Page 92 of Sins and Secrets

Standing in the parking lot are a few men in suits, talking in a circle. I know all of them, some more than others. The FBI agent is a friend of Alana’s, someone she’s known since high school.

The service is fast. As the casket is lowered into the ground, Angie’s mother sobs. Her father is standing next to her. Dirt is thrown on the casket and flowers are dropped in.

Despite what Angie and her parents might think, this wasn’t retaliation for missing a few payments. I’ve been too busy with the hotel to even keep track of their payments. When I made the claim at the wedding, I had no idea how bad their financial situation really was. Between the debt, the lies, and Adam’s death, there are actually only a handful of people who have the full scope of the truth. In fact, most people here don’t know any of the details, only that he struggled with an addiction and lost the battle.

He owed The Deviant a lot of money, between loans and a few drug deals gone wrong, it was close to seven figures. Adam had been working for The Deviant for years, long before Majesty was even a consideration. I was his insurance policy. The Deviant was willing to put up with him as long as Adam had access to me and, by default, the Four Families.

We were unaware of any of this until the police identified his body. His head was pretty easy to figure out. It had been mailed to his mom’s place.

I stand to drop my flower into his grave, but his mom whips around before it leaves my grip. “This is all your fault!” she screeches. “I hope you burn in hell. You and your whole family.”

Lukas’s arm wraps around my shoulder. His mother howls, “If you leave with that trash, you can never come back. You’re out of this family forever.”

Lukas has lost so much, and now I’m costing him even more. I feel the warmth of his lips on my scalp. “Easiest choice I’ve ever had to make.”

He squeezes me and whispers, “Can I go meet your mom?” It seems like a cruel joke that Adam is buried in the same cemetery as my mom. At least they’re on opposite sides.

We walk in the opposite direction of the funeral, but my mom isn’t alone. Dad and Uri are there.

Dad hugs me. He smells like aftershave. None of them are devastated over Adam, but they know this was a hard closure for me. I move away from my dad and head into Uri’s arms as my father walks Lukas a little bit away from us.

“Wave, I’m sorry about this. I swear he was alive when we last saw him,” Uri says. My family had been keeping tabs on him. Uri and my cousins did serious damage to Adam, broke both his legs, a bunch of ribs, his collarbones, and both hands. But he was on the road to recovery. Hell, he was in physical therapy. That’s where The Deviant’s men got him.

“Are you going to retaliate?” I ask, staring Uri in the eyes.

He squeezes my arm. “The Deviant shot me, put explosives in Thiago’s car, and sent a psychopath after Izzy. If we didn’t retaliate over that, we’re not going to do it for an asshole, traitor junkie.”

“So, nothing?” I bite back the anger.

“We paid for the funeral,” Uri says like it’s some sort of consolation. “But it’s a delicate ecosystem and we’re not going to war over Adam.”

They’ve spent twenty-six years shutting me out, and the one time I ask for something.. nothing. This isn’t about retaliation for Angie or her family. I had been actively protecting Lukas from another funeral, another bitter interaction between his mother and sister. I never doubted he would pick me over them, but it kills me he was put in the situation to begin with. Now I’m pissed.

Once Lukas is at work, I take his car to the only person who will help. Mastodon’s Security elephant logo greets me, as I walk past the front desk. Macie, Alana’s assistant, tries to stop me, but even she knows it’s not going to work.

I throw open the door to an office where Alana sits at a table with another woman. “He chose me.”

Alana jumps to her feet. “Waverly?”

“Lukas chose me over his family. Me.” The angry tears well in my eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a plan for The Deviant. He blew up your building. You’re too petty not to have a plan.”

“What did your family say when you asked for help?”

“They said it was a delicate ecosystem…” My eyes flash with anger. “But they made damn sure I wasn’t a part of it. You have a plan, and I want in.”

Alana turns her head toward the woman next to her. She’s in her mid-thirties, her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, and thick, black rimmed glasses accentuate her eyes. She’s giving off PTA mom vibes. But if she’s hanging with Alana, that’s not true at all.

The woman stands and reaches over the table. “Waverly, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Have we met? I glance at Alana, who gives me a little nod. “This is Penny Olympian, the mother of the only heir to the Olympian legacy. She sits at the head of several corporate boards and is a world class hacker. You two have been emailing back and forth for years now.”

I blink a few times. I’ve only seen her walking red carpets and in photo shoots. This, I wasn’t expecting at all.

Penny motions across the table. “Sit.” I do as told. “Majesty is created from the hythanatia flower. A very small patch is growing in your garden. In fact, there are several clusters of them on your land. The hythanatia flower is the byproduct of the minerals and ores growing under it. It’s extremely valuable. Using the flower to make drugs is like drilling for oil and only using it for petroleum jelly. You’re missing ninety-nine percent of its uses.”

OH. Shit.

“The ores and minerals the hythanatia flower grows from contain enough raw material to power the world for the next five hundred years,” Alana adds. “The Deviant’s largest Majesty farm could kill five million people, or change biofuel forever. Right now, he doesn’t know what he has, and he needs to be stopped before he figures it out.”

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