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Uziah doesn’t deny it. “She’s unhappy at the outcome of the mission.”
“Why? I did the job she hired me for.”
“Apparently, she knew the female personally.”
My chest squeezes. An innocent. I killed an innocent. And she was someone important to the client. This was so fucked up. “I’ll talk to her.”
“I don’t think you understand. Em is an important player for the organization.”
My eyes widen.
He’s talking about the Crimson Roses, a small but growing criminal organization intent on taking over the Crossroads. From what I’ve seen, they’re ruthless and unyielding. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in sheer determination. Once you’re in their sights, you’re dead.
Uziah leads them, though that’s not exactly common knowledge in the Crossroads. To keep their members’ identities secret, they operate as several smaller units, each with a “leader” of their own. Not even the lower members of each unit know Uziah is at the top. I’ve been around the gang long enough to know that even Uziah’s friendship won’t save me from their wrath.
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. The second mark was a lieutenant sent to report on your effectiveness of the job. She’s taking the woman’s death personally.”
“She thinks I did it on purpose?”
He raises a brow. “Is there another way to poison someone?”
I hesitate.
My silence has Uziah leaning across the table toward me. “Look, kid. We go back a long time, me and you. Your dad once saved my life, and I never did get to repay that debt. Consider this my way of making it even.”
Saving a life? Is that what this meeting is?
I glance around, noting the details with fresh understanding. More guards than usual. A meeting after daybreak so others in his organization won’t know about it—namely Em or any other Crimson Rose not under his thumb.
Uziah is risking himself to tell me The Crimson Roses are coming for me. And they’re not going to stop until I’m dead. Despite the danger I’m in, I can’t help but acknowledge my relief. The female was not innocent—not if she was a Crimson Rose. My promise to my mother is still intact. At least, I have that for as long as my short life lasts.
I shake off that last thought, refusing to give in to fear. For Kendall’s sake, I have to keep fighting.
“What were you really testing?” I ask quietly. “With that drink.”
He sits back, studying me. “You tell me.”
I look from him to the drink, my thoughts churning—but I can’t bring myself to say the words. “Do you know how this happened to me?”
“No.”
My eyes narrow. “You have a theory, though.”
He nods. “The portal opening brought with it a magic this realm has never seen. Those who were exposed to that magic…changed.”
I’ve heard the stories. The magic is dark, capable of twisting and changing one’s abilities into something else. “You think the portal magic infected me? I’ve never been near the thing.”
“Maybe not the portal but one of its creatures.”
My protest dies on my lips as I realize what he’s suggesting. The handsome male from the bar… the darkness I felt standing in his presence.
“You think someone from Tartarus did this to me?” I ask, the words strangled as I try to decipher how Uziah could possibly know any of this. Unless Em had others watching. Of course she did. How else would she know what happened to her soldier?
Uziah shrugs. “As you said, it’s a theory.”
But it’s more than that. And now I want to know what he knows—desperately. So I press him.
