Page 23 of The Sinners Gambit

I softly tiptoe to her bedroom, wanting to scare her awake with a grin on my face. When I get there though, my grin turns into a frown—her bed’s made. That’s weird.

Maybe she’s getting ready?I head to the bathroom, but the door is wide open with no one inside. “Mom!” I scream out, but there’s no response. That’s when I notice how quiet the house is. My heart starts beating out of my chest at this point. I start wildly searching from one room to the next, screaming, “Mommy!”

She’s not here.Where could she be?I pause to look at the clock. In bright red numbers it says 9:17 AM. Something must have happened, she’d never leave me alone like this. With tears running down my cheeks, I run to the front door so I can go talk to the neighbor. This has to be an emergency.

When I open the door, I find a police officer—hand in mid-air as if he was about to knock. He has a sad smile on his face as he looks down at me. “Hi, sweetie. Is your dad home?” he asks.

“I don’t have a dad,” I say, choking back tears. “Where’s my mom?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says.

Our neighbor opens the door at that moment. “Naomi? What’s going on?” she asks.

I shove past the officer and cling to her waist. “Where’s my mom, Becca? I lost my mom. Or maybe Mom got lost?” She puts her hand around my back to comfort me. Turning to look at the officers, but refusing to let go of her, I ask, “Can you help find my mom?”

A female officer comes toward me and kneels to be the same height as me. “Naomi, I’m sorry, but your mom’s not coming.”

“No! No! No! Where is she!?” I start screaming and sobbing.

Becca’s hand goes to cover her mouth as she chokes back tears. “What happened?”

“I’m the social worker. We can only share with the next of kin,” the woman wearing normal clothes next to the officers says.

“She has no other family, it’s . . . it was just her mother,” Becca says as she continues to rub my back.

Someone starts to whisper to Becca, “Some hikers found her this morning—”

Everything fades to black as my world shatters into a million pieces.

It took me years to find out the details of what happened, and even longer to figure out who did it. While the police tried their best, they were overworked and couldn’t allocate the manpower to look into it long term. They tried for months because the female officer took a liking to me. The only evidence found was a bloodied handkerchief with an M stitched on it. We thought we had something, hoping my mom made her assailant bleed. Sadly, the DNA match was for her. The last time I saw that officer was when she gave me my mom’s necklace, which I’ve never taken off since. It’s a simple heart locket with a picture of both of us inside.

The Adams family took me in and gave me a home in Long Island, but it was miles from where I grew up. My mother and I lived above the crazy hustle and bustle of New York City in a small, slightly rundown apartment. I appreciate everything they did for me, even though I was a nightmare to them when I first got to their home. They put me in therapy and paid for all the best schools. I got my act together, not for me but for my mom. She would want better for me.

But I don’t think she’d like who I turned into—a killer. I had to be as ruthless as I could be to find who hurt her and bring justice once and for all. Quinnly’s grandfather asked us when I was twenty-seven and she was twenty-six if we wanted to join the Mortes Ostium. He knew how hard I worked to find my mother’s killer, and he thought being part of it could help. Paps wasn’t wrong, because a year after being nominated I started piecing it all together. That’s why I said yes and joined. But a structured society with rules was not Quinnly’s vibe. She said no so she’d be able to do whatever she wanted.

“Why do you think Paps waited so long to ask us, Quinn?”

Quinnly shrugs her shoulders as she continues to stare into her closet, picking out what to wear to the New Year’s Eve party. “Maybe he didn’t think we were ready yet.”

The door creaks open. “Actually, I did.”

“Paps!” we both shout, startled.

“Naomi, my sweet child, you lost so much of your childhood in loss and grief. I wanted some of your young adulthood to be more normal.”

“That wasn’t your choi—” I start to say, but see the pure love and thoughtfulness in his eyes.

“I sure enjoyed it,” Quinnly says as she finally picks a handful of outfits to try on from her closet.

I roll my eyes smiling. “So did I. Thanks, Paps.”

Paps smiles at me warmly. “And now you can take some time to find your answers. Both are important, Naomi. The truth of those old mysteries, but also the need to live for your present. Never forget that.”

Whoever killed my mother used the Society to bury the crime. But piece by piece it started to point in the direction of the Morel family, and finally Killian. The DNA was never my mother’s, but a cover-up. The Society was able to give me DNA evidence from the crime because it was a kill used to qualify for an invitation to the Mortes Ostium Ball. I was surprised they gave me the evidence, considering it was one of our own. But, I used one of the three unconditional requests I am able to make of the Mortes Ostium after initiation, so they didn’t have much choice. For my mother, I would’ve bargained away all three.

Before I wasn’t even a blip on Killian’s radar, I was the one stalking him—with the help of Quinnly of course. We stalked him in every way we could and quickly realized that he’s smarter than he seems. To the world, he’s a playboy rich kid who got handed everything in life. But none of that’s true. While he does sleep around and indulge in some vices, he earned everything he has by building his family's tech company back from nothing after his parents' passing. His uncle never had the right mindset for business and let the whole thing crumble.

Even though he’s at the top of his game, it became clear that he’s lonely. That’s when Quinnly knew that we had to use me as bait. He needed someone to share all of it. We concocted the plan, but it needed to look like he found me and not the other way around. In the process of trying to figure out what he likes, I realized he’s so similar to the side of me I always hide from the world, my darker side. Killian intrigued me because even from afar I could tell there was more to him than meets the eye.

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