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‘You got shot, dumbass,’ teased Rainer.
‘Ah. Right. Yeah, that would explain it.’ Suddenly, the most important memory of all shot into his head — so bright that it burned away everything else entirely. ‘Where’s Sophia?’
Rainer gave him a grave look. ‘We need to talk about that.’
*
Sophia’s toucan, Tatu, used to climb up and down the bars of his cage. She’d wake up to the sound of him — the unmistakable clink clink clink of his claws as he found new and interesting ways of exploring his environment.
Sophia, however, didn’t have that luxury.
The cage that her father had thrown her in wasn’t even tall enough for her to stand up in, let alone climb. And yes, it was a literal cage. A freaking cage with bars and everything. The only time that she’d been able to stand to her full height over the past few days had been the times when she’d been escorted to the toilet.
There was a cushion she’d been sleeping on, and the cutlery and plate from her previous meal. But that was all she had. Her whole world, reduced to this.
There was no point in crying — she probably didn’t have any tears left anyway.
Every time she thought back to Tatiana’s face as she’d hugged the lifeless body of her Daddy, it brought fresh, raw emotion to her. Emotion so intense it couldn’t even be named. It was all the bad emotions in the universe, all at once, everywhere, forever. It. Was. Unbearable.
She’d replayed that moment so many times. That horrific gunshot. Was there anything she could have done differently? Was there any way she could have acted that would have saved Marcus’ life?
It was unlikely. Chances were, her father had decided to murder the leader of The Drifters a long time ago. Chances were, it was part of the sick deal he’d concocted with Groat. The man who, in two days’ time, she would be marrying.
She looked over to the window — the same window that all those years ago, she’d released Tatu from.
Toucans can live up to twenty years. She wondered whether Tatu was still out there, tasting the fresh air, foraging, flying high.
Although she was back in her childhood room, it certainly didn’t feel that way. Any trace of her had been erased from the place. All her posters and little knickknacks had been stripped out and replaced with nothing but white paint.
At least she wouldn’t be staying in Boston for long. That was… the bright side? Her father had insisted that Boston was the location for the wedding, but after that, her husband would be taking her back to New York.
She hadn’t had much interaction with Groat but she got the impression that the terms of their marriage would be somewhat different to those of a normal one. She kept thinking back to what he’d said in the Baby Bunch.
‘Now she belongs to me. And to all the Death Division.’
All the Death Division. Those words terrified Sophia.
There was so much she didn’t know. So much she needed to know. But more than anything else, all she cared about was whether Wolf was safe.
And Tatiana. Oh, Tatiana. What was she going through right now? She had been with Marcus for decades. And she’d lost it all in a second. It made her sick to her stomach. Her father was a bad man — she’d known that her whole life — but she didn’t think he was a murderer.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Dinner time.’ It was her father’s voice.
It wasn’t as if she had any choice. He was coming in whether she liked it or not.
‘It pains me to see you like this,’ he said, bending down to put a tray of food on the floor in front of a hatch in the cage.
‘Let me out, then.’
He laughed. ‘Not a chance, my little escape artist. If I could put another cage around you, I would.’ He held onto one of the bars for a moment. ‘All of this could have been avoided if I’d built you a cage in the first place. Your mother wouldn’t ever have allowed it, though.’
‘WhereisMom?’
He shot her an angry look. ‘You don’t get to see your mother.’
‘What about Vinnie?’ She’d hoped that her brother would be here — he’d always cared so much for her.
