Page 56 of Dance with the Devil

This last month, my nightmares all include Genevieve simply disappearing. Like,poof, she’s gone, and I have to resist the urge to ball up my fist and plow it into the first hard surface I see whenever I think of her ceasing to exist.

So long as she survives, I could give a fuck what happens to me. I thought that in the cell we were trapped in, and it means even more to me now.

She’s up there, and though I expect to be run off before I can really get comfortable, this might be the best opportunity I have to just sit on the seat of my bike and know this is as close to her as I can get.

Once a month, the head of the Sinners Syndicate and the Libellula Family meet up with the mayor of Springfield to make sure that the guns keep selling, the drugs keep flowing, and that the SPD know what side of their ridiculous—and clearly crooked—thin blue line they need to stay on. Genevieve’s brother won’t be home for a while. Devil will find a way to leave the meet early so he can return to his wife and newborn, but Rolls usually goes to those dinners, too. So does Genevieve’s cousin, the big guy who acts as Damien’s bodyguard. Vincent. He’s the one who threatened to snap my neck for breaking his Genny’s heart, and I almost let him becausefuck. She doesn’t understand that I’m hurting just as much. Even more, most likely.

But I deserve the pain. She doesn’t. And I only hope that, the longer we’re apart, the easier it is for her to forget me.

To forget those weeks in the cage.

To forget what I did to her…

Leaning forward on my handlebars, I get comfortable. My gaze is locked on the gauzy yellow light streaming from behind the curtains on her windows. I’ve never been inside, but she’s told me how the entire third floor is hers. She’s up there. That’s all that matters to me. The lights are on, she’s home, and I’m more at peace on my bike, watching her window from a distance, than I would be, tossing and turning and by myself in my bed.

I lose track of how long I’m staring up there; when no one comes out straight away to tell me to get lost, I figure I found a good spot to keep watch over her. Eventually, Libellula will return and I’ll have to head back to the West Side, but for now, I’m content to just spend the rest of the night out here where I am.

And that’s when, suddenly, the back door pushes open and a feminine figure steps out onto the porch.

I jolt up, attention snared so quickly, you’d think I was a fish caught on the line.

Genevieve—

My heart skips a beat, then sinks just as quickly. No. That’s not my butterfly. The woman heading down the porch stairs has dark hair, not golden blonde, and while she moves with a purposeful step, it’s nothing like the innate gracefulness that first drew me toward Genevieve.

I can’t make out her features, but it’s clear enough that she’s not my girl. Since the only other people who live in the manor are the cook and the housekeeper—both older women—and Damien’s wife, Savannah, I’m assuming that must be her.

She sees me. I know she does. I also know now that she’s almost as dangerous as Damien Libellula himself. She’s a Dragonfly enforcer, and if she decided to take me out, I haveno doubt that she could—or that it would please her brutal husband.

Only she doesn’t. Instead, turning slightly and tilting her head back as though she’s searching for the same window that I was, Savannah notices the light on in Genevieve’s room—and the freshly trimmed tree that means she can no longer sneak out like she’d been doing before we were caught by Winter’s men.

I noticed that my first night I rode by the manor. Even if Genevievewantedto see me again, her previous way out was cut down. Add that to the countless new cameras put up on Libellula’s personal territory and he wasn’t taking any chances of his baby sister sneaking out again.

Would she, I wonder. If I hadn’t made it impossible for her to reach me—if I’d told Libellula to shove it, and been selfish enough to claim my butterfly as my own even though I would only hurt her in the end—would she come to me? Or did I lose her before she was ever really mine?

I don’t know, but after Savannah pointedly lowers her gaze, turns again, stares at me for a few seconds, then walks back inside of the manor, I spend the next couple of hours obsessing overthatnext…

TWENTY

MATCHMAKER

GENEVIEVE

Itry not to remember the first time I met Savannah because, well, that would involve reliving the moment I burst into Damien’s bedroom without knocking, expecting to find him organizing the million suits he has in his closets but actually getting a front row seat to him getting his knob polished.

Like, I knew he had sex. As much as he tried to hide it from me in some ‘noble’ sense of protecting my innocence, my older brother is an objectively handsome man with a shit ton of money and power. I never bothered him with it, but all through high school, then later when I was part of Madame Durand’s company, so many of the girls tried to get close to me because they had eyes on the prize: becoming Mrs. Libellula.

Is it any wonder that I stuck close to Christopher, who while definitely attracted to men, never made a move on Damien? That alone made him a keeper, plus how loyal he was to me at the same time as he was there to temper some of my more irrepressible urges. I would’ve gotten into so much more trouble as a kid if it wasn’t for Christopher, and even as adults, he always looked out for me.

Did I suspect Damien put him up to it? Duh. I’m not a moron. From the moment Christopher joined the Family as Damien’s personal assistant, I knew that keeping tabs on me would be one of his duties.

But I also knew that, unless I was in danger, I could trust him. For years, Christopher allowed me to have at least some semblance of a normal life, and I’m so grateful for him. I’m even more grateful when Savannah told me that Christopher was the one who alerted both her and Damien to the fact that I was missing.

He knew I’d gone to see Cross the day we were taken. It was inevitable that he’d think that Cross had something to do with my disappearance, especially when he turned up gone, too. That’s why it took a week before their focus shifting on blaming him to thinking that maybe we were taken together.

Once Cross came up gone, Devil got involved. If there’s one semi-decent thing that came out of this whole disaster, it’s that the truce between the Sinners Syndicate and the Libellula family has never been more rock-solid. If Winter wanted to further his twin’s cause of taking over Springfield, he royally screwed up there. Banding together to bring me and Cross home safe made the two mafias unbeatable.

Devil had his tech guru, Tanner, figuring out where we’d been hidden. I’m still hazy on the detailshowexactly, but when I asked Savannah, she told me that it’s better not to ask about his skills and just be grateful he uses them for us instead of against us. Luca went in first because, as part of the criminal scene in Hamilton before he fled for Springfield, he had an in. I still think Winter knew he was letting in a spy, but since that fuckers gone ghost since we left his facility, there’s no way to know about that, either.

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