With the election coming up, Tobias Saint spent more time with Mr. Wayne, away from the mansion. Elise could still feel her father’s fingers digging into her jaw, could hear the piano hitting the wall. Most of all, she couldn’t stop thinking about Josi at the receiving end of his anger. If there was any motivation to keep Elise going, it was imagining her little sister crying just as she had after their father had torn her down.
In the week after that episode, Elise wrote letters to Josi daily. It wasn’t until her mother came into her room that she realized how obsessive it had become.
“Oh heavens, Elise…” Analia Saint’s eyes roamed over the piles of letters. “You miss her so much.” She bit back a sob. “I miss her too.”
Elise wanted to tell her it wasn’t as simple as missing her sister. But she knew her mother wouldn’t understand. “I do,” Elise whispered.
Elise’s anxiety crested when her father requested that she perform for his dinner party. The night he came to her room to tell her, Elise, shaking, had looked up from her desk. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to play.”
Tobias Saint’s expression hardened. “You do what I ask, Elise. You should be able to play a piece you know as well as your heart without much practice, right?”
“Yes, Father.” Elise nodded.
“Wonderful.” He left her room then and Elise had caved in on herself. For so long, she had assumed that through the pain of working herself to be good enough, she would eventually find healing in her father’s pride. But there was no redemption. His expectations had become her torture.
Now, as Elise settled her fingers over the piano keys, her father’s crowd of onlookers on one side and the fireplace raging on the other side, she felt the most uncertain she’d ever had about her own playing.
It persisted throughout the entire song. Sharp, beating pulses of pain stabbing into her heart with each short breath, as if something inhumane was cleaving the fatigued flesh of her muscles. She didn’t feel the usual relief that swept through her when she finished a performance. Even when the crowd clapped for her and murmured their praise, Elise continued to sweat, her dress heavy and cold against her clammy skin. More dread seeped into her already aching and anxious chest. She could only take a shaky bow before thanking them and dismissing herself.
Back in her room, Elise cried. Not for her messy, misled performance, but for the lost comfort. No longer could she find herself in music and use it to unravel her tense, tangled emotions. Her father had taken even that away from her.
Layla never thought she would find herself living with a gangster, and even though it was temporary, she was disgusted with herself for crawling to Jamie Kelly with no other options.
His blue eyes had lit up with amusement, scorching her with embarrassment when she had shown up at the club needing a place to stay. She thought she would rather take her chances living with a clan that wanted to rip her limb from limb than deal with Jamie’s mockery. But then Jamie had straightened up and stopped laughing and invited her to his apartment.
One week later, Layla was only just beginning to settle in.
“What is a four-letter word for the tamed beasts humans now love?” Jamie asked. He glared down at the newspaper crossword puzzle, a steaming mug of coffee beside him.
Layla glanced up from the newspaper—the part with actual news on it that Jamie did not bother with—and scrunched her nose in thought. “Dogs. Obviously,” she said.
The newsprint should have ripped with the intensity of Jamie’s scribbles. He shot her a dirty look. “Don’t say ‘obviously’ like that. You had to think about it for a moment.”
“And yet you were stuck on a question like that? I’m not even human, and I got it before you.” Layla leaned over the arm of the couch to see the crossword before Jamie pulled it out of sight. “You’ve only got four!” she exclaimed. “You started an hour ago! It’s taken you this long to guess dogs?” Layla threw herself back against the couch cushions and laughed.
Jamie snapped the paper out so it lay flat on the table in front of him. “Are you calling me dumb? Because that’s quite a rude thing to call someone who has offered you their home.”
Sighing, Layla sat up. “You said it, not me. And have I not shown you how grateful I am just by being pleasant to you?”
“No,” Jamie said flatly. “I will have you know that there is no time limit on genius. Intelligence is not quantified. It’s about the quality of the thoughts that cross the mind.”
Layla grinned. “Jamie… Intelligence is quantified. What do you think IQ tests are?”
Jamie slid one last foul look at Layla, then he crumpled the crossword in his fists and dropped it onto the floor. “I’m leaving. I’ll be gone for a while since I have work. Don’t touch anything. And don’t forget to feed Hen.”
Hen, or Hendricks, Jamie’s hateful gray cat, was even less tolerable than Jamie. Layla wasn’t sure how it was possible. Such a feat probably should have been applauded, but she was almost positive that Hendricks would try to claw her eyes out if she went near him—even to praise him.
“How am I supposed to feed Hendricks if I can’t touch anything?” Layla asked.
Jamie waved her off while he walked out the door. “Figure it out, or he will eat you.”
Layla sighed. The gray cat perched in a patch of sunlight on the kitchen floor. He looked at the door after his owner, green eyes wide with longing.
“He’s coming back,” Layla said quietly.
No matter how gently she spoke to the cat, he still seemed to sense that she raised hell.
Hendricks whipped his head in her direction and hissed, his teeth bared. Layla covered her mouth. “Do I look that ridiculous?” Her own fangs prodded against her lower lip, and she lifted her brow in curiosity.
Stretching across the sofa to the side table, she flipped the phonograph on and gently lowered the needle onto the record that Jamie had left on. It sputtered to life, saxophone and a melancholy voice belting a gentle blues song. She settled against the couch in silent solidarity with the feline that was most likely plotting her murder.
The door opened just a few minutes later. Layla didn’t look up. “Back so soon?”
“Don’t be rude.” The familiar voice spiked Layla’s heart rate. The music stopped with a rough screech of the needle. Layla set the newspaper down. Mei was dressed in all black, hair done up in a tight chignon against the back of her head. Under her coat her pale legs were long and graceful, skin bravely bared in the fast-approaching autumn weather. Next to her stood Jamie, his expression weary. Mei scowled and took her hand off the phonograph.
Jamie rubbed his head, and some of his blond hair fell into his eyes. “So, she showed up. She also threatened me, which I will be holding against you, Layla, since I’m not even sure how she knew where I lived. So now she’s your problem. Goodbye.” He slammed the door on his way out.
The room seemed to close in, darkening with each stride Mei took toward Layla. “So here’s where you’ve been hiding all this time,” she said. Her eyes roamed over the sitting room and kitchen as she sat beside Layla on the couch. “I thought you would have found solace with the Saints.”
“I told you, my loyalty is to the Harlem reapers.” Venom dripped from her words.
Mei did not flinch. She brushed one of her wispy bangs out of her eyes and spoke calmly, “Is that why you came home reeking of that Saint girl? She trusted you enough to let you at her throat.”
“So I’ve gotten her to drop her guards. But mine are still well intact,” Layla mumbled. She wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to boast about. Getting so close to Elise over the past few weeks had made her feel something besides despair and dread for the first time in a long time. She couldn’t force the gently blooming hope away. So Layla had done what she could to force the Saint heiress away instead.
“Very well.” Those two words were more than confirmation from Mei. They were an admission. “Valeriya needs you back. The Saints and Stephen Wayne have made requests for a summit between them and our clan. Valeriya needs assurance they are not going to set us up.”
Layla almost laughed. “For once, me working with the Saint girl is not a dirty thing? I am to be used for this reassurance, then discarded, correct?” Layla spat.
“Nonsense,” Mei said. She sighed, her shoulders loosening and her expression softening; it was a gesture that Layla recognized as honesty. “You know how hard it is to find trust in people once you’ve turned, Layla. It’s easier to push everyone away than it is to let them in. I couldn’t help myself when I saw you with her. No one could. We are all asking ourselves how the girl who lost her life and her family at the hands of Saints has returned to the Saints.”
It felt as if a spear had gone through Layla’s heart. She looked away, willing herself to not crack under the pressure Mei was applying.
“It’s all out of necessity.” Layla lifted her gaze back to Mei’s. “I will speak with the Saint heiress and make sure it’s not a setup.”
“Do I have your word?” Mei asked. Layla held her hand out and Mei shook it. A small smile formed on her glossy red lips and she stood up. “Once we have confirmation, you will be allowed back home.”
Layla almost mentioned not wanting to go back, but Mei was already on her way out. So she just nodded her agreement and absorbed the silence that followed Mei’s departure.
Part of her tried to be happy she’d been invited to come back home. But Layla wondered if she could truly call a place home if there were conditions for belonging there.
She took a can of tuna from the cabinet and plopped a serving of the fish into a saucer. The raw, putrid stench stung the inside of her nose even when she covered it. “Hendricks, this is my last straw.” The small gray cat trotted into the room and appeared to be in a much better mood now; he didn’t hiss at her when she approached him with the food. His tail even swished against the linoleum while he watched her with patient green eyes.
“Wow.” Layla set the saucer down in front of him. “Good boy—”
His claws swiped across her hand. Layla snatched herself away, cradling her hand as the cat calmly bent to eat his food.
“No. That was my last straw.” Layla shook her hand out, hissing as the burning pain faded. She reached for the empty tuna can and dropped it into the kitchen trash bin. “Because of that, you don’t get to lick the can. There go your tuna juices.” Layla crept cautiously around the feeding cat and found her place back on the couch. But not before she picked up the crossword puzzle Jamie had crumpled up earlier. As she leaned back into the cushions, she smoothed out the paper, already eyeing some obvious answers on the page. A smile crept across her face at the thought of Jamie scratching his head over the puzzle. How could such a notoriously vicious gangster be so slow at these things? Layla laughed, but it was soft with affection.
In just a few minutes, Layla finished the crossword.
She purposefully did not answer the last few words correctly, filling the blocks in instead with her own message to Jamie:
Thank you for letting me stay.