Extraits

"Well, the guards have been quite impressed with you. I've heard reports that you've beaten all of them in one-on-one combat. What's your secret?"

"Bacon," I deadpan. "And lots of it."

I'd always thought of the monsters as my own sort of standoffish pets. If, you know,you thought pets that could eat you were cool. Which I totally did.

— Écoute, lâchai-je d’un ton sec. On connaît tous les deux le marché.

Tu es le prince d’un gang et moi une fille qui vient de passer quatre ans dans la rue. On ne peut pas dire qu’on ait grand-chose en commun, alors ne faisons pas comme si c’était le cas. En fait, rien ne nous oblige à faire semblant d’être amis. J’ai l’impression que tu as déjà tout ce qu’il te faut de ce côté-là, avec Félix et Grant.

Devon cligna des yeux, comme s’il était surpris. Et de fait, il devait l’être, car personne n’aurait osé lui parler sur ce ton. Après tout, il était le fils de Claudia.

— Je me doute que tu n’as aucune envie d’être ici, dit-il. Et je ne peux pas t’en vouloir. Je n’ai pas besoin de garde du corps, quoi qu’en pense ma mère, et je sais qu’elle t’a plus ou moins fait chanter pour que tu acceptes ce poste. Mais j’aimerais qu’on soit amis, si possible.

Je ricanai.

— Tu es le fils de celle qui dirige l’une des Familles les plus puissantes de cette ville. Aussi, mon cher prince, tu ne peux pas avoir d’amis. Pas vraiment. Tu as des alliés, tu as des ennemis, et tu es entouré de gens qui veulent ta mort. C’est tout. Je ne serai jamais ton amie.

"Be good, Lila. Or be really good at being bad. I'll leave it up to you which one it is."

Elle passa devant moi et se dirigea vers la porte. Dans le couloir, il y avait Mo qui rôdait, en compagnie de Grant, Félix, Devon et Reginald. Ils firent bien sûr comme s’ils n’avaient pas eu l’oreille collée au battant pendant toute notre conversation. Quelle bande de petits curieux…

Je restai là, au milieu du tatami, à me demander dans quoi je venais de m’engager. Il ne me fallut pas longtemps pour prendre conscience d’un truc fondamental.

Les gardes qui m’avaient pourchassée sur les toits. L’attaque du dépôt-vente. Et maintenant ça.

Ouais, c’était donc vrai : les problèmes marchaient toujours par trois.

« — Merci d’avoir volé à mon secours, murmura-t-il.

— Pas de problème.

Il eut un rire rauque et sans joie.

— Oh oui, il y a un problème. C’était stupide de ma part de venir vers elle comme ça. Parfois… j’aimerais pouvoir l’oublier. Faire comme si je ne l’avais jamais rencontrée. Comme si je ne ressentais rien pour elle.

Je posai les yeux sur Devon, à l’autre bout de la pièce.

— Ouais. Je vois très bien ce que tu veux dire. »

“Look,” I said, my voice sharp. “We both know what the deal is. You’re the prince of this particular mob, and I’m a girl who’s spent the last four years living on the streets. We don’t exactly have a lot in common, so let’s not pretend we do. In fact, we don’t have to do the whole fake friends thing at all. It looks like you have plenty of those with Felix and Grant already.”

Devon blinked, as if he was surprised by my surly tone. He probably was. I doubted anyone else talked to him like that. No one would dare to, since he was Claudia’s son.

“I know you don’t really want to be here,” he said. “And I don’t blame you. I don’t need a bodyguard, no matter what my mom thinks, and I know that she basically blackmailed you into this. But I’d like us to be friends, if we could.”

I snorted. “You are the son of the head of one of the most powerful Families in town. You don’t have friends, sweet prince. Not really. You have allies, enemies, and people who want you dead. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially not with me.”

« — Et maintenant, tu la rencontres en douce. C’est très Roméo et Juliette. Tu sais comment ça s’est terminé pour eux, hein ? Parce que ce genre de situation, ça ne finit jamais bien. »

Bad things always come in threes.

Three strikes. Those three bears that Goldilocks ran into.

The three guards with swords who were chasing me right now.

“Come back here, you thief!” one of the guards bellowed, his voice booming across the dark rooftops.

I grinned and ran faster.

Thirty minutes ago, I had let myself into the lavishly furnished, but poorly protected, brownstone of a rich, Family-affiliated accountant who had bought a ruby necklace for his girlfriend—something his wife didn’t exactly appreciate.

So I had been dispatched to swipe said necklace on the angry wife’s orders and dime. It had been child’s play to climb up the drainpipe to the second floor of the brownstone, pick open a balcony door, and slip inside. I hadn’t even had to break into the office safe, because I discovered the necklace nestled in a black velvet box, the top open, sitting on the accountant’s desk. I’d admired the sparkle of the rubies before closing the lid and tucking the box into my long, sapphire-blue trench coat.

Then I had rifled through the rest of the desk to see what else I could steal.

I’d been mildly surprised and rather pleased to come across a pair of diamond cuff links tucked away in another box in one of the drawers. The diamonds weren’t as large and impressive as the rubies, but into my pockets they’d gone all the same, along with a gold fountain pen, a sterling silver letter opener, and a crystal paperweight.

Nothing that I hadn’t swiped dozens of times before in my seventeen years. In fact, this job had been easier than most of the recent ones Mo had sent me on.

You might say that I was a sort of modern-day Robin Hood, merrily stealing from the rich. Only I never, ever gave my loot away for free. There were only three people in this world that I cared about—me, myself, and I. Well, maybe four, if you caught me on a good day and I felt like including Mo.