Sophia rolled her eyes. “They’re just Tiggy’s.”
Delia smirked and drew something out of her own pocket—a coin. Jac frowned as she flipped it, repeating the same ritual Sophia had only minutes earlier. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand it. The coin landed heads, and Delia reached forward to snatch the taffy.
“One day,” Sophia said, “you’ll explain that trick of yours to me.”
Jac frowned deeper. Was Sophia playing thick?
“You act too confident around me. Are you so eager to take his place?” Delia nodded at her green-skinned consigliere on the other side of the room.
Sophia shrugged. “You’re right. I’d rather wait until you’re in Luckluster.”
Delia smiled. Then she wrapped an affectionate arm around Sophia, and this time, Sophiadidstiffen. Jolted, even.
The coin Jac had seen her flip earlier slipped from Sophia’s pocket and clinked to the tiled floor. Sophia hitched her breath as Delia bent down to pick it up.
“How curious,” Delia murmured. She held up the coin to the light to inspect it. It was cheap nickel, like something from a carnival. Delia retrieved her own gold coin from her pocket. “We match.”
Sophia laughed. “It’s just a memento. Something from an old boyfriend.”
Delia narrowed her eyes, and Jac’s heart began to race. He had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t like it.
Then Jac noticed something strange: a flicker of Sophia’s reflection in Delia’s glasses. It didn’t match the face Jac saw before him. Her deep green eyes, her fair skin, her everything...
She was a different person. A different girl.
Then Delia turned, and Jac lost sight of the reflection. She dropped the coin back in Sophia’s palm. “Better not lose it, then.”
She waved her hand, dismissing them both. As they returned to the elevator, Jac sighed with relief, more than ready to escape the unnerving presence of Delia Torren and the putrid smell of her lair.
“So,” he said darkly, once the doors closed and they began to descend. “Is this when you tell me what sort of game you’re playing?”
Sophia laughed hollowly. “You don’t get to ask me that.”
“Then how about this?” Jac retorted. “How could you want to be an assistant to that...monster?”
“I don’t. Not exactly.” Again, she didn’t elaborate, and Jac decided that was for the best. He didn’t care, anyway. He had the information he needed to leave Liver Shot tonight.
The doors opened, and they left the motel from down the same darkened alley they’d come. Night had fallen, and Tropps Street was loud with drunken activity. It was always especially rowdy in summer, when tourists traveled to sample the casinos and nightlife, when the entire city craved something cold and strong to drink.
Jac kept several feet of distance between him and Sophia. He replayed the scene from earlier in his mind—of the empty-gazed people on Delia’s medical tables, of Sophia offering her a piece of candy, of the horrifying smell of the place.
That was how evil smelled, he decided. That was how it looked, how it spoke. With total and utter indifference.
He’d been working for Liver Shot for two weeks, and so far, none of his worst fears about the job had been realized. But every sickening notion about the Torren Family had...and then some.
He would give Delia’s name to Harrison tonight, and then with Harrison’s sponsorship, Delia’s likely victory would become a certainty. And then she would relocate that awful laboratory to Luckluster. And that evil would keep on going, and it wouldn’t matter if Jac was long gone—he would still feel he played a part in that.
Helping Harrison meant destroying Vianca, who ruled an empire no different than the Torrens’, full of drugs and crime and misery. But while Jac hated Vianca for what she’d done to Levi, when it came to the Torrens, it was personal. It was his own demon, not someone else’s.
As they passed a yellow phone booth, Jac held back, fingering Harrison’s business card that Levi had given him in his pocket. “I’ll meet you back at Liver Shot,” he lied.
Sophia turned around, her expression downcast. “Don’t make me do it.”
“Do what?” he asked nervously.
“Blackmail you.”
Jac took a deep breath. For two weeks, he’d waited for this. But it didn’t matter now. Nothing would stop him from making this call.
