11. Scarlett

I shiver allthe way up in the elevator to the penthouse suite. I speak only once. “Ariadne—she needs?—”

“To learn to take a punch,” is Grandmother’s cold reply.

But that wasn’t a punch that I gave her, I want to point out. That was a rage-induced, brutal beating that might have done permanent damage to her.

I feel sick and dizzy, and sway into the elevator wall as the nausea rises up. Grandmother takes my arm, her grip surprisingly strong for an elderly woman, and pulls me upright, then out of the elevator as it stops and opens.

My body aches from the pummeling Ariadne gave me all afternoon, every muscle screaming in protest with each step. But Grandmother’s pace is brisk, allowing no time for me to catch my breath—or even think.

We reach her private quarters—a sanctuary adorned with baroque furnishings and heavy crimson drapes that blot out the Chicago skyline. It’s gorgeous and refined, but I have learned to fear the sight of it—there is a room only accessible from here where we are taken for punishments when we disappoint Grandmother.

I’m terrified that’s where she’s taking me now, but instead, she gestures toward a chaise longue. “Have a seat, my dear.”

Slowly, not daring to lower my guard, I seat myself, watching as Grandmother retrieves a first aid kit and then returns to sit next to me. She gestures for me to untie the robe, and I obey, then sit there in surprise as her elegant, bejeweled hands gently tend to my wounds. The scent of antiseptic mingles with her perfume, an unpleasant combination that makes my head swim.

As she works, Grandmother speaks, her voice low and hypnotic. “If you channel the same rage and ferocity against Lyssa that you just displayed with Ariadne, victory will be yours.”

“But Ariadne…” I whisper. “I nearly killed her.”

“Ariadne has sorely needed a lesson for some time,” Grandmother says. “If you hadn’t provided it to her, Lyssa would have. Ariadne was next in line, you see, the next one I planned to send out, if Lyssa killed you. But I still thing you can do better.” She looks into my face. “Can you do better, Scarlett?”

I only have to tell her the truth, after all. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get justice for Adam.”

She smiles in approval and moves on to my shoulder, already turning purple with bruises. I hiss as she rubs ointment all over it and then settles an ice pack over it carefully. “Do you remember the day our paths first crossed, Scarlett?”

A lump forms in my throat. How could I forget?

Rain poured from the heavens, smacking off the black umbrellas held by black-clad mourners gathered around Adam’s grave.

I stood apart from them, numb and hollow, letting the rain soak me to the skin as the casket was lowered into the earth. The finality of it, the realization that I would never see my brother’s smile again, never hear his laughter, hit me then, and it was all I could do to keep standing.

The floral arrangements on the casket were torn apart by the force of the rain, petals smearing across the wood in a kaleidoscope of fragrant white that seemed to mock the entire proceedings.

My parents left first, unable to stand it any longer. And one by one, the other attendees drifted away, friends and family, their murmured condolences lost in the noise of the rain.

Until only one figure remained, a regal woman in a black veil that hid her face completely, holding an umbrella wide enough to cover two people. She moved toward me carefully, as though I was a wild horse that might suddenly turn skittish.

“It’s Scarlett, isn’t it?” she asked, bringing me in under her umbrella.

The way she said my name, laced with the barest hint of promise, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I stared at her warily. “Do I know you?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know my name?”

“I make it my business to know things.”

“Who are you?” I demanded, taking a step back into the rain again.

“I am justice,” she replied simply.

I frowned, sensing the weight of her words, the dark power that emanated from her. I wanted to scoff, to call her out for portentous nonsense.

But there was something about her that made me believe her. And then I was suspicious.

“Did Adam work for you?” I asked, blinking at her through the rain.

She lifted the veil of her hat then so I could see her face. See that she wasn’t lying. “No, my dear. But I know the identity of his killer.” She paused, letting the revelation hang in the air between us. “Would you like to know, too?”

The police had been less than useless. And it wasn’t as though I knew who the hell to ask about Adam’s not-so-legal activities. For the first time since his murder, hope, fragile and treacherous, bloomed in my chest.

I followed the woman to a sleek black town car, my heart pounding as I slid into the leather seat on the back.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“You can call me Grandmother.” I said nothing to that, wondering again if this was a bad idea. Grandmother wasn’t all that far from Godmother, after all, which in turn wasn’t all that far from Godfather…

And whatever Adam had been doing, I knew the mob were involved.

Grandmother produced a tablet, and brought the screen to life to show me a video. I recognized the alley at once—and then I sucked in a sharp breath as I saw Adam come into view. Even from the sharp up-high angle, I knew him, that silly, gangly walk of his, and the Bulls sweater with Michael Jordan’s 23 printed on the back.

I watched, transfixed, as a blonde woman suddenly ran into frame. “What—” I began, but Grandmother shushed me.

The woman moved with lethal grace, and Adam didn’t even hear her coming until she spun him around and, with one strike, sent the knife into his chest. He collapsed at once, the trash bag falling from his hand, and lay there crumpled on the blood-slicked asphalt.

The woman turned and ran back the way she came—and then I saw it. She was wearing a mask. A wolf mask.

And then I saw myself, running to Adam.

Cradling him.

I sucked in a hard breath and looked away, looked up, catching a glimpse of cold blue eyes in the rearview mirror. I learned soon after that this was Ariadne, though I didn’t meet her officially that day.

Grandmother’s voice cut through the fog of my grief. “Scarlett, do you want justice against your brother’s murderer? To make her pay for the pain she’s inflicted on you and your parents?”

“I want…” I croaked, my voice cracking like glass. “I want her dead.”

Grandmother’s expression remained impassive, but her faded eyes glinted with what I would later recognize as profound satisfaction. “I thought you might say that. And I’d like to help you.”

“How?”

“I’m a woman who deals in vendettas—who equips those like yourself with the tools to reap the justice this world so often denies us.”

“And do you remember what I asked you that day, Scarlett?” Grandmother prompts now, drawing me back to the present. “I’ll ask again now. Are you still committed to the path of justice?”

“I have never wanted anything more,” I tell her. “Not a single day goes by that I don’t mourn my brother. That I don’t relive those terrible moments. That I don’t remember that the monster who killed him walked away scot-free.”

“Then you must hold fast to that anguish, Scarlett. Let it fortify your resolve and extinguish any lingering shred of compassion or weakness. For Ariadne—and for your enemy, too.”

Over the past few years while I’ve been training here, I’ve come to realize that this is a path that leaves little room for empathy or moral quandaries. But in this moment, fresh from battling Ariadne, I still can’t ignore the pang of concern that worries at me. “Is she…will Ariadne be all right? I didn’t mean to?—”

“Ariadne is of no consequence,” Grandmother cuts me off impatiently. “She is merely a tool, as am I and every other individual you encounter on your journey. You’d be wise to relinquish any inklings of attachment.”

I bristle at the cold dismissal, feel an instinctive flare of compassion as if to spite Grandmother’s advice. But then I think of all I’ve sacrificed. My dreams of becoming a doctor, melted away. My relationship with my parents, broken off.

And Adam.

Adam, gone forever.

White-hot rage ignites in my veins, burning away any lingering doubts. “I’ll do anything to make Lyssa suffer as I have suffered. So long as it leads me to that end, I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

Grandmother nods, a satisfied smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Then you must act quickly. Rumor has it that Juno Bianchi intends to attend the wedding of Hadria Imperioli. If the Bianchi Family publicly aligns themselves with the Styx Syndicate, the Wolf will become that much more untouchable. You must make your move now, Scarlett.”

I absorb this information, my mind racing. The stakes have never been higher. If I fail, Adam’s death will go unavenged, and the Syndicate will grow even more powerful.

I won’t let that happen. “I’ll find Lyssa again,” I vow, my voice hard as steel. “And I’ll end her, once and for all.”

Grandmother pats my hand. “See that you do, my dear.”

When I get back to my room, I pull out my phone and check the tracker again. The signal pulses steadily, taunting me, showing me that she’s safe in the Empire Grand hotel, where I can’t touch her.

But…the tracker is still active. Why wouldn’t she destroy it? Why keep it on her person? Or has she left it there just to mess with me, while she’s out doing dark and murderous deeds in the Chicago night?

But then it hits me. Lyssa wants to be found.

She’s baiting me, just like Ariadne with her cruel taunts and vicious blows. Lyssa wants me to come to her. If I watch the tracker, I’ll see where she goes. But she’ll be prepared for me to follow.

I lie down carefully on the bed, my body thrumming with a newfound sense of purpose so that I can ignore the aches and pains.

The road ahead is dark and twisted, but I’m ready to follow it wherever it may lead. For Adam, for the future that was stolen from me, I’ll do what I need to do.

I will kill Lyssa, or I will die trying.