Fear Her Wrath III: It Runs on Blood

Chapter 14

"Hi, Papa," said Izzy coldly. "This is my friend from school that I mentioned. We're gonna go hang out in my room until the party."

Don Lucian held out a hand, which I shook after a moment's hesitation.

"I'm Maggie," I said. I noticed that his hands were unusually strong, and also... weirdly warm. Like there was a little too much blood circulating through his veins.

Maybe I was just imagining things.

"Lucian Montagnese," he said pleasantly, flashing a smile of yellowed teeth. "I'm Corinne's father. Welcome to our home, and thank you for bringing my daughter with you. We don't see as much of her as we used to."

I had no idea what to say. Even if I hadn't secretly been Nightwrath—even if this hadn't been the second time we'd met, though only I knew it—I wouldn't have known how I was supposed to talk to the man who owned Marbrose City. Not everyone would have recognized him on sight, but everyone knew that name. What was I supposed to say? "Oh, you're the head of the Sicilian mafia. Nice to meet you." I decided my best option was to keep my mouth shut and follow Izzy's lead, and she immediately came to my rescue.

"Let's go upstairs," she said, taking me by the arm. "C'mon."

I made what I hoped was an apologetic face to Don Lucian as his daughter dragged me up to the second floor of the penthouse and across the landing to a long hallway decorated with Impressionist paintings of the Italian countryside. Izzy's room was the second door on the left. It wasn't as big as I expected for the daughter of a mafia boss, but it was certainly comfortable. There was a big TV with several game consoles plugged in, and an expensive record player that was gathering dust in the corner. The walls were covered in signed posters of famous ballet companies that had come through Marbrose City, and one or two performances featuring Izzy herself. Her bed was one of those queen-sized ones with a canopy draped with sheer purple fabric, and her bedroom closet, which was half-open, was full of clothes and shoes I could never even dream of affording. The wooden floor was mostly covered by a pink shag carpet, which didn't really go with the rest of the room but somehow felt more "Izzy" than all the other decor.

Neither of us said anything as we dropped our stuff on her bedroom floor and slumped onto Izzy's bed. I was still in shock. Izzy, from what I could tell, seemed terrified of what I was going to say when I finally opened my mouth. After about a minute, she looked at me and said:

"Let's go talk outside."

The terrace of the Montagnese penthouse looked down on Hayes Avenue more than 60 stories below. It was quite the view. I could see nearly all the city's most famous setback skyscrapers—the Lothian Building, the Dreyfuss Hotel, Calvert Tower, Glanton Place—casting long shadows as they glowed in the fiery light of late afternoon. I heard the distant hum of rush hour traffic, and the wail of police sirens. The air was nippy this high up, and I was grateful for the warmth the sunlight gave. Izzy was leaning on the edge of the penthouse balcony, apparently staring out at nothing.

After waiting a few minutes to see if she was going to explain herself, I realized that she hoping I would get things started. I took a deep breath.

"So you're... Corinne Montagnese?"

Izzy gave a defeated sigh, then nodded. Her arms draped limply over the balcony.

"Yeah. Isidora is my middle name. I chose the last name Malek because that's my mom's maiden name. Sorry for not... telling you sooner. If you don't wanna stay, I get it. I'll say you're not feeling well, and—."

"It's okay," I said quickly. "It's just..."

"A lot? Yeah, try living with it."

She spat over the edge and watched as it dissipated into the empty air.

"So can you tell me the whole story now?"

Izzy sighed.

"It's... pretty simple. I don't like how my family makes money. I had a big serious confrontation with Papa about it a few weeks ago, which I somehow thought would achieve something. It didn't, and I told him I didn't want to see him anymore, and I didn't want to go to school with his dirty money."

She put her arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder.

"I can't really escape him anywhere, though. My landlord in Brand Hill won't let me pay rent, and you probably worked out how I got into Sefton. You were one of the first people I met who didn't recognize me right away. Thanks for that, by the way."

"I feel kinda stupid for not realizing," I confessed.

"I... might have asked your friends not to tell you about it," said Izzy apologetically. "Guess they figured it might make things weird if... but, now you know."

So Ben and Ellie had known who Izzy really was and hadn't told me. That was a little surprising, and more than a little irritating, but... actually, I could totally see them doing that just so I could have a new friend to talk to. It was annoying, but with all the ways I imposed on them, I guess I couldn't really be mad at them for meddling in my personal life.

I had gotten a friend out of it, after all.

"You thought I wouldn't want to be friends with you if I knew you were a Montagnese?" I asked.

Izzy nodded, and she looked completely miserable.

"You wouldn't be the only one."

"I do wish you'd told me," I said. "But I'm not mad at you. It's... really brave what you're doing. I mean, setting out on your own. I'm sorry not everyone recognizes that."

Izzy smiled at the obvious flattery.

"I'm not the only black sheep in my family. My aunt Vipsania is practically exiled from the family, and—well, my mom's side of the family doesn't approve of Papa."

"Is that the other reason you chose to go by Malek?"

She nodded.

"I thought about running away to New York, maybe seeing if Mama's family would take me in, but..."

She sighed.

"I am a Montagnese, even though I didn't choose to be one. Marbrose City is in my blood. I can't escape it."

I was surprised by how serious Izzy was. It didn't really fit the image I'd formed of her over the past two weeks. Apparently my new friend was full of secrets.

"It's kinda chilly out here," she said sheepishly. "Wanna go back inside?"

"Fine by me," I said.

We spent the next few hours in Izzy's room. I got basically her entire life story—how her idyllic childhood was shattered when Tommy Genovese murdered her uncle Dominick, how she never got along with her brother Julian or any of her older cousins, how she struggled to fit in at Catholic school. I told her about Mom and the divorce, about being persona non grata at school after Simon's arrest, and about Ben getting kidnapped by Deadstream last spring. For just a second, I thought about telling her that I was Nightwrath, but... well, it wasn't that I didn't trust Izzy. If anything, I had been trusting her a little too much. But I'd told my agents that my secret identity was strictly on a need-to-know basis, and Izzy didn't need to know.

It felt a little unfair after what she'd just been forced to reveal to me, but fairness is usually antithetical to keeping a secret identity secret.

It was almost 7 o'clock when Izzy glanced down at her phone and let out a dispirited groan.

"Time to get dressed," she said, reaching for that expensive makeup kit on her nightstand that looked like it had never been opened. "How are you at mascara?"

"Hopeless," I said.

"See, I knew there was a reason I liked you," she said with a grin.