Chapter 8 #5
There were groups which had formed within The Forty, not exactly friendships but men and women who enjoyed each other’s company more than they detested some of the others, and those small factions were divided between the space.
I didn’t really belong to any of them, drifting between them all when it suited me, never getting close to anyone or giving them much reason to pay too much attention to me.
I didn’t need anyone getting to know my habits, my ticks, my routines or most of all my marks.
My jobs were my own. On the odd occasion when I needed help with pulling a job, Egos made that call and I let him pick the thieves who joined me.
I didn’t need allies or worse than that – friends.
I’d learned long ago that I could and would only ever rely on one person in this life and that person was me.
I had my space to sleep upstairs and better than that I had my little rooftop haven where I chose to sleep as often as I could, all on my own and in the company of no one but myself.
I’d learned a long damn time ago what happened when you let yourself trust somebody other than yourself and I wouldn’t be making that same mistake again.
I closed my eyes for a moment as the memories of that place filled my head, of the cold I’d felt creeping into my bones, the harsh words and the bite of a needle driving into my flesh over and over again.
I swallowed thickly, working to banish the echoes of those memories as I resisted the urge to run a hand down the back of my neck.
That tattoo had hurt the worst for some reason, the ink seeming to burn as it was forced beneath my skin and it was always the one I was drawn to rake my nails over when the memories of that place, that fucking priest , pressed close.
But that didn’t often happen during the day.
No doubt my time confined to the cell in the royal dungeon had forced those memories to the surface of my mind and I fought them off as I blinked my eyes open once more.
The Den was lively tonight, everyone taking shelter from the storm, and clearly well into their drinks.
Blood would almost certainly be spilled before dawn and I was starting to think I may have a taste for it myself.
Anything to banish the memories of that place.
And knowing I would have to sleep here tonight in my room on the second floor instead of my rooftop sanctuary was already promising me a bad night.
It was too loud in here, too fucking full of people I couldn’t trust.
Aside from the sleeping quarters upstairs there was only one other place in the entire den and that was utterly out of the question.
Egos kept the rooms of the top floor all to himself and that was where he kept the majority of our loot too.
We were allowed to take a cut from any jobs we did ourselves, but Egos always decided how much, and no one dared question his calculations.
To an outsider it might have seemed like we’d be better off running our jobs and making our own way in the city with a full cut of the loot we’d stolen, but that was just a pretty fantasy someone who didn’t know Osaria might indulge in.
The streets out there were lethal beyond anything I might face in here, and the only protection to be had from them was by being part of a gang.
And it just so happened that The Forty was the most notorious and feared gang in the whole of the kingdom.
I forced a blank look onto my face and shook off the memories which always sought to weaken me, refusing to let even the slightest sign of weakness show amongst this vipers’ pit of miscreants and murderers.
A fire was lit in the centre of the space, vented out through a large chimney which sent the smoke into the sky far from the actual den, and several faces turned my way as I looked about to see who was here.
It looked like all of The Forty were present - which wasn’t surprising considering the sandstorm which raged outside.
Despite the name, there were actually more than forty of us, more like one hundred now, all hand-picked by Egos because we were the best. The original ‘forty’ had started this gang over a hundred years ago, their handprints printed on the far wall in their own blood, now joined by hundreds of others from all the members who’d joined over the years.
Including mine. Egos was a direct descendant of the founding ruler Ali Bull– but I was calling Ali Bull-shit on that.
Lower Fae didn’t exactly have birth certificates and genealogy records like the uppers did.
No, our positions in this world weren’t inherited, they were bought with muscle, blood and fear.
Egos was sitting on his throne at the far side of the room, lording it over us like the self-proclaimed king he was, and I nodded to him respectfully as his gaze landed on me.
Mira drew closer to me as I kicked the hatch shut over the trap door and I noticed Cassius eyeing the curves of her exposed flesh as she worked her hardest to seduce every damn man in here. I was willing to bet he didn’t see many women like her on his side of the city.
She wore matching loose red trousers with a top which barely concealed her tits and left her stomach bare. Her long, brown hair was pulled over her left shoulder and she ran her fingers through it as she eyed my latest mark.
“Who’s your new friend, Drake?” she purred, extending a hand towards Cassius.
I raised an eyebrow at him and his gaze swivelled to take in our den leader as he stepped back from her.
“This is Cassius, I took him from the dungeons and he’s going to make us rich. Get him some clean clothes and a pail of water, would you? The poor fucker is desperate to wash the jail stink off of him. I need to talk to Egos.”
“Cassius?” Mira repeated and the way she said it was enough to let me know that she had her sights firmly set on him for the night.
Her speciality was seducing marks and robbing them blind while they were too distracted to notice.
I’d called her a whore with a thieving habit until Egos had threatened to cut my tongue out for it.
But in all honesty, if she didn’t warm his bed when it suited him, I didn’t believe her skill at theft was good enough to warrant a place in The Forty.
Her skill in the bedroom however was certainly worth remembering, not that I was supposed to know anything about that.
Mira drew closer to Cassius, her eyes sparkling with the kind of ideas that could get him killed - though he’d die with a smile on his face. Egos no doubt hated him already and that might make my pitch on this entire scheme a whole lot harder to make. By the Fallen, was nothing I did ever simple?
“Yeah. He’ll bunk in with me tonight so no need to show him to your quarters.” I turned away, wondering if I should have asked Pip to take care of him instead, but the boy had already disappeared into the crowd and I couldn’t see him anywhere.
“I wouldn’t get too excited, Mira. This one prefers horses to women,” Balthazar’s voice came from behind me and I turned to look at him as he stripped his cloak from his shoulders to reveal the scars which marked his dark chest. The wound on his side was still bleeding, but I relaxed a little as I saw that it was shallow like he’d said.
No doubt he’d go see Hagot, The Forty’s healer, to get it bound up.
The guy had a pretty good Affinity for healing, so he actually did a decent job when he wanted to – the reason he’d made it into The Forty was because he’d figured out how to con Fae into buying remedies they didn’t need as well as the ones they did.
It was pretty damn clever really. People got better after dealing with him, so they never even questioned the extras he added on for the pleasure of the job.
That little skill plus the fact that a gang like ours was often in need of a healer meant he’d earned his spot amongst us.
“Oh, they have a client like that down at the Barrow Street Brothel,” Mira said, running her eyes over Cassius with a pout like she found that disappointing. “They bring various farm animals to the back entrance and-”
“I do not have a thing for fucking horses,” Cassius ground out, shooting me a dark look and I grinned at him.
“I know you don’t, mate,” I agreed. “And I don’t have a thing for fucking beautiful women.” I tossed a wink at Mira and she giggled.
I couldn’t waste any more time avoiding Egos though, so I turned and walked away from them, laughing as Cassius’s curses followed me across the room.
I schooled my expression as I approached Egos, pulling the bag of loot from my shoulder and hoping it was enough to appease the anger I could feel aimed my way.
He wasn’t a man who tolerated failure and I had failed by letting myself be captured by the royal guard no matter what way you looked at it.
On the plus side, he had sent men to come bust me out of there, so he clearly still valued me within the crew – which wasn’t surprising as I was the damn best of the best.
Egos was a huge man, once all muscle which now held a solid layer of fat on top of it, though that in no way lessened how lethal he was.
His hair was twisted into greying dreadlocks which ran down his back and held gemstones woven within them to flaunt his wealth.
His dark skin was marred by countless scars, each of which held a story that had ended in another man’s death.
One scar cut right through his left eye, and the ruined pupil had turned near white with blindness.
His other eye was fixed firmly on me as I moved to stand before him, lowering my head respectfully.