Page 17 of Tragic Empire

“Oh my god,” I croak, assessing their solemn faces before fully entering the room. “Is Killian dead? Did he not make it?”

“Killian is stable,” Apollo immediately reports. Somehow his words don’t reassure me. After all, a remorseful looking Dante is by his side, and if the Capo of The Outfit looks rattled, there’s a reason.

Jade gently guides me by the small of my back, walking me further into the pristine private office. She sits with me in the middle of a leather sofa, rubbing light circles between the center of my shoulders.

“Dad, what is this about?” Her voice is concerned, reassuring me that she’s noticed their troubled expressions.

Dante exhales slowly. “I’m afraid I have some difficult news for you, Ana. We were looking into leads to make some sense of what happened to you today, and unfortunately we’ve only found another awful discovery.”

He pauses, and Jade stiffens next to me.

“Apollo?” she asks, looking to her brother as her voice wavers.

“We attempted to locate your mother, hoping to bring her here for support,” Dante continues.

A gasp bursts from my lips. “Is she missing?”

She’s supposed to be in London.Safe, in London. Bron’s security in our New York building is tight, but it’simpenetrablein London. The Kings own that city. I’ve never felt at risk there, so much so that I haven’t even thought about my mother since coming here.

It’s been easier to file her away as the one thing I don’t need to worry about. Have I been naive? After all, I used to think Killian and Cole were untouchable and tonight has proven drastically otherwise. Has someone used Bron’s absence to take her?

“What did you find?” Jade adds, looking between the two men.

Dante can’t hide his sorrowful frown. “I’m so sorry, Ana.”

My ears ring with a high-pitched sound, and I feel all the blood drain from my face. A swarm of cold nausea festers in my gut and my eyes begin to burn. That apology isn’t one that follows telling someone their mother is missing. It’s the kind of remorseful endearment one would hear at a funeral.

“No,” I whisper, denying it. My head shakes, forcing hot tears to drip from my eyes. “You’re lying. Please, why would you say that?”

“Dad…” Jade’s voice is ghostly at my side. “What did you find?”

Dante doesn’t answer her, he hesitates instead, like he can’t bring himself to say the words.

“I wish we were lying, Ana,” Apollo says darkly. “Your mother’s body was found in the London apartment. I know it doesn’t help with your loss—losses—but we’re getting in contact with a man called Gerard to safely retrieve her. She’ll be brought here where we can have her examined for signs of foul play.”

My mother is dead. Bile burns up the back of my throat, and I use what little control of my body I have left to swallow it down.

Cole is gone, Bron is gone, Killian is barely hanging on, and now my mother? My mum? The woman who I’ve loved and admired my whole life is justgone? Just like that?

My heart pounds to the point of feeling like my chest is bruised or fuck, carved open. Why is this happening to me?

Mum has always believed in a merciful God. Being raised in a Catholic orphanage, she’s kept up her faith. She always said the world could be a beautiful place, even through the carnage that happens.

I never got into religion like she did. It didn’t call to me, but I respected her desire for there to be a higher power. People use God to explain the things they can’t understand and to find comfort in the darkness that life can surround you with.

Am I being punished for being indifferent to divinity?

No, I can’t go there.That doesn’t even make sense, does it?

Why would God take my mother, a faithful follower, when he could have slain me instead?

Cole, I could understand. He was the definition of a sinner. Greedy, prideful, full of wrath and lust. A made man with blood on his hands. He was so many things God wouldn’t be okay with, but sinners live every day.

Clutching the silver cross necklace I wear for my mother, I swallow hard. The jewelry that I hardly ever remove sits over my heart, but it doesn’t bring me a single scrap of comfort. I don’t feel anchored to her, I don’t even feel anchored to earth. My soul could hover out of my body, and I wouldn’t even be surprised to watch it float away.

Now is not the time to question the universe. Whatever the reason, if there even is one, my mother isdead.

She’s not coming back, and no amount of reasoning will make it okay.