But I can’t. “Where is she?”
No one blinks at she instead of it. The second—his name is utterly irrelevant now—names a smaller town to the north. Its only defining feature is a cathedral that the city’s upper crust like to frequent for their wedding ceremonies.
My stomach fills with rocks and they pile up in my throat.
The cathedral.
For a wedding.
Jesus, I’ve been blind.
“Give me the exact location.”
James takes his tablet back, then names the coordinates of the cathedral, the exits off the highway. “We could send people now.”
The church is as corrupt as the police. All of them deal in money and power. If John Lowell wants a wedding tomorrow—or fuck forbid, tonight—then all he has to do is pay the priest. At this hour of the night, the priest may be tired. He may not want to get out of his bed to marry them.
Rushing out of here now will give me away.
It won’t just give me away. It will give everything away. The moment the city knows the value of the women here is the same moment that all of this crumbles and falls. A panicked man cannot be trusted to be discreet. Nothing can ever bother me.
And worse—
It wouldn’t make a difference.
“Lost it.” James curses. “Off a side street. We’re going to have to send someone in person. If any of our men leave—”
“Hades,” says Reya.
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“No, I’m not.” She straightens up in her chair. “He’s closest. It’s morning. They could have the ceremony any time, but I think there’s still a window.”
“A window.”
“Guests.” Another list, next to my palm. “He’ll want witnesses. He’ll want a show.”
A show, because if everyone in the city watches him marry her, then he’ll have one single advantage over me.
It won’t have anything to do with money.
It has to do with reputation.
I have cultivated mine with extreme care over the years. I’ve allowed rumors about bastard children to flare up and burn out. They don’t exist. I’ve allowed rumors about my alleged cruelty to the women, because they will provide the evidence for themselves. Every night, without fail, I appear in the ballroom or the lounge. I am in charge of everything. Nothing happens without my express permission. I’m always here. The whorehouse turns around me. The world, according to these people, turns around me.
Because.
The one thing I have never done is steal.
I have taken deals that were advantageous to me, yes. I have offered places to women who were wanted elsewhere, yes. But I have never stolen a man’s wife.
In the end, that’s what stands between all of the women here, all of the clients, and destruction.
I am the richest man in the city, bar none. That makes me an endangered species. With enough coordination between the rest of them there would be consequences.
All this means that Reya is right, and I hate it. Hate. It burns off a layer of my skin and scorches my gut. Everything. Everything burns. Reya puts a drink in my hand. Whiskey. It chases the same burn, edging it with alcohol, but it does nothing to dull the frustration, which blooms into anger like poison. I get up from my seat and pace toward the fireplace.
Lives are so fragile, aren’t they? All it takes is one whore to bring the whole house down. Years of work, on the verge of being undone. Lives in the balance. Lives and lives and lives.
There is no solution that makes it a good idea for me to abandon my people.
There is no solution that gets me to Brigit faster than Hades.
It’s a cruel calculus.
And no matter how I twist the numbers, the result is always the same.
If I went after her, the entire city would know.
Anger arcs through my shoulder all the way to my palm and even though I am standing in front of other people, even though they can see me, I throw the glass into the fire. It shatters in a twist of flames, the alcohol burning quickest, and it is my single concession to frustration. By the time I turn around again the mask is back on.
“I have guests to get back to,” I announce, and there’s a palpable, tired relief in the room. From everyone except Reya. “I want updates every thirty minutes.” A murmur of assent.
Reya pulls away from the table and hurries to keep up with me. I’ll have my breakfast in the lounge. I’ll supervise the slow bleed from morning to full day.
But first.
Hades waits three rings to answer his phone. “We have nothing to discuss tonight.”
“Oh, but we do.” I stop at the edge of the ballroom and stare out over the ones who have lingered at the end of the night. A few of my women are left, moving slowly around the men who have been pursuing them. The most talented ones can draw out their negotiating process until the sun is up, until it’s too late to do much but entertain for an hour before the rest of the city is open for business. The hive is quiet, but it’s still moving, still alive. Even now, I can’t walk away. “There’s something I need you to retrieve for me.”
3
Brigit
There’s a story about Anne Boleyn I heard during my obsession with the Tudors, around age thirteen. I don’t know if it’s true or not. No one will ever know, because Anne Boleyn is dead, and she can’t tell us. Obviously. The story isn’t much of a story. Only that she thought King Henry might pardon her at the last possible moment. King Henry was an asshole of the first degree and he had a flair for drama. It would have been a grand gesture.
But he didn’t show up.
The makeup artist snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Hey, sweetie, I can’t do your eyes when you’re drooping like that.”
“Oh, sorry.” It’s only when I start to sit up that I realize how far I’ve sagged into the chair. I’m too busy thinking of Anne Boleyn dying at the blade of a French swordsman.
I would choose a French swordsman over my uncle.
In the last twenty-four hours, I watched three men get shot. My own father bundled me into the back of a car. I spent last night in a cheap hotel with a hired gun outside the door.
Today is my wedding day.
With every hour that’s gone by I feel less and less. Feelings are only going to make it worse. I’ve been sick already this morning, and it won’t do me any favors with my uncle if I hurl all over the dress he so thoughtfully paid for.
I wonder how much Anne hoped for Henry to arrive and save her. If it was a bright, all-encompassing hope or dull and tarnished.
I’m dull and tarnished, despite the frankly miracle-level job being done by this makeup artist. I can’t remember her name, but she’s made me look like I’m still alive, though I’m dead inside. Pale. Listless. I’m annoyed that my heart is still beating. I have to live through this—and why? So my father can have his money.
As the makeup artist applies fake eyelashes my mind slips, sliding away like a leaf on a river. The day my mother died her skin felt paper-thin and delicate. Powdery. She was so thin. Cancer had wasted her. It chased her in from her garden, at first to the house and then only to a few rooms and finally her bedroom.
While she died my father paced in the hall, talking on the phone to her brother. Snippets of his conversation drifted in. Access to the trust. You know I’ll do what it takes. Brigit is old enough. I’ll get her to sign the papers. You know I’ll get her to sign the papers. I couldn’t muster up the requisite disgust because she was dying right in front of me, doing the fish out of water breathing that the visiting nurse had talked to me about. Me, and not my father, because he’d been busy watching the news.