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I turn. I leave the room on shaking legs. She screams at me to come back, demands that I fuck her, and even though every fiber of my being longs to run back to her, to sheath myself inside her and forget the world for a moment, I won’t be weak.
I’ll earn the right to be in my queen’s bed.
The next time we fuck, it’ll be to make our baby.
Claudia
Malloy Manor is being torn apart from the inside.
The monkeys escaped and broke several expensive, ugly statues, shat in a wall sconce, and chewed through the wires in the media room, nearly causing a house fire. Casper refuses to stay in his run, and only stops crying when Eli brings him into the ballroom so he can chase Queen Boudica’s toys. And the turtles chewed off one of the taps in the bathroom and now half the downstairs is flooded.
And that’s just the animals. The humans aren’t doing much better. George is obsessively poring over Howard’s documents, convinced she can figure out what the treasure is and where we can find it. Eli’s moping about his father’s involvement in burying me alive. Noah’s raging because we still haven’t ferreted out Mackenzie’s hiding place, and Gabriel’s refusing to fuck me out of some twisted need to prove himself. It’s enough to drive a crime lord to the bottle.
When I brave the ballroom to drown my stress in top-shelf Scotch, I discover the worst possible disaster has befallen us – the alcohol supply has run out.
This is all a metaphor for my fucked-up life.
I think Gabriel’s been drinking in secret, which is fucking concerning, not least because I’ve just mixed vodka and ouzo together since that’s all he left me. The boys are out – Noah training with Antony for the upcoming Lupercalia fight, Eli at Nero’s, and Gabe to talk to the police about Odette, who’s just been reported missing by her family. Going to the store on my own is a giant hassle since Tiberius insists on shadowing my every move. And did I mention the zoo in my house? I need the sweet sweet release of liquor or I won’t get any shit done tonight, and my disgusting vodka/ouzo shot isn’t going to cut it.
There has to be alcohol in this house.
Gabe and I have already stripped bare the cellar and bar in the basement. But I definitely remember a few cases of wine stacked in that weird eyrie in the master suite. I moved some bottles there in case I needed projectiles to hurl at the barbarians storming the walls. But now I need sustenance more.
I climb up to the master suite and slide the door shut behind me. It’s blissfully quiet in here, away from the squawks and howls and chirps and the endless parade of shit that needs to be dealt with. I flick the light switch, but nothing happens. That’s right, I turned off the circuit breakers for the master wing to save on the electricity bill.
I click on my phone’s flashlight and move through the enormous room. My gaze falls on the four-poster bed covered in a thin layer of dust, perfectly made up like its last occupants will return at any moment.
The last people who lay on that bed were my parents. My real parents.
And now they’re dead.
I wish I could go back to seeing Howard and Ainsley as the evil rich strangers who built this freakshow of a house and have no impact on my life beyond their taste in stuffy designer furniture and weird modern sculptures.
But I can’t go back. Because they are my parents. Were my parents. They made me, birthed me, and sold me to the highest bidder. Was it a complete fluke that I ended up with the Augusts? Was I just the first baby they grabbed out of the crib? How easily could Mackenzie’s life have been my life, and hers mine?
What would I have done in her shoes?
I rub my eyes, but I can’t stop those open coffins from searing across the inside of my skull. My parents and their horrific injuries, inflicted by someone whose heart has been burned up by hatred. Could that have been me?
I think about Brutus, about the locked box bobbing around in the ocean of my memories. Yes, it could have been me. I might not want my sister to win this particular battle, but I understand her need to fight it.
When the Malloys built this house, did they have any idea it would become their tomb?
Could it become mine?
Gabe wants to have a child. I know not to take half of what Gabe says seriously. But he looked so earnest and excited, and then so hurt when I turned him down. But… a baby. I can’t be a fucking mother. I don’t exactly have shining fucking examples of great parents. None of us do. How could I bring a new life into this mess? What legacy would I be giving a child?
I’d fuck it up. All I can offer a kid is a baptism in blood and fire and a lifetime of looking over their shoulder. My love gets people killed, or fucks up their lives. Just look at Gabriel, drowning himself in alcohol. Look at Noah, hardened to cruelty, ready to throw his lot in with my nefarious schemes. Or Eli, the Golden Boy of Stonehurst Prep working for a crime lord instead of preparing for college.
For all I tried to find a light at the end of the tunnel, I know that light is a freight train bearing down on us. We have no options. Our futures are bathed in blood.
In the end, if my child wanted to be free, they would have no choice but to beat me to a pulp and leave me to rot in an underground cave.
I shine the flashlight around the room. I’ve never taken the time to look around in here before – just gone straight to the eyrie or Ainsley’s closet. But now, in their most intimate sanctuary, I hunt for a sense of who they were. I already know more than I ever need about Howard Malloy from Mackenzie’s diary. I mean, that girl is stone-cold crazy, but she wasn’t born that way – she was made. And maybe I – the adopted daughter of a crime lord – shouldn’t cast aspersions.
But Ainsley is a mystery to me. Apart from her immaculate closet, which I’ve raided more than a few times over the years, I know nothing about her. What kind of a mother was she?
What kind of a mother would I be?
