Vengeful

Marcella considered the men.

“Let’s tell them,” she said, “that the Merit mob is under new management.”

* * *

MARCELLA collapsed onto the cream leather sofa, laughter bubbling across her lips. “You should have seen their faces, June . . .”

The city stretched beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass, glittering in the last shards of light.

Marcella had always wanted to live in the National.

Now that she was here, Hutch’s penthouse felt like a temporary stop on the way to bigger, better things. But it was still a pretty one. Especially now that the blood had been scrubbed out. A few stubborn flecks remained, but Marcella didn’t mind them. No, they were reminders of what she’d done. What she was capable of doing. Enemies reduced to stains under her feet.

As far as the standard personnel were concerned, Tony Hutch had gone on holiday, something he was prone to do.

He’d always been a man of many vices, used to his privacy.

Jonathan slipped like a ghost down the hall, but June lingered, perched on the edge of the sofa.

“You know,” she said. “One body doesn’t draw much notice. The trouble is when they start adding up. Mob boys don’t exactly phone the feds every time someone bites it, but you’re testing them. Do you not remember what I said, about EON?”

“All the more reason to stand out.”

June crossed her arms. “How do you figure?”

Marcella curled a clump of black hair absently around one finger. “When people stay in the dark, it’s easier to make them disappear.” She sat up. “I just brought down an entire building. You can be anyone you want. And Jonathan can render us untouchable. We’re not just impressive, we’re invincible. We should stand out.”

June shook her head. “If you want to survive—”

“But I don’t want to survive,” sneered Marcella. “I want to thrive. And I promise you, I’m just getting started.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “What now? You’re going to throw yourself a fucking party?”

A slow smile spread across Marcella’s mouth. It wasn’t such a bad idea.

“No,” said June. “No, that was a joke—”

A gunshot went off from another room.

“Dammit,” hissed Marcella, rising to her feet.

June followed, and together they found Jonathan standing in one of the bedrooms, the gun hanging limply from his fingers, a hole in the far wall where the bullet had ricocheted.

“What are you doing?” demanded Marcella.

“Didn’t work,” he murmured. “Thought it might. Now that Caprese’s gone . . .”

“Sorry, Johnny,” said June, “apparently you’ve still got work to do.”

He sank onto the bed, head in his hands.

“Just wanted . . .” he said, gripping the gun in both hands, “to be with Claire . . .”

Marcella sighed, and pulled the weapon from his grip. His moroseness was killing her buzz.

“Come on,” she said, turning on her heel, “we all clearly need a drink.”

She didn’t look back, but she heard Jonathan drag himself up from the bed and follow them into the main room.

June was in a restless mood, trading one aspect for another with every step. An old woman with a tattooed sleeve. A young black man in a tailored suit. A pretty twentysomething in a white minidress.

“You’re making me dizzy,” snapped Marcella.

June slumped onto the sofa, and took on a new aspect. She wasn’t Marcella—couldn’t be—but she was clearly meant to be close. Porcelain skin and black hair and legs for days. The face was too wide, the eyes green instead of blue. They followed Marcella to the sideboard lining the wall, with its collection of rare, expensive bourbons.

She set the gun on the crystal top and poured Jonathan a few fingers of something dark and strong. No ice.

“You missed quite a speech,” said June. “Our girl’s got big plans.”

Marcella didn’t rise to June’s baiting. She handed the drink to Jonathan. “That’s right,” she said. “And you’re clearly meant to be a part of them.” Marcella turned to June and offered her a glass. “What about you, June?”

She wasn’t just asking about the drink, and they both knew it.

The other EO shook her head, but she was smiling, a playful, almost dangerous light in her eyes. “I’ve said my piece. Do as you please. After all, if EON comes calling, they won’t catch me.”

June took the drink, and Marcella held up her own. “A toast, to bigger, better—”

The window shattered behind them.

The bullet would have caught Marcella in the back, if Jonathan hadn’t still been staring at her. Instead, it ricocheted in a burst of light, followed in quick succession by three more, shots whistling through the air.

One of them struck June. She stumbled, fell, her shape sloughing away as she did. For a second, barely a fraction of a second, Marcella saw the girl’s true form again—the auburn hair, the band of freckles—and then that person was gone, replaced by a stranger, launching their body out of the line of fire.

“I told you—” started June.

“Not the time,” snapped Marcella, as a decanter nearby exploded into glassy shards. “Keep your eyes on me,” she ordered Jonathan. And then she turned, set down her glass of whiskey, and took up her gun.

The shots continued, a hail of fire that turned the air blue and white as Jonathan’s forcefield reflected every shot. Marcella moved with a careful, calculated grace, forcing herself not to flinch amid the onslaught. It was exhilarating, knowing that her life wasn’t, for the moment, in her own hands. Knowing that if Jonathan looked away, the shield would fall, and she’d be hit.

But sometimes, you had to have a little faith.

Marcella marched across the penthouse to the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows, the jagged rim of glass gaping open like a mouth. She touched the edge, and the remaining shards crumbled, crystals caught up and swept away by a gust of cold night air as Marcella stepped through the empty window, heels grinding on glass and sand and debris.

This, she thought, crossing the balcony, is why you don’t hide.

This, she thought, lifting her own gun, is why you let them see your strength.

Marcella squinted through the flash and spark of Jonathan’s shine, trying to find the flares of light that marked the sniper’s rifle in the dark as she fired, again and again, emptying her clip into the night.

XIV

TWO WEEKS AGO

DOWNTOWN WHITTON

SYDNEY ran her fingers over the small bones.

Dol had found the bird in the gutter earlier that day, if it could be called a bird—it was a gnarled mess of sinew and feather, a single ruined wing. It was pitiful to start with, and worse still after Syd had pried it from the big dog’s mouth, and now it lay sadly on a worn kitchen towel atop her borrowed bed. Dol watched, his chin resting on the comforter.

Somewhere beyond the doors, Mitch was making dinner, and humming an old song. They each had their own ways of coping with the stress, the fear, the hope. She turned her attention to the bird.

“What do you think?” she asked Dol.

The dog sighed, still sulking over the stolen prize. She scratched his ears—the closer he was, the stronger she could feel the threads that bound them, and the easier it was to remind her fingers what they were searching for.

Sydney took a deep breath, glanced at the red metal tin beside the bed, and then closed her eyes. She felt her way forward, let her hands come to rest on the sad remains, and reached.

It felt like a long fall.

It felt like emptiness and cold.

It felt like forever—and then Syd registered the faint blush of light, the twist and curl of a thread. No, not a thread. A dozen wisp-thin filaments, fragments scattered across the black stretch behind her eyes. They swam across her vision like fish, darting away from her touch, and Sydney’s lungs began to ache, but she didn’t give up. Slowly, painstakingly, she gathered the filaments, imagined fitting the fraying threads back together. Knotting them.

It took hours. Days. Years.

And only an instant.

As she tied the final knot, the thread glimmered, pulsed, became a flutter of feathers against her palm.

Sydney’s eyes flew open as the bird moved beneath her fingers.

A sound escaped her throat, half laugh, half sob, a mixture of victory and shock, and then the sound was overtaken by the furious wing-beats and the squawk of a very surprised pigeon trying to escape the confines of her grip.

It pecked at her knuckles, and Sydney let go—a rookie mistake, as the bird took flight in the narrow room, searching for freedom, bouncing off the light fixture and the window, Dol bobbing his head as if trying to catch airborne apples.

Sydney lunged for the window and threw it open, and the bird escaped into the night in a flurry of gray feathers.

She stared after it, amazed.

She’d done it.

It was a bird, not a human, but Sydney had still taken only a few mangled bones and made the creature whole. Brought it back to life.

In seconds, she was across the room, prying the lid off the red metal tin. The last—the only—pieces of Serena Clarke lay nested inside, wrapped in a scrap of fabric. Sydney reached for them, heart racing—and stopped.