Page 43 of The Killer Cupcake (Poison Cherry #3)

" W ake up, Sleeping Beauty."

Kathy smiled before her eyes opened, turning toward the familiar voice. Janey's lips brushed her cheek, fingers gentle as they swept hair from her brow. But when Kathy's eyes focused on her aunt's face, the smile died.

"What time is it?" She inched back against the headboard, something wild in Janey's stare making her careful.

"Early. Been here since before dawn." Janey's voice sounded wrong—hollow, like she was speaking from the bottom of a well. "Had to wait for Carmine to pass out. Walked here. In the dark."

"What?" Kathy blinked, taking in the burgundy dress from last night, now wrinkled and twisted.

This wasn't the Janey she knew—the one who never had a hair out of place.

This woman's makeup ran in dark rivers down her cheeks, her perfect curls hung limp, and her eyes.

.. God, her eyes looked like she'd been crying for hours. Or planning something.

Kathy's gaze caught that her aunt had taken a chair and pulled it close to the bed. Too close. Like someone had been sitting and watching her.

"You've been in my room? Watching me sleep?" Kathy asked.

"Had to come. Had to protect you," Janey whispered. “It’s your time.”

“For what? From what?" she asked.

Janey leaned close, her breath hot and sour against Kathy's ear. "The big bad Wolf. He's coming for my little red riding hood."

She slipped from the bed, and Kathy saw her aunt's bare feet—caked with mud, bleeding at the edges.

She'd walked here barefoot from wherever Carmine kept her.

Miles in the dark. Something terrible had happened—or was about to.

Something bad enough to send Janey over the edge she'd been dancing on for years.

Janey paced to the window, movements sharp and strange. "You don't ask about Willa anymore."

Kathy's eyes found the door. Another chair wedged under the knob—to keep them in or the world out, she couldn't tell.

"I write to Willa. We keep in touch," Kathy said, keeping her voice steady.

"He did it, you know. She won't tell you the truth, but he did.

" Janey's voice carried a sing-song quality that made Kathy's skin crawl.

"Jean-Baptiste. The family cast her out like garbage seven months later. Willa was so distraught. Jean-Baptiste was a coward or complicit. Willa lived on the streets for days before someone told Carmine and brought her back to me for healing.” Janey looked over at Kathy with eyes that glittered.

"I had warned him, Kathy. I told him not to disrespect her or hurt her.

Not to make me do what I had to do. I warned those Thibodeaux bastards. "

Kathy frowned in confusion. "That's not true. Willa was pregnant. She and Jean-Baptiste have left his family. They have a small place in the Quarter. They are happy—that's what her letters said. She even sent a picture of them both together."

Janey's smile was chilling in its serenity. “Willa lost the baby. And that is when the family came for JB. That was it. The spell was broken. Willa was damaged goods, and JB had to face it. Those letters you write go to the post office, not to the cottage in the quarter.

JB had to choose between a broken Willa who had just given birth to his dead child and being poor or his freedom to be a spoiled bitch-boy Thibodeaux again. Guess what choice he made? Guess who threw her out of that little fantasy they had run off to in the Tremé and dumped her on the street.”

Janey didn’t pause for a breath. She kept going.

“I took care of her, made her strong again.

And against Carmine's wishes, I made the Thibodeaux family pay.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Baked a cake for his cousin's wedding and had it served by one of my girls at the reception. Took out six of them in one night, but not that bastard JB. He got away.”

“No. Auntie. You didn’t do that. You wouldn’t?”

Janey stood frozen, a dark smile on her face.

“Auntie?” Kathy pleaded.

Janey didn’t respond.

“What? What are you saying?" Kathy's voice cracked with horror.

Janey's smile widened, satisfied as a cat licking blood from its whiskers.

"Everyone cried about food poisoning at the reception.

But the Thibodeauxs? They knew. Oh, they knew exactly what killed six of their blood.

" She studied her hands like they belonged to someone else.

"The whole Quarter went into mourning. That beautiful cake—it took innocents along with the guilty.

A cousin's new bride. An uncle who'd only ever been kind.

I'd meant to punish the ones who hurt Willa, but poison doesn't choose. It just takes."

Her voice dropped to something raw. "Carmine had to sell pieces of his soul to Don Marcello to keep me from my mama's fate—swinging from a tree while the crowd cheers. Everything we had, every favor owed, every bit of power... gone. Our house. Gone. We're owned by the Marcellos now, forever in their pocket. We’ve got to leave New Orleans for Vegas soon. Not to come back. Because of what I did. Because I couldn't stop myself, I’ve lost my family except you. You love me still.”

She laughed, but it sounded like a release of sorrow.

"And Willa? When she learned what I'd done for her, she ran from me like I was the devil himself.

Marcellos found her later because she, too, is part of the bargain.

Found her months later in one of the wash houses, hands bleeding from lye.

Brought her back to me like a lost dog."

Janey's eyes found Kathy's, and they were empty as graves.

"Tell me, chère—did Jean-Baptiste destroy Willa, or did I?

I used to be powerful, you know. Could make men dance, make them beg, make them mine.

Now?" She spread her trembling hands. "Now I'm just deadly.

Like the candies my sisters taught me to make. Nothing left in me but poison."

Kathy threw back the covers and rushed to her aunt, her heart breaking through her fear. Janey trembled at the window, her eyes wild and unfocused, seeing things that weren't there. Kathy wrapped her arms around her, holding tight.

"Willa loves you. She writes about you constantly—how grateful she is, how much she loves you. This story can't be true. You're confused, Auntie. Willa's pregnant again, just wrote me about it last month."

"I am NOT confused!" Janey shoved her away with shocking violence, sending Kathy stumbling.

Her voice climbed to a shriek that could wake the dead.

"I don't want to kill Carmelo, Kathy. God help me, I don't. If I kill him then they will kill my Carmine. I’ve done so much, he can’t keep protecting me.

But I can't stop what's already started.

He hurt you! He LIED to you! He BETRAYED you! HE HAS TO PAY!"

"What?" Kathy backed away.

"He's just like the rest of them. Never special, never different. You thought he was, but men can't be special, chère. They're heart-breakers, trust-killers, soul-destroyers. That's all they know how to be!" She spat the words like venom. "They're nothing but meat for the cutting!"

"Janey, please, you're scaring me." Kathy kept backing toward the door, her hands searching blindly for the chair blocking it. "Why are you angry at Carmelo? What has he done?"

Janey began to twitch violently. She paced in tight circles, hitting herself on the side of the head and muttering incoherently about being a bad girl and being put in the box where the spiders ate her.

Kathy knew something was desperately wrong, but she couldn't remember all the things Pinkie had taught her to do when Janey's episodes turned dangerous.

A sharp knock cracked against the door like a gunshot. Kathy spun toward it, but Janey was already moving—predator-quick, clamping an arm around Kathy's chest and a hand over her mouth with shocking strength.

"Shhh..." Hot breath against her ear.

"Janey? Kathy? Open up." Carmine's voice was tight with controlled panic. "Let me in."

Kathy trembled in her aunt's grip. She could fight—maybe even win—but something told her that would send Janey somewhere they couldn't come back from.

"Janey!" The door rattled in its frame. "I know you're in there. Woke up and you were gone. You've had your time. We need to go."

That's when Janey began to whisper. Each word was a knife sliding between Kathy's ribs.

Carmelo was married. Had been for two years.

An Italian girl named Maria. Twin babies—boy and girl.

A whole house, a whole life in New York.

Matteo and Debbie coming for Sunday dinners like one big happy family.

Everyone knew. Her parents knew. They'd all known while she rotted in Butts, waiting for a man who only visited when he needed what his wife couldn't give.

The big bad Wolf, playing house while she played the little piggie. The fool.

The scream that tore from Kathy when Janey released her didn't sound human. She collapsed near the bed, her body trying to turn itself inside out from the pain.

Janey watched with savage satisfaction. "Now you see. Now you understand what they are. WE kill him together.”

"JANEY!" The door shook violently under Carmine's assault.

Kathy couldn't stop the sounds coming from her—raw wails that felt like they were ripping her soul out through her throat.

Janey knelt beside her, stroking her hair with a mother's false tenderness. “Did you hear me? We can kill him together, ma petite . Or break him like I broke Carmine—make him our puppet, our slave. We're Elliott women. We don't feel pain, chère . We give it."

"Get away from me!" Kathy screamed. "GET AWAY!"

The door exploded inward. Carmine and Deion charged through, hotel staff crowding behind. Janey launched herself at her husband like something feral, all nails and teeth and rage. It took three men to pin her down.

Kathy stayed curled on the floor where she'd fallen, barely aware of the chaos. Janey's screams echoed down the hall as they dragged her away. Gentle hands tried to lift Kathy, women's voices murmuring comfort she couldn't hear.

She turned her face to the wall and let herself fall into that dark, quiet place she'd found the day they shot her father in front of her.

The void. Where nothing could touch her. Where nothing could hurt.

Where wolves couldn't reach.

The sparring partner's punch connected with the force of a sledgehammer. Carmelo dropped hard, the canvas rushing up to meet him with a sick thud that echoed through the empty gym.

"Shit!" Matteo vaulted through the ropes, dropping to his knees beside his brother's motionless form. "Melo! Get up!"

Nothing. Carmelo lay there like a corpse, blood trickling from his split lip.

Matteo hauled him up, propping his brother against his shoulder. Carmelo's head lolled sideways, eyes unfocused. The stink of last night's bourbon seeped from his pores.

"You have to get it together. Do you hear me?" Matteo shook him hard.

Six hours ago, he'd found Carmelo face-down in a Beale Street speakeasy, mumbling about Kathy, about betrayal, about how she'd know soon and hate him forever. Matteo had carried him out on his back, dumped him in a cold shower, and forced black coffee down his throat until he could stand. Barely.

Now this. The fight was in two days. Every wise guy from here to Chicago had money riding on the Wolf delivering the South. If Carmelo didn't show, or worse, if he showed and lost...

Matteo's hand went instinctively to his neck. He could already feel the bullet.

"Get him up," he barked at his men. "Take him to the room. Ice bath, more coffee. Whatever it takes."

They lifted Carmelo between them like a broken doll. Matteo watched them go, his jaw tight. Caesar would've known what to do. Caesar always knew. But Caesar was back in New York, and Matteo was here with a brother who'd rather die than fight.

He stalked across the street to the phone booth, feeding coins into the slot with shaking hands. The operator connected him, and he waited, counting the rings.

"Hello?"

"Debs?" Matteo said.

"Hey? How are things going?" she asked.

He could hear Junior crying in the background. "What's wrong with my son?"

"He wants José's food instead of his own. Stubborn like his father," she chuckled.

“Oh? He misses me,” Matteo relaxed.

“Yes, he cries when he misses you, when he’s hungry, when he’s wet, or just when he feels like it, Matteo. I told you it’s what kids do. So stop stressing,” Debbie sighed.

“You are right. I am always worried,” he confessed.

“How’s Kathy? Is she there? I want you to tell her to call,” she said.

"Debs, things aren't good," Matteo cut in.

"What?" Debbie asked.

"Somehow, Boanno found out about Maria and the babies. Can't get the whole story out of Carmelo, but that aunt you told me about? Janey? I think she knows. Which means?—"

"Kathy." Debbie's voice went faint. "You promised this wouldn't happen. You swore we'd get to Vegas, that Carmelo would explain everything before—Matteo, please God tell me she doesn't know!"

"What the fuck could I do? I don't know how Carmine found out! I did everything?—"

"You made me lie to her!" Debbie's voice cracked. "She'll never forgive me. Never! I should have told her!"

"I'm sorry. Christ, I'm so sorry. But Carmelo's falling apart. If he doesn't get in that ring, he's dead. These fuckers have serious money on him. We don't deliver; they hand us over to the Klan. He has to fight. Then I swear I'll fix this."

"Fix it? How? Why are you calling me? I can't—" Debbie was crying now.

"I'm gonna find Kathy. Try to get her to talk to you. Please, Debs. She can hate him, punish him, whatever. But she has to forgive him long enough for me to get him out of Tennessee."

"She'll never forgive any of us." Debbie's voice was hollow.

"I told you when they made him marry that girl.

You said it was like me and José—all for show.

Then the babies came, and you said they were an accident, that he didn't remember. I knew you were lying. I knew, but I was too scared to tell her. Now I’ve lost my cousin forever. I told you this day would come."

"Debs, please?—"

The line went dead.