Love on the Edge

1

Mal Masen holds the edge of the knife pinched between two fingers and rolls her eyes at the sharp look of concern her father sends her.

I have been training with blades for how many decades now, Dad? she asks rhetorically, tossing the blade in the air and catching it by the hilt.

Her father scowls heatlessly. Doesn’t make them less sharp, he mutters.

Mal rolls her eyes again and kicks her feet up, crossing her ankles and resting her boots on the end of her father’s hospital bed.

You know, she starts conversationally, which is in and of itself a cause for concern. Her father notices and sits up a little straighter against his pillows. "I could take care of this for you."

This is my responsibility, he says immediately.

Mal bites hard on the inside of her cheek to hold in a remark that would definitely prolong her benched punishment. I’m more capable than you think.

You’re more capable than we all think, he says and then reaches his hand out, palm up. Reluctantly, she passes the knife over and her father closes it. That doesn’t mean I want you dealing with this.

It’s my duty—

It is not. You don’t make assignments, young lady, no matter how much you think you do.

Mal scowls. Her father nods his head like he’s won a battle.

Mal considers her options like weapons before her.

Arguing that she deserves this chance, this redemption and revenge, is not going to work. It’s too loud. Like a gun without a silencer, Mal knows that the only reason to use that one is if it’s her life or theirs. The cons outweighs the pros in almost all ways — she loves it the most, the drama, the burst of noise, the undeniable power of it.

She does deserve this. She is a better shooter, a sharper strategist, a smarter leader than any of the other men in the organization. The only reason that she wasn’t given this assignment is because she’s a woman. She knows it, her father knows it, and even the king knows it.

But there’s no point. It’s too messy to shoot at point blank range and the risk outweighs the reward.

She moves on.

Her second option is to go to the king himself. This is more like a grenade and she knows that she’s just as likely to still be holding on to it when it blows.

The King’s had a tough few years, losing his son and half of his trusted guards. Her uncle is not an emotional man, and even less a sympathetic man, so the route she would take with her own father is far different than what she would have to bring out for the King. He’d be just as quick to reward her as he would put a bullet in her head for suggesting that she should be making any decisions. If he could do it to his son, he could definitely do it to her.

So no, she couldn’t ask him. She would have to prove herself to him, starting with smaller tasks. Prove herself with blood or money or, preferably, both.

The Masens were a long-lived mafia family, and the de facto rulers of society. But now her cousin Arthur has gone, betrayed the family, according to some, all for some cop that he fell in love with.

It’s despicable. It’s also left a vacuum in the family, and Mal is perfectly shaped to step into the role. If she could just convince her father to let her try, at least, she would be perfect.

And, importantly, if she was named heir to the crime throne, no one could stop her from taking care of this little issue that her father is trying to prevent her from dealing with.

Whoever did this…, Mal says, imagining who could have possibly turned against one of their own.

Is none of your concern, her father says sharply, and that’s that.

For now.

Mal scowls and picks at her nails as the two of them wait in stilted, uncomfortable silence for the doctors to return with her dad’s test results. The heart attack was sudden and damaging, but he’s okay. Pulling through. Miraculous. Et cetera.

Mal doesn’t care for the semantics of the illness. She cares that her dad is okay and that the man who put him in here is punished. The drug cocktail that her father had been fed had caused this — she is going to get revenge, family-approved or otherwise.

Did the doctor— The door bursts open, the words bleeding in through the wood even before her mother manages to get the door open. She swings in, her giant quilted tote swinging in first to knock into the wall and against the hazardous materials waste bin. Mal sighs and exchanges a look with her father.

Ma, Mal says placatingly. Can you settle down?

No! she says, eyes wide and hair sticking in all different directions. She probably ran here from the train station, forgoing the taxis and train system that would get her here faster. "I cannot settle down, Mallory!"

"Ma, he’s fine, Mal gestures to her father, who is sitting tall and looking less pale than he did even five minutes ago. You think I’d not have called?"

Oh, Benny. Her mother drops the ugly tote that has had a longer life than Mal has and rushes to the other side of the bed. If he didn’t need them, Mal is sure her mother would have body-checked the IVs hanging that are in her way. All that greasy food! It’s not good for anything, I told you.

It’s good for the soul, Mal mutters.

Her father snorts. Her mother scowls. Mallory, that is very insensitive!

Mal, her father warns.

Mal glowers. She stands up, abruptly, and only her quick reflexes allow her to grab the chair that nearly topples over. She rights it, smiles saccharinely at her mother in a way that makes her click her tongue in disapproval, and dips a small, sarcastic bow at her father. He calls after her and she leaves anyway.

They lie to her mother for good reason, she knows. The woman is sensitive as all hell and a powerhouse of a Midwesterner — meaning, of course, that if she was ever upset with the two of them, there would be no peace at all. Just passive-aggressive comments and burnt pies and family outings to Church. Mal remembers when she got her nose pierced and her father lied and said he had given her permission. They’d gone to bible study, for Christ’s sake.

Keeping her nose out of places it shouldn’t be, like contemplating the assasination attempt of her husband, was for the betterment of the family unit. It was for the betterment of her mother’s own failing health.

Her mom knew some stuff, of course. The late nights and the suspicious bruises and the envelopes of money were impossible to hide for the many years that her parents had been married. But she knew just enough not to ask, and Mal and her father knew better than to rock that particular boat.

So her mom thinks it’s a regular heart attack and her dad has forbidden her to even try to figure out who was the slimy traitor that poisoned him. Just a regular day in the Masen Family, it seems.

Mal kicks a trash can as she rounds a corner, ignoring the nurse yelling at her, and throws open a door to the stairwell.

She stomps up, glaring at anyone who dares to look at her when they pass each other, and makes it all the way to the top to her destination.

It’s restricted access, hospital personnel only, but that’s child’s play to Mal, who has been a gorgeous thief since the ripe age of six, the first time she followed her older cousin Arthur into a meeting she wasn’t allowed. Mal pulls out a security card she’d swiped from a doctor when she first got to the hospital a few hours ago, and lets herself in.

Or out, as it is.

The roof is designed for a helicopter pad, spreading out far and wide with rather small security walls. Anyone could just… wander right off the edge.

This was what her cousin did. Arthur. When he chose that cop over his family, over his crown. Mal did not get it at all. Who would do something like that? For some guy? It was preposterous. And dumb. And suicidal. He had walked off the edge and made himself an enemy of the Family, even killing some of them to escape.

Mal used to want to be him. Now, she thinks she might feel sorry for him. To be so weak, so disloyal — whatever miserable fate he ended up with, she thinks he deserves it.

Mal sits on the edge of the hospital’s roof, watching her boot-clad feet dangle over the Chicago street below. She pats the inside of her jacket until she finds her cigarettes and lights one. The ashes flick over the edge and disappear from her vision before they reach the ground.

The man who tried to kill her father defected from the family right about the time that Arthur did. Her father saw him before he did it. Her dad says that it’s his business; Mal thinks that someone in the family paid him to do it.

He told her to mind her own business.

She doesn’t know why he doesn’t want her investigating, why no one will take it seriously — no one tells her anything.

She’s no better than a grunt. Not to her uncle, barely to her father. She’s good with a gun and better with a knife, and she isn’t used the way she should be. They control Chicago. Mal knows she could help them control the state.

She just needs someone to believe in her.

She just needs to prove herself.

She has her phone out before she even thinks it through. Though she has never once called it, the number is there. She’s had it saved since she was eleven and on her first job — follow a woman only a few years older than her through the city, learn her routine, share it with her daddy. Easy. She received this number as a reward, or incentive maybe.

She supposes it could have been insurance, but that seems a bit far-fetched, even for them.

Mal’s never called it. Not when she fell two stories down an elevator shaft, breaking one of her arms and an ankle. Not when she was held hostage for three hours in the dank basement of some scummy gangbanger who thought he would ever matter in the grand scheme of thing. Not even when the cops detained her for forty-eight hours and she had sat in that too-bright room silently the whole time, being threatened with everything from defamation to life in prison.

She’s never used the phone number. But today, with her father downstairs hooked up to a bunch of machines and the lit butt of a cigarette nearly burning her fingertips, Mal knows that she has to — that it’s her only chance.

Now or never, Masen, she tells herself, and she clicks call.

It only rings twice.

Mallory, he says, and there’s something both kind and bladed in his voice. She wants to sound like that — she wants to be gentle bruises in her words, too.

Hi, Uncle. Mal drops the cigarette. She wonders if it hit anyone as she leans back and lays down on the cold concrete. Her legs still dangle over the edge.

There’s a beat of silence and Mal realizes that she is the one who needs to fill it.

You know what happened, and I’m sure you’ve decided what you’re going to do about it, she says, hoping this deference is enough to make up for her demand. Let me do it.

This is delicate work, Mallory, the King says.

Mal sits up. Her heart pounds. That’s not a no.

You’re dedicated, he allows. Mal finds herself nodding along even though he can’t see her. Are you delicate?

I’m precise, she corrects.

There’s another beat. Then, as if he’s smiling, her uncle says, Good answer.

I can do more, she says slowly, trying to think about each word as carefully as she can while still not wasting any of his time. Just give me a shot.

The silence this time feels heavier. Mal looks out at the horizon and she thinks, this could be mine. This should be mine.

Arthur threw away his shot at the throne for love. Mal is going to take his place and she won’t be so easily swayed.

I’ll text you an address, the King says, and Mal grins widely. Don’t be late.

Mal has spent her whole life waiting for something to be enough for her. Finally, she’s found a path.

2

The dress is so ugly that Belle thinks she might cry.

She stares at herself