“My mother always told me to stay away from gangsters,” Narinder said, as though Levi really was just like the other lords. “Because first they break the rules, then they break your bones...and then they break your heart.”
“Your mother was right,” Levi snapped, slamming the door behind him.
He stormed back into the party with a bitter taste in his mouth. A few more cheers went around at his reappearance, and he tried to manage a smile in return. But Narinder’s words kept coursing through his mind. It didn’t matter what he’d accomplished—there was blood on his hands, and there always would be. Levi knew exactly who and what he wanted to be, but in the end, his story was being written for him.
Levi circled around the bar and grabbed the bottle of bourbon. As he poured himself a new drink, a girl in a red dress leaned over, dark curls nearly spilling into his glass.
“I bet you’ve looked better,” she said.
Levi recognized her as the girl Jac had brought and gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I can’t always be as dashing as the stories.”
He remembered that he’d promised Harrison to have a decision about the Torrens by tomorrow, so he searched the room for Jac. Instead, his gaze fell on another face: Mansi. When she locked eyes with Levi, any remnants of his triumphant mood sank until they hit bottom.
Then he noticed something even worse—she wore bandages around both her forearms, where her Iron tattoos were. The gauze peeked out from beneath her sleeves, stained red.
He swallowed as she crossed the room to his side. “’Lo, Mansi.”
“Is it true?” she hissed. “Were you stealing from the Irons for your scam?”
The alcohol no longer sat still in his stomach. “What? Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t want to challenge you,” she warned.
Levi leaned in so no one could hear them over the music. Gangsters didn’t casually throw around the wordchallenge. It was a duel to the death for lordship. Chez had nearly killed Levi during their duel, until Levi later ended the challenge on his own terms. He’d always thought of Mansi as his protégée, but she stood by and watched as Chez kicked him over and over. When it came down to it, she’d chosen Chez. And maybe she was making that choice again now.
“I don’t want to fight you, either,” Levi rasped.
“Even if I tell everyone what you did?”
She pulled a knife out of her pocket and flipped it expertly between her fingers, just like Chez once had. Levi had taught Mansi how to deal cards, but it seemed he hadn’t been her only mentor.
“Even then,” he said, and he meant it.
“If you’re wondering how I know, it’s because you missed the same loose end again. He sends his congratulations about the bridge.” Then she turned and walked away, and when the door closed behind her, Levi knew it would not open again.
The same loose end.Levi and Enne had already forgotten about Jonas once, and now he’d made the same mistake again—of course Jonas had known the details of Levi’s investment scheme. Reymond had been Levi’s business partner.
“Congratulations,” Levi muttered to himself. He grabbed his bottle off the bar and skulked off to an armchair in the room’s corner, to watch the rest of the party from his broken throne.
JAC
Even with all the Irons’ past glory, Jac had never seen his gang celebrate like this. Drunk and obnoxious, the party was exactly the sort he and Levi would’ve fantasized about years ago, when all their dreams revolved around cheap liquor and dropping volts on outrageous, one-night sprees. Jac’s eighteenth birthday had recently passed, but that didn’t seem a good enough explanation for why he looked around the room and suddenly felt old.
Sophia perched on the edge of the bar, shaking a mixer, flanked by Enne and her girls. She was the only one here who knew how to make a Hotsy-Totsy, some South Side drink Enne liked that was basically a Snake Eyes with so much syrup it tasted like cotton candy. The five of them stood in the room’s corner, away from the rest of the crowd.
“I don’t get this,” Grace mumbled. “He’d be dead if it weren’t for you. Where’s your applause?”
“He’ll thank me later,” Enne answered. But Levi had been absent for some time. Jac suspected he was lost among his admirers, showing off card tricks and counting how many hands he could shake.
“I owned a motorcar for a grand total of four hours,” Lola said bitterly. She polished her harmonica with a bar napkin.
“You shouldn’t have bought it in the first place,” Enne chided. “What a waste.”
“You’re the one who planted the idea in my head.”
“I heard it was a Houssen,” Jac told her, smirking. “I knew you didn’t have taste, but if you ask me, it’s for the best that Levi—”
“Shut up, Polka Dots,” Lola snapped.
