Page 73 of This Ravenous Fate
“I’m a Saint,” Elise whispered.
Her father sighed and dropped her chin. “Unless I ask you to perform, you are not allowed to play anymore. You’re not good enough anyway, seeing as how the Paris Conservatory doesn’t miss you. I might reconsider if you bring the Harlem reapers to their knees for their crimes against this city. But if you really cannot do this, please tell me. I will send you back to France and have Josi come home. She’s always been a much better listener than you. I’d rather have heraround, even if she’s too young to contribute to the business now. At least she’s worth something.”
“No, please,” Elise cried.
His scowl deepened at the sight of her tears. “Since you’re already working with Quinn, I want you to present the cure to the reapers with Stephen. I want that girl eating right out of the palm of your hand when you turn your gun on her.” Mr. Saint stood, smoothing the wrinkles in his suit. He smiled at her. The anger suddenly vanished from his face, and the smile replaced it all with light. “Saints show no mercy. Make me proud.”
As soon as the door shut behind him, Elise folded into herself and sobbed.
31
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, misledperformance, 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 evenhuman, 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 guessdogs?” 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… Intelligenceisquantified. What do you think IQ tests are?”
