I can feel my legs shaking beneath me. I take another step back, until I feel the cool glass door against my back. My hand gropes blindly for the doorknob.

“Come on now, Nessa,” he says, his eyes boring down into mine as he draws closer. “You can’t be completely ignorant of what goes on in your family?”

He knows my name. He sent the man with the black hair to kidnap me—which means that guy works for him, as a soldier. And there’s a hint of an accent to his speech. Subtle, and unusual—nothing I recognize, like French or German. It could be Eastern European. He has that look—the high cheekbones, the fair skin and hair. Russian? No . . .

Four months ago, my family had a run-in with a Polish gangster. Someone called the Butcher. Nobody told me about it, of course. Aida mentioned it later, in passing. Her oldest brother killed him. And that was the end of it.

Or so I thought.

“You work for the Butcher,” I say, my voice coming out in a squeak.

He’s right in front of me now, towering over me. I can almost feel the heat radiating off his skin. The waves of loathing pour out of him as he looks down at me with those furious eyes.

This man hates me. He hates me like I’ve never been hated in my life. I think he could cheerfully peel the flesh off my bones with his fingernails.

“His name was Tymon Zajac,” he spits, each word clipped off as with scissors. “He was my father. And you killed him.”

He means my family killed him.

But in our world, the sins of the family are visited on all who share the same blood.

I find the door handle at last. I scramble to turn it behind my back.

But it’s fixed in place, like a lump of solid metal.

I’m locked in with this beast.

9

Miko

The girl is terrified. She’s shaking so hard that her teeth click together. She scrambles wildly behind her for the door handle. When she finds it at last, she tries to wrench it open to flee out into the back garden. But the door is locked. She’s got nowhere to go, unless she wants to fling herself through solid glass.

I can see her pulse jumping in her throat, below the thin, delicate skin. I can almost taste the adrenaline in her breath. Her fear is like salt on a dish—it only makes this moment more delicious.

I expect her to start crying. This girl obviously has no spine. She’s weak, babyish. The spoiled princess of American royalty. She’ll beg me not to hurt her. And I’ll store each and every plea in my mind, so I can relay them to her family, when I kill them.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. She closes her eyes for a moment, her lips parting as she lets out a long sigh. Then those big green eyes open again, looking right up into my face, wide and frightened, but resolute.

“I didn’t kill your father,” she says. “But I know how people like you think. There’s no reasoning with you. I’m not going to cower and beg—you’d probably just enjoy it. So do what you have to do.”

She lifts her chin, her cheeks flushed pink.

She thinks she’s brave.

She thinks she could stay strong if I wanted to torture her. If I wanted to break her bones, one by one.

I’ve made grown men scream for their mothers.

I can only imagine what I could make her do, given enough time.

Sure enough, as soon as I lift my right hand, she flinches away, scared of a blow to the face.

But I have no intention of hitting her. Not yet.

Instead, I rest my fingertips against that soft pink cheek, lightly dusted with freckles. It takes every ounce of self-control I possess to resist digging my fingers deep into her flesh.

I stroke my thumb across her lips. I can feel them trembling.

“If only it were that easy, my little ballerina,” I tell her.

Her eyes widen, a shiver running all the way down her slim frame. It scares her that I know that much about her. I know what she does and what she loves.

This girl has no idea how easy she is to read. She’s never learned to put up walls, to protect herself. She’s as vulnerable as a bed of tulips. I intend to stomp through her garden, ripping the blossoms from the ground one by one.

“I didn’t bring you here to kill you quickly,” I tell her. “Your suffering will be long and slow. You will be the blade I use to cut your family again and again and again. Only when they’re weak, and desperate, and full of misery, only then will I allow them to die. And you can watch it all, little ballerina. Because this is a tragedy—and the swan princess only perishes in the final act.”

Tears fill her eyes, slipping silently down her cheeks. Her lips tremble with disgust.

She looks at me and she sees a monster out of a nightmare.

And she’s absolutely right.

In the time I worked for Zajac, I did unspeakable things. I’ve blackmailed, stolen, beaten, tortured, and murdered people. I did it all without conscience or remorse.

All that was good inside of me died ten years ago. The last shred of the boy I used to be was tied to Zajac—he was the only family I had left. Now he’s gone, and there’s no humanity inside of me at all. I feel nothing anymore, except need. I need money. Power. And above all, revenge.

There’s no good or bad, no right or wrong. Only my goals, and the things that stand in the way of those goals.

Nessa shakes her head slowly, making the tears flow down all the faster.

“I’m not going to help you hurt the people I love,” she tells me. “No matter what you do to me.”

“You won’t have a choice,” I say, a smile curving the corners of my mouth. “I told you. This is a tragedy—your fate is already set.”

Her body stiffens, and for a moment I see that spark of rebellion flare up in those wide eyes. I think she might pluck up the courage to try to hit me.

But she isn’t quite that foolish.

Instead, she says, “This isn’t fate. You’re just an evil man, trying to play god.”

She lets go of the doorknob and stands up straight, though it brings us even closer together.

“You don’t know what kind of story we’re in, any more than I do,” she says.

I could strangle her right now. That would extinguish the defiance in her eyes. That would show her that whatever sort of story this may be, it isn’t one with a happy ending.

But then I’d deny myself the bitter pleasures I’ve been waiting for all these months.

So instead I say, “If you’re so determined to write the narrative, why don’t you tell me who I should kill first? Your mother? Your father? What about Aida Gallo? After all, it’s her brother who shot Tymon . . .”

With each family member I name, her body jerks like I’ve hit her. I think I know the one that will hurt her most . . .

“Or what about the new Alderman?” I say. “That’s where the conflict started—with your big brother Callum. He thought he was too good to work with us. Now he’s got a nice office at City Hall. It’s so easy to find him there. Or I could just go to his apartment on Erie Street . . .”

“No!” Nessa cries, unable to stop herself.

God, this is too easy. It’s barely any fun at all.

“Here are the rules, for the present,” I tell her. “If you try to escape, I’ll punish you. If you try to hurt yourself, I’ll punish you. If you refuse any of my orders . . .well, you get the idea. Now quit your sniveling and get back to your room.”