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SHAY:You asked why I’m putting myself in danger. It’s because I owe them. Call it whatever you want, whatever theory, I don’t care. This time, I’m going to save someone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
From the outside, 145 Murray Street was a windowless warehouse in far west Manhattan, dark as a dungeon on a darker street. Inside, it was a coked-up, strobe-lit fantasia, ripped from the pages of a Wall Street kingpin memoir. The heavy metal door opened to a doorman, and beyond him, frenetic lights, angry, pounding music, a crush of bodies on the dance floor. But none of that distracted from the centerpiece, playing in larger-than-life dimensions over the back wall. The party buzzed, but I stood cold as ice, transfixed by the sight of the woman shivering on her knees, hands bound, pleading into the camera.
“Snuff film,” said a familiar voice. “Or at least a good fake. The city boys love ’em. They’re so creative. Like little Scorseses.”
I turned to find Nicole beside me, her eyes lined with thick, black shadow, body draped in a slinky black dress. A flagrant violation of the daughter’s dress code.
“Where have you been? You weren’t at the last party.”
Her eyes scanned the room, then she lowered her voice. “I’m with a Pater now.Exclusively.It’s very exciting.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say yet.” Her mouth softened into a smile. “But he’s high up. He’s my ticket to the Hilltop. I can feel it.” She smoothed her slinky dress. “He likes it when I break the rules so he can catch me.”
The strobe lights flashed again, illuminating her. There were small bruises in the unmistakable pattern of fingertips across her chest.
She followed my gaze. “He’s a tad rough,” she admitted. “I was laid up for a few days after our last session. That’s why I didn’t go to the Marquis’s.”
“You need to be careful,” I said. Maybe it wasn’t the right reaction; maybe I was supposed to congratulate her, a daughter who’d caught the attention of an important Pater. But a familiar heaviness seized me.
She pressed a hand to my face. “See? I told you. Such a sweetheart.”
I’m older than you, I wanted to say.Listen to me.
“Don’t worry. This is what I signed up for. Besides, it’ll be worth it in the end. And therearebenefits.” She waggled her brows. “He’s paying for my apartment.”
Someone had paid Laurel’s rent, too. “I just have to know,” I said. “Give me a hint—” But Nicole’s eyes slid behind me, and she leaned close. “Incoming. City boys. They’re traders. Try not to roll your eyes.”
ThreeAmerican Psychowannabes in identical slim-cut suits and artfully arranged hair circled us. I could see why Nicole called them boys—they were younger than the average Paters, younger by far than the Marquis. But still, they were in their twenties. Old enough to know better.
All three of them regarded us with hungry eyes.
“Do you like it?” one asked me, pointing his drink in the direction of the wall, where the film played. I made the mistake of looking, caught the woman in the throes of screaming, and quickly glanced away.
He grinned at my reaction. “It’s from my personal collection. Do you evenknowhow much the real shit costs? Almost impossible to get your hands on.”
So it was real. I suppressed a chill. “I don’t like it,” I said, studying him as best I could in the dark. Up close, he didn’t have the same gloss as the other two. His long hair was lank, and his skin was sallow and pockmarked.
“I know.” He winked. “Daughters never do.”
“Apologies for the Incel.” The man standing closest to Nicole, the one who was most clean-cut, with a boyish face, extended his hand. “We keep telling him to keep at least one of his perversions private, but he never listens. It’s why the old guard hates him.”
“No matter what he pulls with those tech tips,” added the third man, laughing.
I stared at the clean-cut man’s outstretched hand for a moment longer than socially acceptable. Then I shook it. What did it say about me that it was the moments of normalcy that were starting to throw me?
“I told you, I’m not a fucking incel.” The sallow-faced man glared at me. “Don’t call me that.”
“Well, you can call me Greggy,” said the one whose hand I’d shaken.
“I’m Steven,” the Incel said. “I don’t need a code name like those cloak-and-dagger assholes.”
I frowned. “You guys aren’t worried about protecting your identity?”
The Incel scoffed, tossing a hand at the party. “Why? Everyone we know is here.”
