Vipers and Virtuosos (Monsters & Muses, #2)(32)

Nothing like adding social pariah to a résumé, right before you’re supposed to go off to college.

Boyd doesn’t approve of the idea at first, mainly because he works and thinks I need a babysitter, but eventually Fiona gets him to relent, and soon I’m spending my weeks learning AP chemistry and forensics online and fine-tuning my web design skills.

Some days, it’s easier than others to push the thoughts of Aiden from my mind.

But the guilt never ceases.

Unfortunately, my brother has set up some kind of protective firewall, so even if I wanted to contact anyone in Aiden’s life who could reach him, I can’t. At least, not electronically, and I have no clue where I’d even send a letter.

But that doesn’t keep people from contacting me.

It’s not long before an envelope shows up on my doorstep, the contents inside making me vomit into the kitchen sink.

More photographs of me and Aiden traipsing around New York—even though he’s got that disguise on, and I’m in those oversized sweats, I can tell it’s us. At the dry cleaners, again in the park, and finally in the tattoo shop.

They’re intimate pictures; ones that had to have been taken from a close vantage point.

Still, they aren’t the most unsettling thing in the envelope.

Evidence of my entire existence—my birth certificate, vaccination records, and itemized lists of every class and extracurricular I’ve taken, every website I’ve ever visited, my exact locations in New York City. They all fall out with the pictures and a note that only says “We know who you are.”

Tension notches against my sternum, permanently etching itself into my skeleton. I stuff the contents in the bottom of my dresser drawer, heart beating so hard that I’m afraid it might bust through my rib cage and splatter all over the floor.

Would serve me right.

I sit on the envelope for a few days in silence, trying to figure out what to do. If I tell Boyd, he’ll undoubtedly start a war with the James family, and feuds like that have a history of ending poorly.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe the James family would send such a cryptic piece of mail without having contacted me another way, or even trying to get me to confess.

Which means… maybe the envelope isn’t from Aiden’s people at all.

Maybe my mother’s ghost is haunting me in a new way, and the people from her past life are starting to catch up with me.

Not wanting to alarm Boyd, I set out with a plan—unsure of what I want the outcome to be, but positive in my convictions not to involve my brother.

The less he knows, the less he can be convicted of later.

I just want to put an end to all of this, and as I spend the next weeks living in fear, constantly looking over my shoulder, I realize there’s only one thing to do.

Blackmail is something of a trade in the town we live in; at one point, just about everyone in King’s Trace has fallen victim to extortion of some degree, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world when I finally dip my toes into that realm.

There’s exactly one man I trust—outside of my brother. I haven’t seen him since he saved my life after the attack, but I know without a doubt he’ll be able to help me.

However, he’s not a man you can approach and just ask a favor.

You have to force his hand.





15





My knee bounces, intermittently colliding with the underside of Boyd’s oak desk.

The air in his office is suffocating, though part of me thinks that has more to do with why I’m here than anything else.

It could also be the fact that, for the first time, I’m in public without a shred of makeup on, the scars on my face painfully visible. It’s supposed to add a layer of vulnerability, but all it really makes me want to do is hide inside myself.

On the computer monitor, I watch Boyd and Fiona exit Ivers International; they get into his car and head to lunch downtown, leaving me alone in the building.

It’s a Saturday, so the only one working is my brother, giving me the perfect opportunity to continue my plan unimpeded.

Weeks have passed, silence from the sender of the envelope making me nervous. I’m still not sure what’s going on, exactly—only that I need to act before the other shoe drops.

Wiping my palms on my jeans, I let the denim material absorb my perspiration.

Minutes later, a tall, slender figure approaches the front doors; I hit the code on Boyd’s computer, disabling the alarm system and unlocking the building, and the man enters quickly.

Dressed in a trench coat with the collar pulled up around his neck, and a black hat too warm for spring, he crosses the downstairs lobby to the elevators, slipping inside like a shadow.

My stomach tightens, nerves bundling together like that might keep them safe.

Tremors rack through me as I wait, somehow feeling like prey, even though the man in question has no idea what he’s about to walk in on.

At least, that’s the hope. Somehow, I’ve managed to evade his identification over the last few weeks, my anonymity paramount to dragging him from whatever depths of hell a man like him lives in.

Alarm bells ring in my ears as the door handle turns, and for a second, I consider diving beneath the desk and hiding. Throwing away all my hard work because of my anxiety.

I shouldn’t be fucking with a man nicknamed Doctor Death. Definitely shouldn’t be interfering with his recent marriage, especially since rumor has it that he’s willing to kill for his wife.