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I resign myself to the fact that Club Rituals’ headmistress doesn’t mean to sound as abrasive as she comes off, but her haughty tone leaves me feeling stabby all the same.
“My question, Headmistress.”
“Yes, yes. The invitation was sent. Now we wait.”
I brush off her irritation with me. She can suck it up. My name is bringing in the high rollers to the club’s auction and she knows it. I’m putting the freshly remodeled and revamped club on the underground map. Sure, it could all blow up in my face but focusing on the positive here.
“I don’t like my word being questioned. I will never go back on a deal, Mrs. Stone. You would do well to remember that. Or else...”
“Or else nothing. You know as well as I do that you will be earning a nice commission for your help this evening. I think I am allowed a question or two.” I match her icy, heartless tone. I don’t feel the need to reiterate my stance on a contract that is already signed, but maybe we both need a little reassurance of where the other stands.
Silence and then a calm voice filters through the earpiece. “Amethyst, if he doesn’t show up, you are contract bound to see this through, dear. Remember that. I’m helping you just as much as you are helping me.”
I don’t agree, but I keep my thoughts under a tight lid.
“I understand the conditions. My body for a night in exchange for five hundred million dollars in your coffers to whomever might win the bid.”
Her laughter, soft as it is, drives nails into my ears. “Let’s see how much that husband of yours wants to keep you. There are many of Chicago’s underground elite who would pay double that to fuck a kingpin’s wife.”
Acid over my freshly ripped out heart would hurt less than the truth of the old lady’s slicing words.
CHAPTER 3
OLIVER
“I’ve seen friendlier looking Tasmanian devils, brother. I think the cigar lady is too scared to come on this side of the room.”
I hear my best friend’s insult before I see his face. A heavy hand comes down on my shoulder and a large form settles into the chair next to me.
“Samuel.”
“Oliver.”
I clasp the hand of my childhood best friend and fellow…damn. I don’t know what you would call him. Friend-in-crime? He’s had my back since I took our preschool bully out to the playground and taught him the meaning of respect and we’ve been thick ever since. It’s why I called him in from his trip overseas.
We bump shoulders and clasp each other on the back. I push the bottle of high-self whiskey in his direction along with a spare glass.
He pours a couple fingers worth, and we clink glasses. “To not dying before we get a chance to raise hell.”
I welcome the burn of alcohol as it washes down my throat.
Around us the lights are low as other men and women are shown to their seats. “I can be difficult. Insufferable has been said a few times in my presence?——”
Samuel chuckles low. “And worse. Trust me.”
A flash of something crosses his expression. Disgust maybe? Nah. Samuel is the least judgmental person I know. But me? I’m probably too fucking jaded against humanity.
“I do, brother, but a rodent?”
My friend lifts a heavy shoulder and leans back in his chair. Charcoal eyes meet mine in the darkness and the glittering truth of it all shines back at me. “You look like you want to kill and would take pleasure in draining a body.”
He visually spans the spacious room, stopping at each table to commit faces to memory. I know because I’m doing the same thing. I want to know who I have to kill should they win tonight and not me.
I grunt. “Fair enough.”
“At least you have arguably good looks going for you even if you are old. But the carnage I keep hearing about on the outside?—”
“—is…was necessary,” I cut in, leaving the jab at my age for some other time. We are both hitting fifty so I don’t know what the fuck he thinks he has on me there. I didn’t invite the man here so I can explain my actions over the last couple of months.
