Page 16 of Venomous Games

“I couldn’t find his mask.” My hand grips the steering wheel in frustration.

“You think someone took it?”

“Yes, and I don’t think it was a heart attack.”

“Why?”

“Because it just doesn’t feel like it,” I tell him. I’ve been to more crime scenes than I can count, and I’ve seen many people who have died from heart attacks. It’s not that I don’t think it’s possible. I just don’t think that’s what happened with Bailey. Even though everything seemed to be in place, nothing was stolen, and no one had broken in; something just felt … off.

“And the mask was gone?” he questions.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Shit,” he says.

Yes. Shit, indeed.

NINE

MAVEN

Bailey’s death doesn’t make the news, and it’s because they will conclude he died of a heart attack.

I thought that keeping Carrie busy the last few weeks would stop her from looking for Bailey, but she ends up finding out about his passing a few weeks later. And when she does, she immediately comes knocking on my door.

“Why did you do that?” she hisses as I open the door for her.

“What?” I ask.

“You know what you did. Maven, really, I could have handled it. I needed his connections,” she says. “I was planning something big, trying to get work in an area where no one has managed to penetrate before.”

I turn back to look at her.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, playing dumb, even as my pulse quickens.

“The Forsaken Society,” she whispers.

“What?” I ask, forcing casual disbelief. But my thoughts aren’t casual at all. I’ve heard whispers before, hints dropped in passing, rumors that were always too vague, too mythic to take seriously. Maybe that’s my stupidity, or maybe my instinct to stay detached kept me from digging. Either way, I’ve never actually given the secret society much thought, until now.

Her gaze flicks to mine, calculating, as if testing what I know. I feel the tension rise in my chest, the slight tightening of my jaw. Part of me wants to scoff, to dismiss it as another urban legend, but the other part—the part that measures danger—knows this isn’t a story, that this is real.

“You kill people for a living, and yet you have trouble believing that the Forsaken is real,” she says with an eye roll. “The most powerful men, all together. I wanted us to be their main contact. As far as gossip goes, they don’t have a hitman yet.”

“I prefer the term assassin.” I smile at her.

She waves a hand at me.

“Yes, yes, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, Bailey was a member.” I freeze at this new information. “That’s why I asked you not to interfere. He let it slip once. Well, I overheard him talking about it at one of those parties. So I’d been trying for weeks to get closer to other members, but it’s hard when you don’t know who is in it, and now my lead is gone.”

I shake my head. “We don’t need a secret society, Carrie.”

“But we do. Not only would that mean you would never have to take other jobs, but we could work solely for them. They would pay better than anyone.” Carrie is obsessed with money.

“How’s the gambling going?” I ask, and she flinches like I hit her. “Have you done it again?”

“I went to the casino, but I didn’t play.”

“You need to go and see someone. You need help.”