Page 25 of This Ravenous Fate
The older reaper didn’t even look up from the set of cards she shuffled as Layla sat in the chair across from her. “Mei—”
“I’m busy,” Mei said flatly.
Layla cocked her head to one side. “Unless you’re playing solitaire, which I guess is a valid excuse to be busy with, I’m sure you can speak to me. Are you playing solitaire?” Layla asked.
Mei dropped the cards and glared at Layla. “What do you want? In case you haven’t noticed, everyone has been talking about you, wondering why you would do such a stupid thing to put the Harlem reapers under police scrutiny.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Layla spat. “You just took down an entire gang. And even worse, you ruined my bed while doing it. I didn’t tell anyone about that, yet here you are, trying tomake my business into a bigger problem than it actually is—”
“I’m not targeting you. I’m prioritizing my safety because the police and the Saints—theSaints, Layla, who regularly wipe out our kind—are watching us even closer. It’s beyond just unspoken rules and mutual agreements now. They’ve threatened to destroy our lair.” There was truth to Mei’s words, but Layla had difficulty processing them. She couldn’t say she wasn’t at fault because she had been at the crime scene and she could not remember any of it. There was no way to extract truth from a story she didn’t have.
Layla scoffed, venom spilling into her veins. “You’re really freezing me out after I covered for your mess with the Diamond Dealers?”
“You were a part of that too,” Mei said. Her eyes, already dark and distant, looked away.
A bitter hiss left Layla as she nodded slowly. “So you think I just snapped one night and said to hell with every moral code we have here?”
“You’re a reaper. Just because you hate it does not make you any better than the things you do because of it.” Mei’s voice was cold and absolute. Just like the half-life full of blood and damnation Layla had been forced into since becoming a reaper.
Rage suddenly bubbled to the surface and spilled over, shaking her hands and hardening her voice. “Fuck you,” Layla hissed.
“You need to get over your strange complex, Quinn,” Mei said.
But Layla was already gone. She stormed out of the hotel lobby and into her bedroom.
More than anything now, Layla wanted the burden of her reaperhood gone. She was sick of having a reputation follow her justbecause of what she was, rather thanwhoshe was.
The envy she’d felt looking at Theo’s body, somehow turned human, strained her senses now. It was all she wanted, her human life back. When times were simpler, when she still had people to love and who loved her back, when sheloved her life. To be human again, in death or in life, Layla was scared she would damn every shade of morality to return to that state.
And there was only one person she knew who had a path to that end.
***
Shadows shrouded the sitting room when Elise walked in. Her father stood, leaning against the fireplace mantel, unmoving even when Elise muttered a goodbye to Sterling at the door.
“Hey.” Sterling grabbed her hand before she could turn away from him. “Don’t be nervous. He trusts you. You are the future of this empire, and he knows it,” he said softly.
Elise chewed her lip. “Right.” She didn’t believe him, but the words felt good to hear. She squeezed his hand as he left the room, then turned to her father, exhaling heavily. “Father.”
Mr. Saint did not face her. “Yes, Elise.”
“Layla signed the agreement. I’m not sure how much the police have told you, but there seem to be discrepancies—”
“Any news?” Mr. Saint interjected.
Elise blinked. “Well. Layla is certain it’s not just a reaperproblem—”
“I implore you, Elise, to focus on our mission as an empire. You cannot forget what reapers have done to our family. To this world.” Mr. Saint finally turned away from the mantel and in his hands he had the box with Charlotte’s gun. His voice went hard, “Don’t tell me a few years in France has made you forget.”
Tears filled Elise’s eyes and she swallowed hard, but could not breathe past the lump in her throat. “Of course not—”
“Look at me,” her father said sharply. Elise complied. The stark pain in his dark eyes pierced her heart and she had to look away again, settling right on the gun, the last thing she had to remember her older sister by. “You’ve only just stepped into this role, yet you’ve already become sidetracked, tempted by the reapers’ contagious allure for sin…”
The memories came rushing back to her. In an instant, she was back at the 148th Street brownstone, fingers clamped around her older sister’s wrist so hard, she was sure her skin would bruise. There was so much blood, Elise couldn’t even see the natural color of the wood floor beneath Charlotte’s body. Her slick fingers slipped over the syringe as she positioned the needle containing Mrs. Gray’s antidote over her sister’s limp arm.
The only thing Elise could see through her tears was the glint of Charlotte’s revolver in the faint moonlight streaming through the window. Even when she stabbed the needle into her sister’s flesh and prayed for a miracle, all Elise could focus on was the blood.
A gentle hand touched her cheek, and Elise jerked, tremblingwith fear. She blinked and stared up at her father. Satisfaction had replaced the pain in his eyes, but Elise could not stamp out the memory of her sister’s screams, no matter how hard she tried to ground herself in the present. Her fingers curled around her father’s hand and he held her back, thumb stroking over the pounding pulse in her wrist. “No reaper, not even ones we used to be close to, are to be trusted. Ever. Am I understood?” Mr. Saint asked gently.
