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Although yes, my job certainlydoesentail walking around the club, shaking hands or having a drink with various people. And while I’m doing that, there could be twenty or forty people fucking literally five feet away—all masked, all wearing bracelets indicating their preferred kinks and roles.
But I don’t join in. I’veneverjoined in.
Like I said, I don’t shit where I eat.
When the alert on my phone goes off, I’ve just stepped back into my office after having a quick drink out on the floor with Konstantin Reznikov and his wife, Mara. Konstantin runs the immensely powerful Reznikov Bratva together with his brother,and recently moved back to New York after the birth of his twin daughters about a year ago.
Knowing Konstantin’snotoriousoverprotectiveness and jealousy concerning Mara, I was a little surprised when he reached out about them both becoming members. But they come to have a drink now and then, and yes, maybe watch whatever “group show” is being put on in the main rooms while they’re here. But it’s watching only.
Fine by me. Besides, Konstantin is a powerful ally to have.
I glare at my phone, lifting it from my desk. I mostly commute to my Hamptons house after work. But I do keep a penthouse here in the city that I occasionally stay in if it’s been an exceptionally late night. And right now, my phone’s just told me that someone’s justenteredsaid penthouse.
They’ve inputted the correct security code, but it took them three fucking tries, which seems…off. I scowl as I open the app to check the security cameras, hoping it’s just Bianca. She occasionally crashes at my penthouse if she’s had a long rehearsal that gets out late, instead of trekking all the way uptown to her place.
I flip to the cameras and start thumbing through them. Instantly, the hairs on the back of my neck go up.
Fuck.
It’s Bianca all right, sprawled on one of the couches in my living room, utterly motionless. And when I switch to a different camera angle, a figure in all black darts across the screen and then disappears.
Motherfucker.
It’sa strange line that I straddle. On the one hand, I mingle with the darkness: the mafiosos, the bratva kingpins, Italian and Greek mafia, and Japanese Yakuza. They all come to Club Venom.
But darkness, depravity, and deviance aren’t just for those who operate outside the law. Venom also has its fair share of those very much inside the law, or at least those who know how to bend it. Politicians, lawyers, captains of industry. It’s one of the reasons Venom is an anonymous club, where all members wear maskseverywhere.
So I exist somewhere between light and dark. I’m not a mafia thug, but I’m not exactly a good man, either. It’s because of that gray area I live in that I can’t just barge into my penthouse guns blazing.
I mean, I have neighbors to consider.
So I slip in through an emergency door in the pantry of my kitchen that unlocks with my thumbprint. I make sure the silencer on my gun is fitted tight as I creep through the darkness. In the living room, I clear the corners before bolting silently to where Bianca is still slumped motionless on the couch.
If she’s hurt, this is where my restraint will end, and an entire city block will know the wrath I dole out on whoever is still in my penthouse.
But even before I touch her neck to find a pulse, my jaw clenches.
Goddammit.
She’s not hurt or knocked out.
She’swasted.
I can smell the booze on her a foot away, and when my eyes adjust to the darkness of the living room, it’s clear she’s sleeping off one hell of a night, not an attack.
So who thefuckelse is here?
The sound of shuffling rips my attention from my sister to the doorway. The gun raises in my hand as I walk silently, following the rustling sound upstairs, and then down the hallway to the office. The door is ajar, the desk light is on, and I use the silencer to gently and quietly push the door open a little wider.
A figure in black, a hood up, is hunched over my desk, rummaging through the drawers.
Not today, motherfucker.
I could shoot them right now and end this. But fuck that. I want to know who dragged my sister back here half-unconscious, and possibly used her to unlock the front door. And Ireallywant to know what the fuck they’re looking for.
I move like a wraith, crossing the distance between me and the intruder in seconds. Then I slam into him, pinning him to the desk with a snarl on my lips, my hand wrapped around his fucking throat, and my gun pressed to his temple.
“Who thefuck?—”
