“What happened here?” he asked sharply. In his hand, he held two envelopes.
“I couldn’t—” The omerta squeezed at her throat. “I can’t explain.” She didn’t dare look Harvey in the eyes. Even if this was Vianca’s doing, Enne had pulled the trigger.
Harvey knelt beside Jac, and his fingers brushed Jac’s Creed. “I’ll move him for you. I’m one of the only ones who can go in and out of this place.”
Enne cringed.Sheshould be the one to move him, to stay with him, but even the thought of touching him again made her stomach quake.
“What do you mean?” Enne asked.
Harvey nodded at the door. “Try it.”
She narrowed her eyes as she did. But no matter how hard she pushed, the door wouldn’t budge.
“What is this?” Enne asked, her voice hitched. “Why won’t it open?” She tried again and again, panic rising in her until tears flooded her eyes. She sank to the floor, her knees against her chest. The world felt broken.
Harvey crawled to her side and placed one of the two envelopes in her hand. “You’re needed in the ballroom,” he told her.
“I’m staying here,” she snapped, even if she hated to.
“You can’t,” he murmured. He placed his hand over hers, and she flinched, as though her shame was a grime he could feel against her skin. Then he sighed and let her be, and something about the gentle way Harvey tucked the other envelope in Jac’s pocket made her trust him.
“Okay,” she whispered. She didn’t care about whatever debt she might owe to Harvey, only that he would take the body away. Take away what she had done.
As Harvey lifted Jac and pushed open the door, Enne moved out of his path, her eyes fixed on the puddle of blood left behind.
“There’s a loophole to killing her, you know, which I’m sure she didn’t tell you. It’s family,” Harvey said, and a dark look crossed his face. “Levi isn’t the only one who made a desperate deal with Harrison Augustine.”
He gave her a weary smile. Unlike any of his previous ones, it didn’t appear to be a trick. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, and then he let the door close behind him.
As Enne tried to blink away her tears and pick apart what he meant, she slid out the contents of her envelope.
A Shadow Card. The Empress.
The taste of bile filled her mouth. She couldn’t play the game again. Not tonight. Not ever.
Trembling, she turned the envelope over and read the writing scribbled on the front.Erienne Salta.In all the time she’d known Harvey, she’d never given him a name other than Séance. And the Empress figure on the card unnerved her—they might’ve addressed the envelope to Erienne “Salta,” but was there something more sinister the card implied?
For several moments, she froze there, her cries quiet and broken. She’d killed Jac. The gangs outside were compromised. But a dreadful feeling inside her warned that worse was coming.
I need to find Levi, she told herself. She needed to tell him. She needed to save him. And if they lived through tonight, there would be time later to fall apart.
Enne pocketed her gun once more and followed Harvey’s summons to the ballroom. A crowd barricaded the door, but she pushed through, tripping over her own gown, the Empress card crushed in her fist.
It was when she emerged at the front, tears blurring her vision, that she felt the gunshot.
For a moment, she thoughtshehad been the one shot. She startled at the jolt in her chest, and she looked down at the layers of satin, searching for red. Something snapped within her, piercing, relieving. She took a deep breath as a heaviness lifted off her shoulders, one that had been there for months.
She realized what had happened before she saw the body, yet still the image shocked her. Vianca Augustine lay face-down, blood seeping out around her, soaking confetti and joining the spilled champagne on the stage floor.
Yet neither Enne nor Levi were dead.
She should’ve felt joy. Even relief. But the longer she stared at Vianca, the only emotion she felt was rage. Jac had died minutes before her. Had Enne fled somewhere other than that hallway, had she fought the omerta harder, had she doneanythingdifferently, then maybe Jac would still be alive. Maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Behind her, the ballroom doors slammed closed.
“Some other players have arrived,” a voice said into a microphone, and Enne tore her gaze away to see Bryce Balfour bent over, examining the body. Levi and Harrison were the only others in the room left standing. Everyone else crouched on the floor, many with their eyes squeezed shut in fear.
“Why don’t you come up here?” Bryce asked Enne, motioning her forward. “I have a few more safe cards to distribute.”
