0001 ~ Elodie ~ I made a deal with the devil.
I made a deal with the devil to marry his brother.
… 11 hours ago, my phone rang at 11:47 PM.
I remember the exact time because I’d been staring at my laptop screen for three hours straight, trying to finish a presentation that was due the next morning.
The shrill ringtone cut through the silence of my apartment, and I nearly knocked over my cold coffee reaching for it.
Vicky’s name flashed across the screen.
My first instinct was to let it go to voicemail.
My sister had a talent for calling at the worst possible moments with the worst possible problems.
Last month, it was bail money.
The month before, she needed me to lie to her landlord about why the rent was late.
Again.
The fact that she’d called three times in a row made me answer.
“Vicky?” The sound that came through the phone made my blood run cold.
it was raw, animal panic.
Sobbing so violent I could hear her gasping for air between each sound.
“Elodie…” Her voice broke.
“Elodie, please.
Oh God, please…” I was already on my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Vicky, what’s wrong?
Where are you?” “They’re going to kill me.” The words came out in a rush, garbled by tears and terror.
“I only had one call and I didn’t know who else… Elodie, I’m so sorry, I’m so…” “Slow down.” I grabbed my keys with shaking hands, shoving my feet into the nearest shoes I could find.
“Who’s going to kill you?
Where are you?” “I can’t… they’re listening…” A male voice barked something in the background, and Vicky let out a small scream.
“The old warehouse on Pier 9.
The one by the shipping containers.
Elodie, please hurry, I don’t have much…” The line went dead.
I stood there in my apartment, one shoe on, one shoe off, staring at my phone like it might give me answers.
My mind raced through possibilities, each one worse than the last.
This wasn’t the first time Vicky had gotten herself into trouble.
There was the drug trafficking investigation last year — she’d been a “person of interest,” though the charges never stuck.
Before that, a group of tattooed men had shown up at my door looking for her, something about money owed.
I’d managed to convince them I hadn’t seen her in months.
But this felt different.
The terror in her voice wasn’t the usual Vicky dramatics.
This was real.
I should call the police, I thought.
That would be the smart thing, the sensible thing.
But Vicky had used her one call on me.
Not 911.
I grabbed my jacket and ran.
… The drive to Pier 9 took twenty minutes that felt like hours.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking on the steering wheel.
I kept the radio off, the silence broken only by my ragged breathing and the occasional honk from other drivers as I ran yellow lights.
Family is everything.
That’s what Mom used to say, back before the cancer took her.
Family protects each other.
It was practically our family motto, the one thing she’d drilled into both of us before she died.
Dad had followed her six months later — everyone said it was a heart attack, but I knew better.
You can die of a broken heart.
I’d seen it happen.
That left just me and Vicky.
And yeah, Vicky was a mess.
She’d always been a mess, even when we were kids.
She was the one who stole from Mom’s purse, who got suspended from school, who disappeared for days without calling.
She lied.
She manipulated.
She made promises she never kept.
But she was all I had left.
As my car rumbled over the broken asphalt leading to the pier, that mantra played on repeat in my head: Family is everything.
Family protects each other.
Even when that family makes it really, really hard.
The warehouse loomed ahead, a skeletal structure of rust and corrugated metal.
I parked and sat in my car for a moment, trying to calm my racing heart.
Through the broken windows, I could see shadows moving.
How many people were in there?
What had Vicky gotten herself into this time?
My phone buzzed.
A text from Tom: Still working?
Don’t stay up too late.
Love you.
Tom.
My fiancé.
The man I was supposed to marry in three months.
Sweet, stable, predictable Tom who worked in accounting and had never done an impulsive thing in his life.
What would he say if he knew where I was right now?
I didn’t text back.
Instead, I got out of the car and walked toward the warehouse, every instinct screaming at me to turn around.
The closer I got, the more details emerged from the darkness.
Motorcycles parked in a haphazard line.
The acrid smell of burning rubber and voices, low and rough, speaking in clipped sentences I couldn’t quite make out.
I stepped through the open bay door, and the scene inside made me stop dead.
There were maybe a dozen men scattered throughout the space, all of them dressed in black, most of them marked with ink that crawled up their necks and down their arms.
They stood in clusters around burning barrels, their faces cast in harsh shadow.
And in the center of it all, on her knees with her hands bound behind her back, was Vicky.
“Oh God…” The words escaped before I could stop them.
Every head turned toward me.
Vicky looked up, and I barely recognized her.
Blood matted her blonde hair, streaming from a gash on her forehead.
Her left eye was swollen shut, purple and grotesque.
A gag cut into the corners of her mouth, and when she saw me, she started making desperate, muffled sounds.
I ran toward her, my only thought to get to my sister, to help her, to… The click of a gun being cocked stopped me mid-step.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The voice came from the shadows to my left — deep, rough, with an edge that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
A figure stepped into the firelight, and my breath caught.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of casual confidence that suggested he’d never had to worry about physical threats in his life.
A perfectly tailored suit jacket hung open over bare skin, revealing a chest covered in elaborate tattoos — a serpent wound around a dagger, roses with thorns, script in a language I didn’t recognize.
But it was his face that held me frozen.
Chiseled features that belonged on a magazine cover, dark hair swept back from his forehead, and eyes that reflected the firelight like a predator’s.
Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.
“Your sister,” he said, his voice almost conversational, “made ten of my men die because of her carelessness.” He moved closer, and I could see the gun in his hand — held loosely, like it was an extension of his arm.
Like he was comfortable with it.
“Please…” My voice came out strangled.
“Please, I don’t know what she did, but…” “God…You’re beautiful.” He stopped right in front of me, his head tilting as he studied my face with open fascination.
“Goodness.” He reached toward me, and I flinched back hard enough to stumble.
He smiled.
It was not a kind smile.
“Your sister could get killed right here,” he said softly.
“All I have to do is say the word.” My heart was trying to break out of my chest.
“Please, don’t…” “But…” He drew the word out, his eyes still roaming over my face like he was cataloging every detail.
“I thought she was going to bring someone who could actually set her free from her mess.” “What mess?” I forced myself to stand straighter, to meet his eyes.
“What did she do?” “The price of ten lives.” He said it simply, like he was commenting on the weather.
“And what’s that price?” “One hundred million dollars.” He watched my face as he said it, clearly enjoying my shock.
“To compensate their families with ten million each.” The number was so absurd that for a moment, I couldn’t process it.
One hundred million dollars.
Vicky and I barely had one hundred thousand between us, and most of that was tied up in my retirement account and the down payment I’d been saving for a house with Tom.
“You know we can’t afford that.” My voice was steadier than I felt.
I moved to stand between him and Vicky, forcing him to look at me instead of her broken, bleeding form.
“Please.
I know my sister can be…
difficult.
I’ve been dealing with her messes for years.
I don’t know how she caused the deaths of your men, but we’re sorry.
We’re so…” “Sorry?” He laughed, sharp and humorless.
“Sorry doesn’t fix the goddamn problem!” The sudden volume made me jump.
Behind him, the other men shifted, hands moving to weapons I couldn’t see but knew were there.
“Do you know what it means?” His voice had gone low and dangerous.
“Do you know what it means to have to console ten families for the loss of their sons?
To look mothers in the eye and tell them their boys aren’t coming home?” Yes.
God, yes, I knew.
I’d held my mother’s hand as she died, watched my father waste away from grief.
I knew exactly what loss felt like.
“Okay.” He took a breath, visibly trying to control himself.
“Let me spell it out for you.
Your sister had one job.
Seduce the client, get him to sign the contract.
Simple, right?
Even someone like her should have been able to manage that.” He strode over to one of his men and grabbed the gun from his holster in one fluid motion.
My heart stopped as he turned and pointed it directly at Vicky’s head.
“No!” I threw myself forward, covering Vicky’s bound body with my own.
If he was going to shoot her, he’d have to go through me first.
He laughed.
“She stole from the client,” he continued, as casually as if he wasn’t holding a gun to my sister’s head.
“And he didn’t think to kill her — he was merciful, stupid bastard.
But my men…” His jaw tightened.
“My men weren’t so lucky.
They paid the price for her greed.” He pressed the barrel of the gun against my temple, and I could feel how cold it was even through my terror.
Vicky was screaming behind her gag, thrashing against her bonds.
One of the men approached and whispered something in his ear.
I couldn’t hear it over the roaring in my ears, over Vicky’s muffled screams and my own ragged breathing.
But I watched his expression change.
Watched something like satisfaction slide across his features.
“Ooh.” He lowered the gun, his eyes glittering in the firelight.
“I think I have a way to make you pay for your sister’s sins.” My mouth was dry.
“How?” “You’re going to marry my brother.”