Queen of Hearts

“Are you sure this is wise?” Elijah asks, as he adds a padlock to the basement door and fits a deadbolt high up, where I know Rosie will be unable to reach it. “Do you really want to keep her here?”

I nod, it wasn’t like she didn’t know where my offices were located. She sent me those damn hearts every year without fail. Rosalyn was my problem; and it was my responsibility to clean up the mess she’d made. I hadn’t been able to get rid of her when I should have and now the deaths of twenty-four adults and eleven children were on my conscience. I could have prevented that. I could have stopped it from ever happening if I’d killed her years ago, or even when I first realized she was changing the rules on this little game of hers at the charity gala.

That’s why I needed to be the one to punish her, to extract information about her little rebellion and what else they had planned. Then finally…I had to be the one to end it. There wasn’t any other way this could go down. It had to be me. I’d played my role in turning her into a monster, and now I was going to reap what I’d sowed all those years ago.

I hadn’t interrogated anyone personally for a while, purely because I didn’t have time and one of the perks of being the head of an organization meant that I didn’t have to do the wet-work anymore, unless I wanted to. Rosie was personal, and when her blood stained my hands, I’d finally get closure on my life and I’d be free.

“How’re you going to find her?” Eli, using his keycard to access the elevator controls, guides us back upstairs to my office.

This wasn’t a specific space we used for interrogations, those were dotted safely around the city, tucked away in various businesses and in some cases, homes. This was one we were making especially for her so I could keep a close eye on her away from the others. Away from Lawrence. I chuckle to myself bitterly; it was handy owning a building sometimes. I kept my legitimate businesses on the top floors, leaving the shadier dealings for the lower floors until you reached the basement, which would soon be a holding cell and interrogation chamber for Rosie. It was an inside joke, that the building was my dominion, offering up both heaven and hell, the floor you worked on reflecting your sins. It was only right that she was about to be chained up in the basement, like the devil she was.

“I may have some ideas…” I admit, a little sheepishly.

I had looked for her, especially in the beginning when I suspected she’d fled Newtown. It was before she earned her bloody moniker of Queen of Hearts, back when I’d still been a young man with foolish ideas of protecting her. Over the years, I’d kept an ear to the ground, paying for sightings and rumors out of my own pocket, but I was never able to verify them in time. Any trace of her vanished by the time I got there, and it was like chasing shadows. My father was furious each time I chased another dead end, the cold trails failures that reflected poorly on him. Every April and May, just before the murders and the arrival of the hearts, Belcastro, and then in turn myself, amped up the search, aiming to catch her before she made her kills. Hoping that she’d slip up and leave some evidence on the gifts or cards once they arrived, but she was meticulous.

Over the years I had eased back on the searching throughout the year, focusing on April and May. So while we still looked for her, it wasn’t as hard as we should have been. The last couple of years, a few sightings began to form a pattern around her parents’ graves and places special to them. I hadn’t used it before, because I wasn’t certain and I also held out some insane hope that Rosie would stop this rampage she was on when she saw what we were trying to do, the changes I was making.

“I fucking knew it!” Elijah slams his screwdriver down on my desk. “You are so pussy whipped over a pussy you haven’t even seen. Typical Julian.”

I raise a brow at him, his comment laughable. I’ve never been pussy whipped in my entire life because I only ever had casual relationships. Women weren’t a permanent feature in my life and at thirty-two I had no plans to settle down just yet. There wasn’t a woman in this town, who could understand the double life I led, except maybe one. And she was insane.

Reminded of the charred church, I can feel my mouth tighten into an angry line. “No. She’s gone too far.”

“She’s been killing your men for years.” He leans against the doorframe and gives me a pointed look. I was beginning to get fed up with Eli’s judgmental expressions these days. I was aware that she was under my skin, that when it came to her, I wasn’t as impartial or as rational as I should be. I didn’t need him continually pointing it out.

I half shrug, aware that what I’m about to say is practically blasphemy. “My father’s men. And her anger was understandable. It’s also my fault for not keeping them safe.”

There are a few moments of silence between us as his eyes widen and his mouth falls open.

Stepping towards me, he places a firm hand on my shoulder. “They’re your men too, Jules. And she’s not a toddler, she doesn’t have to go around carving up men to make a point. I’m not even going to touch the last point, if you want to wallow in unnecessary guilt then that’s your choice.”

Shaking my head, I sit at my desk and bury my head in my hands. Memories of that night are burned into my brain like some sort of bad horror film. Even the memories of her looking beautiful and almost fae-like in the gardens don’t take away all the gore. “You weren’t there, Eli. Her whole house was drowning in blood. It was . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I can hear his soft footfalls as he comes closer and pats my back. “That wasn’t you, Julian. You need to stop taking responsibility for everyone and everything. You aren’t Felix and you aren’t Frank.”

I know that I’m not my father, but I can’t let the things he did go. I can’t forget the pain he caused, just the same as I can’t forget what Rosalyn has done. There are consequences to our actions, and sometimes lessons need to be taught to understand that. If they had to be enlightened through pain and bloodshed, even though I’d done my best to avoid it, then so be it.

“I have to make things right,” I say, my voice resolute.

Eli nods slowly. “If you hurt a dog, and years later it became crazy and started attacking people—innocent people—what would you do?”

“Put it down.”

The answer is so clear cut when it’s framed like that—when it’s an us versus them situation, when it’s loyal supporters and rebels or traditionalists versus anarchists, but when it’s just Jay and Rosie, there are only shades of grey.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Remember that. You’re offering her kindness by putting her out of her misery.”

“Yes,” I whisper, my chest tight. But who’s going to put me out of mine?