I keep my head ducked against the rain as I climb out of my car and tug my bag out from behind the seat. It’s a worn messenger I’d found collecting dust in the attic before I left for school this past fall. I strap it over my shoulder and hurry toward the apartment building.
In my rush to get inside, I almost miss it. But some things you don’t have to see to know they’re there. Some things you feel.
And the instant I feel it, I come to a dead stop in the middle of the lot. Rain soaks through my thin coat, but I ignore it as I turn to look at the one car that doesn’t belong here. That doesn’t fit. A shiny black sedan with tinted windows. Rolls Royce. Their signature vehicle. Old-fashioned. Elegant. And screaming of money and power.
My heart races.
Through the windshield, I can see that no one’s inside, so I walk a few steps closer, and if I had any doubt who it might belong to, it’s wiped out in the next moment because there, embossed on the leather headrest, I see it. Even through the rain-skewed glass, even in this dark night and without the help of the busted streetlamp, I can make out the gold lettering in the familiar font.
I.V.I.
I shudder, cold and sweating at once.
I always knew they could come at any time, didn’t I? That was part of the agreement.
“No.” Shaking my head, I turn to the building’s entrance and walk toward it, no longer hurrying through the rain.
It doesn’t have to be something bad. Maybe my dad’s come for a surprise visit.
Maybe it’s the reason Evangeline hasn’t answered her texts all night.
Once inside the building, I stop and take a deep breath in, then out.
It’s nothing bad. The car could be Dad’s.
Then where is Joseph, his trusted driver?
I climb the stairs to my second-floor apartment, looking around for Joseph or my father. I don’t see either man.
My father has a key, so he’s probably waiting inside my apartment.
But something’s wrong. I’ve felt it all day.
And there’s no avoiding whatever it is. I know that when I walk down the hall to see the door of my apartment is ajar. It’s just slight, not left wide open, and there’s a light on inside. Whoever it is doesn’t want to surprise me.
I push the door open but don’t quite enter. Instead, I stand on my own welcome mat looking into the living room of the small apartment.
The light is coming from my bedroom.
I take a deep breath in and step inside. I don’t close the door behind me. On the counter lies a ring of keys, a pair of worn black leather gloves ominous beside them.
But it’s when I smell the aftershave that my stomach sinks.
Not Dad.
As if he’s been listening to my thoughts, my half brother, Abel, steps through the bedroom door and into the living room. Stopping, he cocks his head to the side and looks me over, his expression that of someone utterly unimpressed.
“Don’t you own an umbrella?” he asks. They’re the first words he’s spoken to me in over a year.
I slide the messenger bag off my shoulder to ease it to the floor, then unbutton my coat as I try to keep calm. Or at least appear so on the outside.
“What are you doing here? How did you get a key?”
He steps into the light and smiles. He hasn’t changed. His smile is little more than a sneer, his eyes disapproving as I take off my soaked coat and drape it over the back of a chair.
“It’s nice to see you, too, sis.” He walks past me into the kitchen and picks up the bottle of whiskey I keep for when Dad comes. He opens it, sniffs, then takes a clean glass out of the drying rack and pours himself some. “Should you be drinking?” he asks, turning to me and leaning against the counter as he sips.
“It’s not for me. It’s Dad’s. What are you doing here?”
“Can’t I come visit my sister?”
I don’t bother to answer that. Abel and I have a hate-hate relationship. He hates me, and I hate him. Have from day one. He’s a jerk.
“Why are you so late?” he asks, tone ugly. Walking over to my desk, I see he’s been through my calendar and my notes from various classes. I wonder what he thought he’d find.
“I had to work. Why are you here, Abel?” I close the calendar. There’s nothing he’d uncover anyway so I’m not worried about it. I know the rules, and I know myself. As much as I’d like to say I don’t care about them or the consequences, I do.
“The library closed an hour ago. You were still working?”
“It’s called clean up. How do you know the library hours anyway? Are you having me followed? I’m here with Dad’s blessing, and you know—”
“I hope you’re not lying, Ivy. I hope you weren’t on a date.”
He swallows the last of his drink, sets his glass in the sink, and walks into the living room.
“Is that why you were going through my calendar?”
He grins. “I have some bad news.” He shrugs his shoulders. “And some good news. Which do you want to hear first?”
That sinking feeling I’ve had all day is back. I put my hand on the back of the chair to steady myself.
Abel doesn’t miss it. “Don’t fucking pass out. Like I said, it’s not all bad.”
“What is it?”
“Dad’s taken ill.”
Abel’s never been close to anyone in the family, but that’s not exactly out of the ordinary. We’re not so close-knit. But the way he says it is almost like he’s gloating or happy.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s had some sort of attack—”
“Attack? Like a heart—”
“Let me finish,” he says, taking a seat on the sofa and stretching one arm across the back of it. With the other hand, he touches the small hole in the cushion beside the one he’s sitting on. A cigarette burn, I guess. “Are you smoking, Ivy?” he asks, sounding genuinely shocked.
“The furniture came with the apartment. It was already like that. What happened to dad?” I get my bag and dig around for my cell phone.
“That’s not going to do any good,” he says when he sees the phone in my hand. “Dad can’t come to the phone right now,” he mimics the typical recording, but his tone is strange, eerie.
“What is wrong with you?” I push the button to call Dad, and it goes right to voicemail. I try Evangeline and get the same thing. I even try my mother, and hers just rings and rings.
Abel’s on his feet, taking my phone from me with his big hand. He ends the call and tucks the phone into his pocket.
I look up at my older half brother. Almost ten years my senior, he’s the product of Dad’s first marriage and ever hateful of my sisters and me, the products of his second, acknowledged marriage.
His face grows dark. “He’s in a coma. They’re running tests, but it’s not looking good.”
“What? How? When?”
“Two days ago.”
“And you’re just telling me now? Where is he?”
“At the hospital. Where do you think he’d be?”
“Which hospital?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. I know which hospital. Members of The Society only go to one.
I turn and hurry into my bedroom to pack a few things. I’ll be heading home. I have to. God. I never thought I’d go back of my own free will.
“Don’t you want to hear the good news?” Abel asks me from the doorway.
I glance at him as he casually leans against the frame.
“No, I don’t. Dad’s in the hospital, and I need to go see him. Find out what’s going on. It’s not like you’re telling me anything, is it?”
He steps into the bedroom. “I’ll tell you what I think you need to know.”
“Do you even care?”
He looks at me like he’s confused by my question.
I shake my head. Stupid thing to ask. I rummage under my bed and pull out a duffel bag. Setting it on the bed, I unzip it. “I need to pack some things. Just get out, Abel.” I open a drawer and take out a few sweaters.
“You won’t be needing any of that,” he says, walking toward me and catching my wrist. “Someone will clear out the apartment, but there’s no time for that now.”
I look down at where he’s holding me. His grip isn’t hard, but he’s crossing a line. I shift my gaze up to his. His eyes are dark and empty. Ever since I was a little girl, the look of soullessness inside them has always scared me.
“Let go of me.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he checks the time on his other wrist. “We need to go.”
“I’m not going with you. I have my own car. I can—”
“I said we need to go.”
A feeling of dread comes over me. A familiar anxiety. And I process what he said a moment ago. That someone will come to clear out the apartment.
“Let go.”
“You didn’t hear the good news, Ivy,” he says, his tone serious. “The time has come for you to fulfill your duty to the family.”
I’m going to be sick.
“You’ve been chosen,” he adds almost formally.
My heartbeat accelerates, a wave of nausea making me clutch my stomach.
Chosen.
It was always a possibility, if not a probability. But our family, we’re not very high on The Society’s social scale. Not as desirable as either my mother or father would have liked. And after what happened with Hazel, the chances of any of the Sovereign Sons choosing either my sister or me narrowed even more.
“What do you mean?” I ask him, my throat dry.
With an exhale, he releases my wrist and grips my jaw instead, turning my head so I have to look up at him. He brushes my hair back from my face, my right eye.
I lower my lashes and shift my gaze away. A cold, clammy sweat creeps along my skin. Abel squeezes my jaw. I know what he wants, so I do it. I force myself to look at him.
He focuses on my right eye. The one with what my mother considers a deformity. It’s just pigment. It doesn’t impact my vision. It would probably go unnoticed if my eyes were darker. There was actually a period when I was younger that my mother made me wear dark contact lenses to hide what looks like an elongated pupil, almost like a cat’s eye. My great-grandmother on my father’s side had it too, and I took after my dad’s side of the family with olive skin and dark hair. Light green eyes are all I inherited from my mother, and they only amplify the flaw.
My brother makes a face of disgust. “God knows why, but he chose you.”
He releases me, almost tossing me away like you’d toss out a used tissue. I get it. It’s creepy. Hideous even. It’s why I keep my bangs longer so people don’t have to look at it.
I hug the sweater I’m still holding on to and try to focus on what matters. “I’m going to go see Dad. Then I’m coming back to school.”
“No, you’re not. That pipe dream is over. It should never have been allowed in the first place. Your selfishness has caused a lot of problems, Ivy.”
Sweat runs down the back of my neck. I hold Abel’s gaze as the room around him spins. “I won’t,” I mutter.
“I’m head of this household now. I’ll say what you will and what you won’t. And I’ll tell you right now you will do as you’re told, and you won’t shame this family again.”
Hazel. He means Hazel. He was so angry when she left, he wanted to go after her himself. Find her and drag her back, kicking and screaming.
“Abel—”
“Don’t you even want to know who it is?” I can’t tell if his smile is one of pride or spite.
“I don’t care who. I won’t do it. I’m not—”
“Yes, you will, sweet sister. If I have to drag you to the altar myself, you will.” He takes my arm and starts to lead me out of the bedroom and through the apartment. “Now, there’s a lot to do before the wedding and not much time. He’s certainly anxious to get his hands on you.”
I pull back, trying to free myself. “Stop. I’m not going with you, and I’m not getting married to a stranger!” I catch hold of the back of the couch. It’s stupid, I know, but it’s all I can do. “Let me go!”
Abel tugs, and my grip slips. “You’re acting like a fucking baby, Ivy.”
“Our father wouldn’t allow this!”
He stops, then releases me. He tilts his head to study me, and the look on his face is enough to have me scrambling backward as he advances on me.
I put my arms up in defense, but he grabs my wrists to tug them out of the way. And when the back of his hand comes crashing across my face, and he simultaneously releases me, the impact sends me flying into the wall.
I’m stunned, both by the violence and the pain of the blow. For a moment, the room goes dark. I slip to the floor, my hand on my cheek. It stings, feels hot, and the back of my head throbs.
“Shit.” He reaches down and hauls me up by my arms. “See what you made me do?” he asks through gritted teeth.
I feel a tear slide down my cheek as I try to focus my eyes. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to be afraid. And I know this is it. I know he’s right. I’ll do what he says because I have to. I’ve always known it could come to this. But I’d thought my father had safeguarded me.
My father.
“I want to see Dad.”
“I told you—”
“First. Let me see him first.”
He considers. “Now you’re being reasonable.”
He lets me go, steps backward, and I can see from his face he’s of two minds about what just happened. Not sorry—that’s a stretch too far for my brother—but split. I wonder if it has to do with whoever chose me.
Chosen.
God. Does The Society realize we don’t live in the Dark Ages anymore?
He checks his watch again. “We need to go.”
“I just want to get a few things.”
He grits his jaw, but then nods once. “Five minutes. I’ll be downstairs.”
I nod too.
“Don’t try to run, Ivy. I’ll send soldiers after you if you run.”
“Where would I go, Abel?”
He studies me, eyes narrowed in hate, then walks to the door.
“Who?” I call out just as he gets there, my curiosity getting the better of me.
He stops and turns back to face me.
“Who is it?” I ask.
He smirks like he’s won some strange secret victory. “Now you want to know who?”
“Just tell me.”
That smirk vanishes. In fact, all emotion but hate vanishes. “It’s fitting, actually.”
I stare at him, not understanding. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll let you see for yourself.”
“Who, Abel?”
“Santiago De La Rosa.”