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No one says anything for long moments as her words wash over us, but there’s no response I can drag up that does the situation justice. The fact that the man I have considered a brother for most of my life has a long-lost sister none of us knew about, there are no words.
“Why are you doing this?” Wynter asks at last. At least one of us could come up with something to say, and I suppose the longer we can keep her talking, the better chance we have of being rescued.
“Because the Masters' family business should have been handed over to me, not overtaken by a bunch of people who had no ties to the Mafia, and no right inserting themselves into our business.”
I stare at her, confusion milling around in my head. “But you would have been, what, thirteen when your father was killed and our family took over. What on earth do you think you would have done with a Mafia empire?”
“That’s not really the point though, is it?” Annalise hisses. “The point is that l finally have my revenge, and it couldn’t have worked out any more perfectly if I tried. A Russo.” She gestures to me. “A Saint James.” She points to Wynter. “And a Masters.” She smiles fondly as she rubs Wynter’s stomach again. Each time she does it, I get more and more agitated by the movement. “It’s a shame you all have to die, but that’s just the cards you’ve been dealt.”
My eyes clash with Wynter’s and despite her best efforts, fear dances behind the ice blue so similar to my own. I should be scared. This woman is clearly unhinged and threatening to kill us as part of some fucked-up revenge plot, but I have to believe Elijah and my brothers will come for us. I have to believe that the reason Elijah asked about our rings is because the sneaky bastards put trackers in them. And I have to believe that Annalise and whoever works for her aren’t setting a trap for the rest of our family to knock us out in one fell swoop.
I brush my thumb over the delicate platinum band adorned with tiny diamonds and pray to any god who will listen that they’ll find us in time.
“Where have you been all these years?” Wynter asks.
Annalise shrugs. “Here and there. After Daniel sent us away, he would send money every month to take care of us, but when he died, that money stopped. We bounced around for a while, sometimes sleeping in our car, sometimes on the street. It wasn’t much of a life for a young girl, constantly looking over her shoulder, always afraid of being hurt by those stronger than her.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Wynter says genuinely. I’m glad she’s taking the lead to keep her talking, because there are no words for the level of fucked up this situation is. I thought the whole long-lost sibling thing only happened on those trashy tv shows I like to watch when I’m sick, but I was wrong.
Annalise eyes her for a moment before continuing her story. “It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I met Steven. He was older than I was, but he was willing to pay my mother a pretty penny for my hand in marriage, and she took the deal. At the time, he was a small fish, just one of the many players in Los Angeles, but he wasn’t looking at the big picture. He only saw the small time, the drugs, the occasional gun, maybe some information. There was so much more money to be made, he just needed to have the vision.”
Steven? Why does that name sound so familiar?
“Steven Lounder?” The blood has drained from her cheeks, and if possible, she’s paler than she was before.
“So you know of my husband then?” She grins.
Wynter looks to me, her eyes pressing closed for the briefest of moments to gather her composure. “Steven Lounder is a big-time human trafficker. He’s the head of the Lounder Cartel on the West Coast.”
Understanding washes over me and dread settles low in my belly. It explains everything. The shipments that went missing without a trace. The hits we didn’t see coming. The lack of chatter on the street about a new player. There’s nothing new about the Lounder Cartel, and their reach rivals even our own.
“The day I convinced him to start dealing in humans was the day our business really took off. There’s such a market for pretty girls, so many men with fantasies they can’t play out with their wife.” She shakes her head, but her smile remains firmly on her lips. “I thought about selling the two of you. Even knocked up, you’re worth a pretty penny. But if I were to do that, my idiot brother still has a chance to save you, even if you would be bloody and broken long before he could try.”
“What’s your endgame here?” I ask, the words falling from my lips before I can swallow them down. “Say you kill Wynter and I. What next? Everett isn’t the head of the family, and you’re not staking any claim on the Russo family?”
“Smart girl.” She smiles. “You know, I really thought you’d be a bit stupid. You have that whole dumb blonde thing going on and the press, boy oh boy, do they have some colorful opinions of you.” She blows out a whistle. “You’re right. Punishing baby bro is just an added perk to this whole plan. Same as your husband. The Russos ultimately are the reason we were sent away, so they have their own sins to atone for. But although this all started as a revenge plot, it grew into something much larger. It’s an opportunity to expand our business to the East Coast and taking over Chicago’s underworld will only strengthen that. Angelo Russo had the right idea, but your family stood in his way with your bullshit morals.” She rolls her eyes. “Just more reason you never should have had control of the family, and once your brothers are weakened by the loss of the two of you, and Everett is too distracted by his grief to do the job he normally does, it will be easy to take down the rest of the organization, and Elijah. After all, kingdoms always crumble without their queens.”
My chest aches at the thought of Everett losing Wynter and the baby, of Storm and Rayne losing both of us, of Elijah losing me. With each minute that passes, the more nervous I become that they’re not coming, or that they can’t get to us. I can only imagine what’s on the outside of this church, and if every other move Annalise has put into place is any indication, she’s probably two steps ahead.
I’m surprised they didn’t scan us for trackers. That would have been the first thing I would have done, and I’m not an evil mastermind trying to take my revenge. Maybe that’s her plan. Lead them all here to rescue us and kill us all while she has the chance.
“Well ladies, it’s been lovely speaking with you. I’m sure under different circumstances, we could have been friends.” She shrugs. “But I must get going. Places to be, people to see. You know how it is.”
The door behind me pushes open and two heavy sets of footsteps fill my ears, followed by the sound of water splashing against the carpet.
Wynter’s eyes widen as she watches their movements, horror creeping into the edges of her mask.
It’s not until the scent of petrol fills my nostrils that I realize what’s going on, and panic overwhelms me. She’s going to burn us alive.
Out of all the ways I’ve imagined dying, burning to death isn’t high on the list of the ways I want to go. In fact, if I had to rank them, it goes right down the bottom with being hunted by a deformed monster from one of those terrible horror movies Wynter and I used to watch when we were teenagers and sleep together for a week because we thought the villain was coming to get us.
The moment metal drags against metal, followed by the sound of a flame igniting behind me fills my ears, bile rises in my throat and fear grips hold of me until I can’t breathe through it. The panic roaring through my body is all-consuming as my reality settles over me.
I’m going to die.
And what’s worse? I’m going to watch my sister, my best friend, perish right in front of my eyes. I wonder which one of us will succumb to the flames first, who will have to be the last to take a breath and forced to watch the other burn.
The door clicks shut behind me and I’m immediately overcome by a cloud of smoke. Our time is almost up. There’s so much I have left to say to my sister, but I can’t think about saying goodbye.
