39. Ronan

I was grateful Neco and I were cool again, but I didn't realize being in Neco's world as an adult was going to involve so much subterfuge over all the murder. Like, I had a job that paid well that I was very excited about, but Ollie pulled me into Neco's flat to talk about the other serial killer when I could have been painting maidens getting railed by dragons.

Guttertown fables had nothing on Jagged Key Isles stories and they told them to children. The stories were raunchy as fuck, but they were also a ton of fun. I was looking forward to painting them on the walls. I should be getting my sketches together to show to the Madame.

I wasn't judging Neco for what he did. I could appreciate it in a way. Those people could waltz into Guttertown and murder anyone they liked with no consequences. Neco was just stopping them before it got to that. He was evening the field.

I didn't get the other killer, and I didn't want to. I wanted everything around me to be beautiful and he didn't fit my narrative. Yet, here I was, discussing it with my friends.

Neco really was a psychopath. Hot, but a psychopath.

"The Ghoul? Why does he get a better nickname than me?"

"Um, maybe we should be focusing on catching him instead of your monikers?" I said.

"Focus, Neco," Beck said. "Is any of that giving you clues?"

"We need to know which room the butterfly was in. That's going to be how he's picking his victims. It could be the pretty girl and it might not be."

"Yeah, but Aimes told me Trevils isn't talking about that with him yet. We'll have no way of knowing until that happens and I'm not sure if Aimes is going to get squirrelly if I press him again."

"No, you did good. Lance doesn't know, does he?" Neco asked.

We all shared a look. We could probably fix the divide in our friend group by telling Neco Lance was really Lucy. Lucy would never forgive us so that would never happen.

"No, he doesn't. He was actually ready to kick all of our arses because he thought The Blight was Beck."

"What the fuck?" Beck asked.

"And then he wanted to kick my arse for laughing at him."

Lance might be Lucy, but Lucy was a scrappy fighter, and she fought dirty. She could probably kick everyone's arses except for Neco and Beck and that was only because they had training. She could definitely beat the shit out of Ollie and me.

"He would have won," Beck snorted.

"What is happening right now?" Neco asked. "I've got the interloper killing in my territory and now Lance is giving Beck credit for my work?"

"Uh, focus," I said. "I'm pretty sure you don't want anyone correcting Lance."

Seriously? Neco was going to blow everything because he was getting pissy about the whole serial-killer thing. Excuse me, assassin. I could just picture the surly motherfucker in a tavern while someone was ranting about the Blight and going into a long-winded speech about the difference between serial killers and assassins.

And Neco was usually a man of few words.

We didn't have a plan. Neco couldn't take out the Ghoul because he still didn't have enough information. I'd bet he could get it, though. Neco and Beck were working together on this. They'd been in Lower Cutwart asking around. They could do this.

Before we could say anything, the Madame burst into Neco's room in a panic.

"Neco, it's your mom. She's taken a turn for the worse. I've called Athan and Tarja and some of the best healers from my people. I hate to say this to any of the Argent kids, but it might be time to contact your father."

Fuck. Neco loved his mother just as much as he hated his father. With the fire of a thousand suns. Neco was also a trained assassin with a code. His father hurt his mother. I didn't know who his father was, but he would be one of the few people in Nestran that Neco couldn't kill.

Neco had restraint and cared about his mom. He could be in the same room as his father without killing him, right?

"I know the two of you had a falling out, but I'm being told Caitrin has also taken a turn for the worst. Lance has also left to ask his father for help."

Fuck! That was the last thing we wanted to happen. One of us should have been there to talk Lucy out of it. It wasn't that we thought she couldn't cut it as a soldier or that we'd want nothing to do with her if she worked at the brothel.

It would be that her choice was taken from her. She loved working at the tavern and she was good at it. Neco's choice would be taken from him, too. Lucy was already gone, but we could help Neco.

"Can it wait a little longer?" Ollie asked. "We just hired someone in the kitchen who knows of a plant that could cure both of them, but it's not ready to harvest yet."

Neco and Lucy had a lot more in common than they'd care to admit. They were both fiercely devoted to their mothers and hated their fathers.

They'd also both ruin their lives if it meant saving their moms. Neco didn't even give us a chance to talk him out of it or hear what the Madame had to say about his mom possibly holding on long enough for this cure.

He was already out the door.