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17
MADDIE
The black paddingon the walls eats the sound of my heels as we walk down the narrow hallway of Revelry. We met Dante’s cousin, Nate, a block away, and together we walked through the side door of the hotel, following the long hallway to Carnival.
Black floor, black walls, and noise muffling insulation. If there weren’t plenty of people chattering both in front and behind us, it’d feel more like we’re walking toward our demise in some cliché horror film.
Wrought-iron sconces send small domes of yellow light every few feet in the dark space. I expel a breath I didn't realize I was holding and try to talk down my anxiety. I didn’t really think I was claustrophobic, but the longer we walk down this hallway, the more I think I might be.
Aries squeezes my hand once, a fleeting gesture that I want to hold onto. I chance to look at him from underneath my lashes, and he gives me an imperceptible nod but keeps his gaze forward. I take it as encouragement I need and roll my shoulders back.
When he was showing me how to handle a gun earlier, we decided our best course would be to mostly keep our hands to ourselves. Stay together but not all over each other. It’s too easy for me to get wrapped up in any of them, and the rest of the world melts away. Plus, I figure it might give us a leg-up somehow. I’m not above a little harmless flirting if it gets us to Leo faster.
These people are snakes, and according to Nate, the only thing predictable about Carnival is violence and unpredictability.
The sound gets steadily louder the longer we walk. A couple of minutes later, the hallway opens up and spits us out into a giant room. I don't know if we’re still technically in Revelry or if this is another structure altogether. That hallway seemed to go on forever, so it’s hard to say.
I pause just inside the room and to the right of the doorway.
“Holy shit,” I murmur. It’s a lot to take in.
It looks like an industrial warehouse was abandoned and then converted into a sinners’ carnival. Which is exactly what the point was, so credit to Santorini for delivering, I guess.
“Alright. I’ll catch you guys later.” Nate tips his chin toward us before walking along the perimeter to another doorway halfway down the wall.
I track his movements, flicking my gaze to see Aries doing the same thing. If there’s one thing I learned recently, it’s that a back-up exit is a must.
“Ready, Raven?”
A faded red-and-white-striped circus tent sits proudly in the middle of the warehouse. The octagon, the main attraction, where men go inside and wail on each other for fun. The walls are down around the circular tent, except for a doorway-sized opening that’s rolled up and tied to the side. Yellow light shines from inside, but I can’t make out anything else from this far away.
Four spiral staircases encaged in bars sit in each corner of the room, drawing my eye up, up, up. The ceiling must be forty feet tall. I half expect to see flying trapeze bars and cables, but there's nothing outside of a few crow's nests in the corners and a wrap-around balcony about twenty feet up.
To the right of us is a red built-in wall with three doors that extends to the balcony. A white neon sign lights up the words Diamond Room above the doors. A steady stream of people head toward the right and disappear into one of the doorways.
Along the far wall, on the other side of the big circus tent, is a dance floor. Strobe lights, fog, and disco balls streak across the area, giving us a glimpse of the packed bodies writhing together on a rectangular dance floor. A DJ on a small stage spins on one end of the space, music blaring from the huge stacks of speakers.
Bar top tables are sprinkled throughout the whole warehouse without much rhyme or reason other than a spot for people to set their drinks down and sit for a moment.
I can’t quite hear the song over all the other noise in here, but the beat reverberates through the cement floor. It travels up my legs, and if this was any other circumstance, I’d drag Aries to the dance floor right now and work out some of the tension in my bones. Dance has always been therapeutic for me, something that consistently brings me joy. I was never going to be a prima ballerina, but I like moving my body to a beat, telling a story. It’s one of the reasons I started teaching little girls jazz and modern dance every week.
Aries tips his chin to our left, pulling my attention from the music. Three black tents, no sign, no stripes, take up the space in the corner. They’re close enough together that they might connect. I wrack my brain for all the info Dante and Nate gave us. I don't remember anything about three black tents.
A flash of fear raises the hair on the back of my neck, and I look at Aries sharply. “Set up?” I pitch my voice low as my own paranoia swells like an over ripened watermelon. The moment it explodes, there’s going to be one hell of a mess to clean up.
“Don’t know,” he murmurs, grabbing my hand in his. “I’ll text my brother just in case.”
I nod and let go of his hand so he can text Matteo. I can’t think of another reason why Nate would tell Dante about the octagon, the Diamond Room, and the music but not those black tents? What the hell are they doing in those tents anyway?
“Good. I’m sure he’s on his way to them as we speak. They need to be on alert if it’s going sideways.”
Aries slants me a look, a smirk playing around the edges of his mouth. “Going sideways?”
I lift a shoulder and ignore the way my cheeks heat a little. I gaze around at everyone, looking for . . . well, I don’t know what. Something out of place, maybe. “I did watch a ton of Sopranos, you know. I picked up a couple phrases.”
“Huh. Here I thought ‘watching Sopranos’ was code for making out with Leo.”
I like it too much when Aries teases me. I flash him a wry smirk across my shoulder. “It was. I’m a good multitasker.”
