Page 16 of Iris
Xavier’s skills don’t lie in that direction.
Besides, when it comes to sculpting our business beyond the Black Briar, I’m your man.
I know the best direction our future—Emmie’s future—lies in.
The contraband these days is mostly booze—an area I want to stay in. But it’s an area where I want to up our game. Wringevery fucking cent from the rich dicks who simper in the cages of the Upper Side.
I stop. Take a breath. The Black Briar is now a staple of the underclasses and the regular people who live here in the Lower Side. But now, we’re expanding.
As of now, we do booze and some illicit drugs, mostly birth control, since it’s illegal on the island under the Monarch’s rule. Those are the kind of things Freya, our bar and baby manager, shifts. But I want more.
Baby manager… My gaze shifts to the baby in question, and, as I set my satchel on the bar, I swear she’s fucking grown since I last saw her.
At four, Emmie’s no longer a baby, and it both fills me with love and hurts. Time shouldn’t be allowed to speed forward like that.
Emmie sits on the black velvet banquet with an array of different owl figures spread on the table before her. One owl, Delores, stuffed, fur worn away and an eye missing, lies propped against the menu.
Delores has seen better days. Also, who the fuck puts fur on an owl?
Emmie’s face lights up as she looks up, and she grabs Delores by a wing and flies across the newly cleaned floor to me. I scoop her up and hug her tight. “Daddy!”
“Hey, bug,” I kiss her cheek, and she squeals.
“No! That tickles. You need shave!” I laugh and squeeze her tighter.
Eyes landing on the newest owl among her collection, I ask, “Where did you get that one?”
She gazes down at the white crystalline owl, then skips over to clutch it to her. “Papa.” Her eyes come up to mine and narrow like a storm coming in. “Mine.”
“Yours.” I lock eyes with Freya a moment, but she just shrugs and goes back to refilling the napkin dispensers.
Fucking Xavier. I know where he got the thing. It has privilege and money all over its garish surface.
For a moment, Emmie anxiously looks up at me and clings to my leg. But I smile and she smiles back, warming every black and cold part of me. As she runs back to her owl game, Delores hits her heel and drags on the floor along the way.
Something restless moves within me.
Last night, stuck in the Vega seaport, just outside of Emporia, I wanted to make sure my new supplier was worth my while. Changing, or even adding a supplier, takes patience and a delicately weaved web of words. Especially when the items are contraband and you’re raising the stakes by entering the world of the privileged. We’re going to sell right under the Councilwoman’s nose, so it could be dangerous with the wrong supplier.
For Emmie, it’s a risk I’ll fucking take.
She already has an inheritance, but both Xav and I want to make sure she’s so fucking wealthy she can do whatever the fuck she wants when she’s of age. No Monarch rules, no arranged marriages, no bullshit. Even as an Omega.
It’s why I spent more time than I wanted in the seaport.
“Things go well?” Freya asks, picking up a bottle from the shelf behind the bar. She eyes it before jotting down how much of it remains. “Did you make it to Emporia?”
“Emporia’s shit covered in glitter,” I say. “But yeah, I hope it went well. The shipment and these consequent runs should be enough to keep us raking in that sweet, sweet elite Sabine money this Season.”
“And the next?”
“I intend to make them come back for more.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
For a few minutes I watch Emmie, just losing myself in the innocence and perfection of her. But then I get to work.
I open my satchel, pull out the paperwork, and slap it down. Then I remove three bottles from the bottom. “Freya?”
