by Chloe Neill
Ethan smiled warmly. “My, my, Sentinel. We might have to increase your stipend.”
Every Cadogan Novitiate received a stipend for their contributions to the House. I didn’t really need the money—not with the Master’s apartments and a Margot to boot. But I appreciated the approbation.
“I’m sure you can think of a more interesting reward for a job well done. Or a clue well located.” I speared a chunk of fried egg. “We put the CPD onto Cyrius Lore and La Douleur, and we’re one step closer to bringing down Adrien Reed.” I looked up at Ethan. “He’s going to be pissed about that. He’s also going to know that we know about Hellriver and La Douleur, that the alchemy and sorcerer are his, that he’s responsible for Caleb Franklin’s death, and that he has something big planned.”
“Perhaps,” Ethan said. “Although I wouldn’t put it past Cyrius to avoid telling him, take whatever emergency cache he’s squirreled away and leave town. He doesn’t seem like the brave type. Either way, Reed will know we are on his path, and not afraid to get our hands dirty. I think that’s a fairly good play.”
“It’s a good start,” I agreed. Bringing down an enormous criminal organization was going to take a lot more than that.
“It’s been a good night for you,” Ethan said warmly. “You found a necromancer, kicked some fairly significant ass, and discovered some very good information.”
I mimicked a microphone drop.
Surprising no one, Ethan didn’t get it.
“If you keep me in Thai food, I’ll try to come up with more good information.”
“Let’s start with the one plate, Nancy Drew, and see where it goes from there.”
• • •
Little Red took up a corner in Ukrainian Village and was bounded by an alley on the other side. The walls were brick, and the front featured an enormous plate-glass window beneath a glowing sign.
When Ethan opened the door, the scents of meat, cigar smoke, and beer wafted out. The linoleum was dark, warped, and worn, the walls were dingy, and the tables were uneven, with wads of napkin stuck beneath too-short legs. It looked the same as it had the last time I’d been there; it was good to know some things didn’t change.
Shifters sat at the tables, talking quietly, drinking beer, playing cards, and sending us distrustful looks as we walked across the room. We’d worked hard to make allies of the North American Central Pack. Yes, the shifters were in mourning and entitled to their feelings. I just wished they hadn’t been so negatively directed at us.
Chin up, Ethan soothed as we made our way to the bar, where a short woman with bottle-bleached hair flipped through a magazine.
She looked up, gave us a once-over, and slapped the cover of the magazine closed with a powerful thwack that made some of the shifters sit up and take notice.
Steady, Sentinel, Ethan said.
I could be steady; I was trained for it. I just didn’t want to be on the outs with Berna. She was pushy, abrasive, nosy, and had a wonderful hand at grilled meats. I liked her a lot.
“What is this?” she asked, in a voice heavily accented with Eastern Europe. Her eyebrows, slender drawn-on arches, were furrowed with irritation.
“Gabriel asked us to come by,” Ethan said.
But Berna dismissed the sentiment with a swat of her hand. “No. This.” She pointed an arthritic finger back and forth at us. “You must be marry.”
“We must be merry?” Ethan asked, obviously confused.
But I understood exactly what she meant.
“We aren’t Twilight, Berna.” She had a thing for the books, and seemed to think—or maybe hope—that Chicago’s vampires had something in common with the fictional ones.
She made a pfffing sound. “Vampires. Sparkle. If you are in love, you marry. This is life. This is way.”
“Ah,” Ethan said, his lips spreading with amusement. “I do intend to make an honest woman of her.”
Berna snorted, held out a hand, waggled her fingers. I put my hand in hers, thinking she meant to check me for a ring, proof of Ethan’s promise. Instead she flipped my hand over, traced a cracked and calloused thumb over my palm as she inspected it like a jeweler checking for flaws.
“Good line of life. Good line of love. There is no problem here.” She turned my hand over again, patted it with affection. “You are good girl. Skinny, but good girl.”
“She was a dancer, you know.”
Berna looked over at Ethan, her eyebrows arching so high they nearly disappeared into her hair. “Oh?”
“She danced ballet for many years.”
Berna looked me up and down, seemed to reach a new kind of acceptance of my frame. Not that I needed Berna’s approval—my body was my body—but at least I wouldn’t have to hear about it anymore.
“Ah,” she said with a nod. “You know Bronislava Nijinska?”
I smiled. “I do. I’ve seen video of her dancing. She was very beautiful.”
“She is epitome of beauty. That is the word? Epitome?”
“That’s the word,” I agreed with a smile.
“Good. She is this.” Her measuring stick reconfigured, she looked me up and down. “You still dance.”
“Informally,” I said. “I train, and sometimes that means dancing.”
“Mmm-hmm. I know teacher.”
“I don’t need a teacher.”
She just lifted her sketched-on eyebrows. Berna wasn’t a woman who took no for an answer.
“Vampires don’t have time for ballet,” I insisted.
“Vampires immortal. Vampires have time for all things, including dance.”
She’s got you there, Ethan said. I’d love to watch you dance again.
There is not enough money in the world to get me into toe shoes, I decided. I’d tortured my feet enough. Not that taking bullets was much of an improvement.
Clearly disappointed, Berna pointed to the padded leather door that led to the bar’s back room. “Gabriel in back. You can go,” she said, without so much as an offer of cabbage rolls or stewed meats.
I didn’t want Berna angry at me. “I could probably practice more,” I said, a peace offering.
She nodded. “Good. You practice, and we will talk.”
That would have to do for now.
• • •
Little Red’s back room was small but surprisingly cheery. There was a retro table that seated four, mismatched chairs on top of more warped linoleum, and old movie posters on the walls. Gabriel sat at the table with Fallon and a couple of male shifters I hadn’t seen before. One had sunburned skin, bleached hair. The other had dark skin and straight, dark hair that was slicked back on top, shaved on the sides.
Gabriel looked at us, nodded. The other shifters must have taken that as their cue to exit, as they rose and disappeared into the bar.
“What’s in the bag?” Gabriel asked.
Ethan slipped out the bottle, passed it over.
“GlenDronach,” Gabe said, in what sounded to my ear like a pretty good Gaelic accent.
Ethan nodded. “A token in sympathy of Caleb Franklin’s death.”
“Thank you. We’ll toast him with this.”
Ethan inclined his head.
“You two hungry?”
Ethan glanced at me.
“Oh, that’s a joke that never gets old,” I said. In fact, my metabolism was a diesel engine; it rarely stopped running. But even I didn’t think it was wise to pile rich Eastern European fare atop spicy Thai.
“No, thank you.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Well. Not an answer I’d have ever expected from you.” He wiggled the bottle. “In that unusual case, how about a drink?”
“I wouldn’t say no to that,” Ethan said.
“Me, neither,” I said.
Gabriel nodded, rose. There was a small refriger
ator in a corner of the room beside a skinny rattan cabinet. Gabriel pulled out three glasses and brought them back, then poured a finger of GlenDronach for each of us.
“You find Franklin’s house?” Gabe asked.
“We did,” Ethan said, accepting the glass with a nod. “No one was there, and there weren’t many personal effects as far as we could tell. A few pieces of furniture, probably came with the house, a few articles of clothing. No vehicle, no paper. Plenty of food in the fridge and freezer, so he was definitely staying there. We didn’t find anything that indicated why he’d ended up dead.”
All that was entirely correct, if not the entire truth. Ethan didn’t mention the cashbox we’d found or the key. He must have had a reason for the omission, even if he hadn’t shared it with me.
I took a sip, let whiskey burn down my throat. It was strong, but smoky and smooth.
Gabriel nodded his head back and forth, back and forth, as if considering the information, debating whether we told the entire truth. Or maybe that was just my conscience talking.
“Have you learned anything?” Ethan asked.
“Not really. There are a couple of shifters he’s stayed in contact with, but they haven’t seen him in several weeks.”
Because he was involved in something big, I suspected.
“I managed to get the address, and that’s it. They knew it by sight, but neither had been in. Caleb kept to himself.”
Ethan nodded. “You mentioned Franklin’s neighborhood was at the edge of Hellriver. La Douleur has relocated there. We paid it a visit.”
Gabriel’s eyes lifted to Ethan, then me. “Now, that’s a side of you I didn’t expect to see, Kitten.”
“And you never will see it,” Ethan said with a mirthless smile, then glanced at me. “Would you mind showing him the tattoo?”
I nodded, pulled up the picture of Cyrius’s ouroboros I’d snapped before we left, passed it to Gabriel.
“The Circle controls the Hellriver,” Ethan said, “and Reed controls the Circle. Therefore, Reed controls Hellriver. It also appears Reed owned the vampire who killed your shifter.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened. But I wouldn’t say he looked especially surprised.
“Would you like to tell us why you don’t look at all shocked to learn this? And perhaps, while you’re at it, why don’t you tell us the truth about Caleb Franklin and why he left the Pack?” Ethan’s words were carefully strung and mildly threatening.
In silence, Gabriel finished his whiskey and poured another finger, but didn’t offer one to me or Ethan. He pivoted sideways in the chair, pulled out the chair beside it, and crossed his ankles over the empty seat. Free arm on the table, the other holding his glass.
I wasn’t sure if we were watching him prepare to tell us a story or give us a dressing-down. Either way, he was setting the scene for something.
“Caleb Franklin was my half brother,” Gabriel said.
That explained why Gabriel had nearly come to blows over a man who’d voluntarily abandoned the Pack. On the other hand, Gabriel was the oldest of the Keene siblings, who were named in reverse alphabetical order—Gabriel, Fallon, Eli, and so on. There was no “Caleb” in that list. Caleb’s relationship with the Keene family must have had its own complications.
“Which side?” Ethan asked.
“My father’s. He was unfaithful to my mother. Caleb Franklin was the result of it. My mother was a kind woman, but she drew the line at acknowledging my father’s infidelity. So Caleb Franklin was a member of the Pack, but considered a bastard.
“My mother was adamant, so I didn’t know him growing up. I learned about him later, met him later. He definitely had a chip on his shoulder. Hell, I’d have had one, too, under the circumstances. It certainly changed my perception of the old man.”
Gabriel finished his whiskey. “Caleb came to me about two years ago. He’d gotten an opportunity—that’s what he called it: an opportunity—to do some high-value, if questionable, work for a human. Not a big deal, he’d said. Just a contract. I said no. Humans didn’t know about us then, and I gauged it too risky. The little shit did it anyway, and that was, of course, just the beginning.
“About a year ago, he was making a run of contraband, invited Eli to come along. Eli had no idea what Caleb was running, and they both got caught. They both ended up doing time for it. I was pissed. I confronted Caleb, reminded him that I’d given him an order. I could tell he was scared, and I thought, in the moment, that he’d been scared of me.”
Gabriel put his glass on the table again, and silence fell over the room. And even with the door closed, I’d have sworn every movement in the bar outside had stopped, too, that all eyes were on the closed door and the magic that was beginning to rise within it.
“Caleb wasn’t scared of me. He was scared of the people he’d been working for.” Gabriel lifted his gaze to Ethan’s. “They called themselves the Circle.”
Ethan went very still, and this time it was vampire magic that lifted into the air.
“He’d been running contraband for them—drugs, weapons, and occasionally people, from Texas to Chicago.” Gabe traced a finger across the table like the route on an invisible map. “I gave Caleb two options: Leave the Circle and accept my punishment, or defect and lose all claim to the Pack.”
“Adam was your brother, too,” I said. “He betrayed you, and he wasn’t allowed to live.”
“Adam was responsible for the deaths of shifters; Caleb wasn’t. Maybe I should have taken him out. But he had a hard run of it. Was in a shitty position. Had no claim to a throne he probably had some right to, even if a small one. Maybe that would have been enough to keep him on the straight and narrow. Or maybe he was just a bad seed. I don’t know.”
“He made his own choices,” I said.
“We all do that,” Gabriel said.
“So Franklin defected,” Ethan said. “He picked the Circle. Why?”
“Because soldiers didn’t leave the Circle unless they go out in a body bag. Because the man who controls the Circle is merciless.”
Ethan’s eyes had gone silver and cold and hard as steel, just like the words that punched through the air.
“You knew Reed controlled the Circle. You knew, and despite all the shit we’ve gone through in the last few weeks, the work we put in to proving that connection, you didn’t lift a finger to help.”
Gabriel’s jaw stiffened, as did his bulky shoulders. Very slowly, he slid a glance to Ethan. “You’ll want to watch your tone in my place.”
Ethan was unmoved. “Fuck your place. Navarre is in financial shambles. Merit was stalked. My House was threatened. All because it took time for us to prove that connection.”
Gabriel linked his hands over the table, leaned his chest over it, toward Ethan. “You think you’re the only sup in this city allowed to take care of his own? You think your House is more important than any other family in this city? Then you’ve got it wrong. You got the information you needed. You didn’t need me to volunteer it.”
“You didn’t want the Circle’s eyes on you,” I put in.
Gabriel slid his gaze to me. “Like I said, I protect my own.”
“Your place or not, Keene, you are a son of a bitch.” Ethan rose, chair scraping across the floor.
I heard similar movements from the bar, wished I’d brought my sword inside. I hadn’t expected things to turn in this particular direction.
“That’s rich coming from you, Sullivan. Every war creates victims. You know it as well as I do. We stayed here, in Chicago, instead of going back to Aurora. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let a human piece of shit like Adrien Reed use my people against each other.”
I could see the war in Ethan’s eyes—his desire to slap Gabriel back for putting us in danger, for holding back crucial information, matched against his need to preserve whatever alliance remaine
d between Cadogan and the NAC.
“We are allies,” Ethan said, the words slashing the air like the sharpened blade of a katana. “Or so I was led to believe.”
“My brother is dead,” Gabriel gritted out, rising to stand over the table, his fingers still splayed across it. “Which proves this asshole is as dangerous as I imagined him to be. And he was killed by a vampire. You want contrition? Think again.”
“What I want is to be able to trust someone in this goddamn town. What I want is for my vampires to have some peace and goddamn quiet. What I want is to not be stabbed in the goddamn back every time I turn around.” Ethan reached out and, with a seemingly effortless flick of his hand, tossed a chair across the room.
The door shoved open, and a very large man filled the doorway. A shifter, with thick silver hair and a scar across his left cheek. He ignored me and Ethan, looked immediately to Gabriel—to his Apex.
Gabriel’s gaze was on Ethan, and it didn’t waver.
For a full minute, they stared at each other.
“Stop! You are stopping!” The words punched through the silence, followed by a rush of Ukrainian as Berna squeezed beneath the tree-trunk arm the shifter had stretched across the doorway.
She had a white bar towel in the hand she used to point at Ethan, then Gabriel. “No fighting here. No fighting. Is rule.”
Gabriel’s gaze snapped to her. Obviously angry, he muttered something low in Ukrainian. I hadn’t heard him speak it before, and it sounded vaguely menacing in his growly and gravelly voice.
If Berna was intimidated, she hid it well. She pitched her head to the left and right, made a spitting sound that I was pretty sure was an insult. And then she leveled that gaze at Ethan.
“You make trouble in our house. Get out now before you make worse.” And then she looked at me, flipped her fingers back and forth to shoo us out of the back room. “Both of you. Out. Now.”
Ethan took a step toward the door, but glanced back at Gabriel. “We aren’t done with this conversation.”