Sinful Empire Read online

All I feel is sharp pain before everything goes black.

  Mount

  The casino floor is partially cleared when I arrive, but not completely. It’ll be done before the cops get there, though, and I’ll be waiting to have a discussion that shouldn’t be necessary. By the time they leave, there will be no question that this city still belongs to me.

  I text V.

  Mount: You have her?

  V: Not yet. On my way.

  Mount: Tell me when you have her.

  V: Will do.

  I help haul away tables, filling truck after truck that will leave the city in different directions, until sweat drips down my collar.

  V hasn’t texted me back yet, and it’s been almost forty minutes. Something doesn’t feel right.

  Mount: You have her?

  V: She’s not here. I’ve been looking. Can’t find her.

  I’ve lived my life on gut instinct, and I should have listened to it. Something is totally off.

  Mount: FIND HER NOW.

  My next call is to J. “Did we miss anyone? Anyone at all?” I don’t have to specify what I’m talking about.

  “No, boss. We got them all. Every single fucking one.”

  “Are you absolutely certain? Because if you’re wrong—”

  “I’m not wrong. What the hell is going on?”

  “V can’t find Keira at the distillery. Something’s not right.”

  “V couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag. It’s a big building. He’s probably lost himself.”

  J’s dismissive tone pisses me right the fuck off, and I don’t bother responding. I hang up.

  Keira

  I wake up, my hands bound behind my back. A horrid stench fills my nostrils.

  “Oh God. What is that?”

  “Fucking bitch. You just won’t die, will you?”

  My eyes snap open, focusing on the beam of a flashlight and the blond woman standing just beyond it, her hair almost white in the moonlight. I’ve never seen her before in my life.

  “Who the hell are you?” I choke out the words as the nasty smell threatens to bring up everything I ate tonight.

  “I’m the only one who understands him. I’m the one who gets to be with him. I’m his destiny.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I struggle to sit up, but my hand touches something that crunches and crumbles beneath it.

  I take my eyes off her for one second to look down at what else the flashlight beam has illuminated.

  “Oh my God.” I’m lying on top of a pile of bodies. Skeletons. Decomposing corpses. All wearing women’s clothes.

  Moonlight sneaks through cracks in the ceiling, revealing that I’m in a mausoleum.

  No. No, this is not happening. I’m having a nightmare.

  Bile rises in my throat as she raises the barrel of a gun in my direction.

  “When you want something done right, you always have to do it yourself.”

  She pulls the trigger just as I try to push up and scramble back. The bullet punches through my shoulder with a searing, burning stab of pain, its impact stealing my breath as I fall sideways onto something softer.

  The flashlight beam bounces as she turns to leave, but before she shuts the door, the light lands on a face inches from mine.

  Magnolia’s face.

  Oh God. No.

  “What the fuck did you do, you crazy bitch?” I scream.

  “You’re the crazy bitch. He was mine first, and he’ll always be mine. That was your mistake. You won’t make it again. None of you get a second chance,” the woman says as the last sliver of light disappears, leaving me shot and bleeding next to my best friend.

  “Help!” I scream until my voice grows weak and everything goes black again.

  Mount

  “Where the fuck are you?” I ask J. “The cops haven’t shown up. Who the fuck gave that tip? Because if that was bullshit, someone’s head will roll.”

  “He’s a reliable source. I’m on my way. Be there in five, boss.”

  V still can’t find Keira. Temperance’s car is gone. J is on the way, and I’m losing my fucking mind.

  The necklace. Her GPS tracker. Keira still has it on.

  I pull up the app and wait for it to load for what seems like a million years.

  No signal. I forgot that here on the casino floor, we’ve blocked all wireless and internet access.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  I rush out of the casino and through the hallways to my office. Once there, I attempt to get the app to load on my phone and bring up my computer screens at the same time. When I finally get it to load on my desktop, J enters my office.

  “This doesn’t make any fucking sense,” I whisper. The location is one I know, a place I visit at least twice a year. It has to be wrong.

  “Did V find her, boss?”

  “No. V didn’t fucking find her. I just did, and I need you to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  I look up at J’s face, her pale blond hair tumbling down around her shoulders rather than up in the tight bun she normally wears.

  “Calm down, Mikey. It’s gonna be fine.”

  “Don’t you fucking call me that. You know better, J.”

  Seventeen years earlier

  My pager vibrated with a number I recognized all too well, followed by the digits 911.

  Fuck, what the hell kind of trouble had Hope gotten herself into now? I knew she struggled. We all fucking struggled because of the shit we’d been through.

  The day Hope Jones had walked up the steps to the foster home from hell, I’d known nothing would ever be the same. It was a gut thing.

  The first man I’d ever fucking killed was that piece of shit, Jerry, who had his dick out, ready to rape a fourteen-year-old girl. I’d hoped getting her out of that house before he could touch her would put her on a better path, and it did—for a while.

  Those years I spent on the streets, there wasn’t much I could do except watch to make sure Hope and Destiny didn’t leave their new home bruised or looking the worse for wear. I watched over them both the best I could. When Morello brought me into the organization, he owned my life. Eventually, I gained a little more power, and I used that power to make sure Hope graduated from high school and was able to get custody of Destiny.

  I’d paid their bills for years, and not just because Hope hadn’t gotten a degree yet. I felt responsible for them. You didn’t watch out for two people for this long and just forget about them.

  At least, I didn’t.

  Maybe that was the problem. I should have made Hope take on more responsibility for her own damn life. She’d been trying college for years and still didn’t have a diploma to show for it, but I didn’t make her get a full-time job instead.

  Mostly because I wanted her around for Destiny. Hope might not be the best example, but she was a hell of a lot better than anything I had growing up.

  Plus, Destiny was smart as hell, and she had a future that both Hope and I wanted to protect.

  I left my office, the same office where I ended Morello’s life for touching another girl the way Jerry dared touch Hope, with brass knuckles and a Zippo lighter in one pocket, a switchblade in the other, and twin .45s strapped under my suit coat. I didn’t bring a fucking knife to a gunfight anymore.

  Hell, I didn’t even have to go to the gunfight anymore. But this wasn’t something I was willing to delegate. Hope and Destiny had always been personal.

  It only took me ten minutes to get to the house I’d bought for Hope. Inside, dishes shattered and a man yelled.

  Destiny was cowering outside under the front steps, rocking back and forth. She was almost eighteen, but curled up and terrified, she reminded me of the five-year-old I first knew.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know. He’s . . . he’s really pissed. Hope woke him up by accident, and he started going off. She got between us, and I ran. I can’t hear her anymore, Mikey. I’m scared.” Destiny sniffled back tears.
“Why can’t I hear her?”

  I was already taking the steps two at a time, too focused on the situation to tell her not to fucking call me by that name. Michael Arch died when he was thirteen.

  I burst through the front door, my gun drawn and sweeping the room.

  I wasn’t the only one with a gun in this house, though. A man stood behind the kitchen island, tossing plate after plate onto the floor as a revolver hung from his right hand.

  “Stupid fucking bitch. You know better than to make noise when I’m sleeping.” He threw another plate.

  Destiny was right. I couldn’t hear Hope, and I wasn’t going to fire a shot until I knew where she was, even though all I wanted to do was put a bullet in that fucker’s head for scaring the hell out of Destiny.

  “Turn the fuck around, asshole.”

  He swung drunkenly around, his ancient-looking revolver coming up as he pointed it at me sideways, gangster-style. Fucking idiot.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Where the hell is Hope?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  He lifted his other hand and cocked the hammer, which was when I noticed something dark dripping from the pistol’s grip.

  Blood. I’d seen enough in my life to recognize it easily.

  “Put that gun down, right the fuck now, or I won’t shoot you. I’ll fucking skin you alive while you scream for mercy.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like that. You’re worse than that mouthy bitch, but I shut her up just fine.”

  I moved toward him, the scent of sour sweat, body odor, and booze getting stronger with each step.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’—”

  I pulled the trigger on my .45 before he could finish his sentence, and he screamed as the revolver fell from the dangling, mangled appendage that used to be his hand. The gun landed on the floor and discharged. Fucking hell. That shouldn’t be possible.

  “You fuckin’ shot me!” He waved around the remains of his hand as blood spurted wildly, and then his gaze dropped to the floor. “And her!”

  My heart, the black hunk of coal in my chest, stopped beating for a second.

  “What?”

  I dashed around the counter and found Hope’s prone body on the linoleum, curled up in a defensive position like he’d been kicking the shit out of her. Shattered glass from the plates covered the floor, and blood dripped from little cuts on her arms and legs. But that wasn’t all.

  Destiny charged into the house, a baseball bat in her hands. A fucking Louisville Slugger. It wasn’t the same one I’d used, but it was still all too similar to my first murder weapon.

  “Don’t let him hurt her again!” she screamed from the doorway, ready to come to her older sister’s defense.

  I didn’t know if my presence gave her the courage, or if she’d had to do this before. The word again slammed into my brain as my gaze locked on the massive hole in Hope’s chest, and her blood-soaked hair where it looked like he’d pistol-whipped her. Both wounds oozed puddles around her body. Her chest didn’t move.

  “You fucked with the wrong women, asshole.”

  I fired, blowing off most of his other hand, and Destiny sprinted for the kitchen. I caught her around the waist, trying to stop her from seeing what I saw.

  Her sister’s dead body.

  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Hope was gone.

  The only thing I didn’t know was who killed her—the piece of shit writhing on the floor next to her, two pulpy stumps at the ends of his arms, or me because I shot the pistol out of his hand.

  The possibility twisted my stomach.

  I’m so fucking sorry, Hope.

  My attention split, I underestimated how flexible Destiny was and she slipped out of my arms.

  “No, Desi!” I grabbed her just as her bare foot landed on a shard of glass. I scooped her up into my arms and turned her face against my chest.

  “Let me go!”

  “No. You don’t need to see that.”

  “But Hope—”

  “Hope is dead, Desi. I’m so fucking sorry.” My voice was hoarse with more emotion than it had held in years.

  “No!” She screamed as I carried her out of the house, her tears soaking my shirt. The screams turned into heartbreaking sobs. “Please. No. No. No.”

  Destiny was all but limp when I got to the car. When I sat her down in the front seat, she sprang into action again, clawing me, trying to get back to the house and Hope.

  I gripped her skinny shoulders and shook her to get her attention. “You’re not going back in there. Understand me?”

  “Mikey—”

  “Mount,” I said, correcting her out of habit because she couldn’t seem to forget the past. Well, fuck, neither of us were going to forget today.

  “Hope . . .”

  I met Destiny’s tear-filled gaze. “Pull it together, Desi. Right now. Hope is gone.”

  “She can’t be dead.” Destiny’s voice was filled with such heartbreak, what was left of my own heart cracked along with it. She sniffled and wrapped both arms around her legs, curling up into a ball in the front seat, rocking back and forth.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, but she is. You’re not, though, and we’re getting you the hell out of here. I’m gonna take care of you, just like I always have, Desi. You understand me?”

  Destiny’s head bobbed as she rocked. Her tears stopped falling as she bit her lip and nodded. It showed incredible fortitude for a teenager to switch off her emotions so quickly.

  “Please don’t leave her in there with him,” she begged me. “Please don’t.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving her behind. I’d never leave her behind. Can you be strong for me?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Please, just get her.”

  “Breathe, Desi.”

  She nodded again, still rocking, but hauled in a deep breath.

  I shut the door and headed first to the shed next to the house. It took me all of thirty seconds to find a can of gasoline. I ran inside and up the stairs, then poured it on every flammable surface except the bedroom quilt. That I tore off the bed before I ran downstairs and carefully wrapped Hope’s body in it.

  The piece of shit beside her had already lost consciousness. I’d never know what truly happened before I got here, but it didn’t matter now.

  I grabbed the Zippo in my pocket, then lifted Hope into my arms and headed for the door. Before it slammed shut behind me, I flipped open the lighter and struck it. When I tossed it onto the living room floor, the gasoline ignited. I strode toward the car, heat from the fire on my back, and Destiny’s stricken face staring at me through the window.

  Hefting Hope’s body higher, I opened the back door and laid her inside across the seat. “Don’t you fucking look back there, Desi.”

  She jerked her gaze forward as I shut Hope inside. I flung open the driver’s side, dropped into the seat, and turned the key.

  “You’re not going to fucking LSU anymore, Desi. You’re getting a hell of a lot further out of this town.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance as I burned rubber on the cracked pavement, leaving the burning house behind.

  Destiny sniffled, reining in her grief the same way I shut down mine. “I want to stay with you.”

  I didn’t look at her as I blew through a stop sign. “No. Not an option. Pick any college you want, and you’ll get in. But you’re not staying here. I want you as far away from me as possible.”

  We were almost back to the Quarter when Destiny finally spoke again.

  “I heard MIT has a really good computer-science program.”

  I turned to look at her. Resilient as fuck. Another flower growing between the sidewalk cracks. “Then MIT it is.”

  We never talked about Hope again. Before I shipped Destiny off to MIT, I tried to bring up her sister, but Destiny shut down completely, like a broken toy.

  I never told Destiny that I buried Hope in a mausoleum outside of town, and made sure she al
ways had fresh flowers on the anniversary of her death and on her birthday.

  I also never told Destiny that I hadn’t forgiven myself for what happened that day. For not protecting them better. For not getting there sooner. For not knowing whether I killed Hope.

  Instead, I focused on the future, making sure Destiny’s was settled. That was all I could do.

  Keira

  Present day

  I fight through the darkness and open my eyes. Pain radiates throughout my entire body, and it’s a hell of a lot worse than after the car accident.

  The only light in the crypt comes from the full moon sneaking through the cracks in the mortar in one upper corner. It’s not enough to see the horror of what’s around me, but I can smell it.

  “Mags?” My voice breaks in a whisper as I steel myself against the pain and reach out to touch her. “Mags, you can’t be dead. Please.”

  Our last words were spoken in anger, and I can’t live with that.

  If I get to live.

  Fearful of what my fingertips will encounter, I skim them along the silk of her kimono until I hit the skin of her neck.

  She’s still warm.

  “Mags!” I scream her name this time, but get no response.

  I don’t know how long it takes a body to cool after the life has drained from it, but I refuse to believe that’s what’s happening here.

  “You can’t be dead, Magnolia Marie. I refuse to believe it.”

  My left shoulder pulses with each heartbeat, telling me blood is pumping out of my body. I have to stop the bleeding, but first, I need to know if Magnolia is dead.

  I find her carotid artery and close my eyes, blocking out my own pain as I pray to God to find a sign of life.

  At first, I feel nothing. But then . . . There it is. Thready. That’s the word they use on those ER shows, right? She’s not dead.

  “Mags! Wake the fuck up!” I reach out to touch her face, wishing she would answer me, but she doesn’t.

  I’m in a silent tomb, surrounded by the bodies of who I have to believe are the missing mistresses. Maybe even Richelle LaFleur.