.
