Chapter 34
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Beck
The short trek down the street took gumption, but not nearly as much as entering the Basilica’s den of divinity.
Gilded, sacred, and permeated with holy rot—it was everything I loathed.
I was relieved when Colette didn’t bow out of my impromptu rescue mission.
She stayed close as we traversed the casino floor, located an isolated elevator, then rode up in tense silence.
I hadn’t seen Stefano Rossetti in over a century, but I kept aware of his comings and goings. Decades of skillful avoidance would not have been possible without a bit of insider knowledge.
Colette called it stalking.
I preferred “preventative measures.”
Regardless, it came in handy to know that my asshole of an ex hosted high-stakes poker games on the Basilica’s twenty-first floor.
But I was not prepared for what I found when I got there.
There were pillars and paintings and gold slathered over everything, even the refreshments.
A large table was occupied by suits more impressive than the men who wore them and flanked by a small flock of angels.
Among them were two of Antonella’s bastard sons and her brother, Stefano.
Maslow was there too, looking like something scraped from the underside of a boot, desperate to seem important and failing miserably.
But it was Stefano who stopped me cold.
He looked the same as the day he sent me away.
Colette said it would be sad if I hadn’t changed in the last hundred years.
I may not have, but Stefano hadn’t either.
His smooth silver hair and patrician features were practically stolen from my memory, and I imagined the same was true for other parts of his body currently wrapped in a svelte Devore suit.
The lap ornament was new, though.
My incubus sagged against Stefano looking drugged. Or drained.
He was bare from the waist up, a feast for the eyes of this sordid crowd.
His arms hung around Stefano’s neck, and Stefano’s hand curled possessively around his hip.
Thumb denting his skin. Chin resting on the crown of Zephyr’s head.
I couldn’t decide what was worse: seeing my ex with someone else or that the someone else was Zephyr.
No one had spoken since Colette’s and my arrival, but tension thickened the air.
Zephyr shifted enough to stir the sleek line of Stefano’s arm across his waist. Then his eyes opened, glassy and disoriented, but searching.
They found me, and through whatever haze clouded him, recognition sparked.
It hit me like a blow.
Something possessive twisted inside me, fast and violent and alive. I stepped forward before I thought to stop myself, driven by a gut-deep need that didn’t wait for permission.
Three of the men around the table rose. Hands hovered near inner pockets. Wrists rolled and jackets smoothed, each gesture a rehearsal for violence. The older of Antonella’s sons pushed back and stood.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “And what do you think you’re doing here?”
I was an intruder. Worse, I was one of the damned. A contract demon in a room full of sanctimony. My kind were outliers in most circles and especially unwelcome in company that fancied itself polite.
Colette’s presence bolstered me, but only just. Her revolver might put one or two of them down, but she didn’t have enough ammunition to clear the room, and she wasn’t the only hired gun here. The Rossettis weren’t fools; they kept their muscle close and well equipped.
If this turned into a fight—or worse, a firefight—things would get messy. Bloodstains on brocade. Bodies slumped between wine glasses… No one would walk away clean.
I didn’t answer the ill-bred brat currently glaring me down.
Stefano spoke up in my stead.
“Lucas always has a seat at my table.” His voice resonated, stymying the threat of conflict. “He knows that.”
Lifting his drink with the hand not gripping Zephyr, he tipped the glass toward Colette. “Nice to see you, old girl.”
Colette snorted. “Who are you calling old, you fossil?”
There was no heat in her words, but the undeniable thread of familiarity made my teeth grind.
The other men glanced between Stefano and Narcissus, waiting for orders. No one sat down, but they didn’t advance either.
I looked at Zephyr and found him looking back at me.
His face had no color besides the splotchy shadows that left stains under his brows and around his lips.
He was starved. Reamed out. And how? Was it even possible that this room full of men didn’t desire him?
Their lust must have been raging from the moment Maslow brought him through the door.
Maslow must have taken it. Here, in front of everyone. Leeching off my incubus, leaving him weak and wanting, and Stefano…
He was looking at me too. Waiting.
Did he know how long I’d waited for him? Did it matter anymore?
“Have a seat, Lucas,” he said. “We’ll deal you in.”
One of the attendants brought a high-backed chair and squeezed it in at the foot of the table, directly across from Stefano.
I barely heard the scrape of wood on tile over the riot in my head.
I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to drag Zephyr off Stefano’s lap and into my arms, but to win that game, I had to play this one first.
Colette pulled away from my side and took up a position at the wall, a watchful, ominous presence with a revolver under her coat.
I lowered myself stiffly and waited for cards and chips to be distributed. The pause left me with nothing to look at but the fragile tilt of Zephyr’s head against Stefano’s collarbone and the way his scarlet tresses striped the angel’s suit coat like rivulets of blood.
The dealer, an indifferent wisp of a man with powder-blue eyes, passed out cards with practiced ease. Texas hold ’em. High stakes. No one said it out loud, but the buy-in had already cleared five figures, and that was just the first round.
Didn’t matter. I was good for it.
The first hand was a feeler. Safe bets. Quiet raises.
A few players folded while others hung on.
I took the pot with a modest flush and didn’t gloat.
The second hand, things got bolder. The table leaned in.
Bids crept higher. Stefano played with unhurried confidence, his movements measured and deliberate.
He barely glanced at his cards, content to let the game play out around him.
He had only money to lose, but I was gambling for the fate of something far more precious.
Maslow sipped his wine, then bent in, his voice too slick to be casual. “How’s business, Stefano? Does the standing order still stand?”
Stefano smoothed his hand down Zephyr’s thigh like he was petting a cat. “I think we’ll pass this time. Our current supply meets the demand.”
“Why not increase the demand?” Maslow hedged. “I’ve been stockpiling, and business is good. You could expand. You know what they say: if you aren’t moving forward, you’re falling behind.”
Stefano’s lashes lowered to shadow his pale eyes. “Stability isn’t a bad thing. Not every empire needs to be expanding to be thriving.”
“Come on.” Maslow chuckled. “You’ve seen what it’s done for your security team. Your tables have never been more profitable, and your nephew’s practically glowing these days. That’s my product in his veins. Potent. Fresh from the tap.”
Antonella’s tow-headed sons perked up at that. Judging by their puzzled expressions, neither was the nephew in question. It must have been the third boy. The youngest.
A beat passed. Stefano turned to look at the wraith. “Maslow,” he said coolly. “You don’t need to sell me on it. I’m already a buyer, and you’re the only supplier in town.”
My fingers tightened around the chip I’d been fidgeting with.
They were talking about the Dollhouse boys.
About Zephyr.
That was what Maslow was doing with what he siphoned: selling it. To the angels. To Stefano. For his enforcers. Casino patrons. Family members.
Dancer by dancer, drop by drop, Maslow had turned his club into a refinery, wringing the essence out of young demons and using it as a commodity to traffic. It was bad enough that he sold their bodies, he had to monetize their spirits too?
But why? Was I expected to believe the Rossettis and their underlings were getting high on infernal fumes for the hell of it? Snorting demon juice off glass tabletops and lacing their prayers with infernal energy for fun?
No. There was more to this. Something sinister. And Maslow was right at the center of it, smiling while he schemed. Extending his reach to Fairmont, raising another score of vulnerable souls up from Hades… He would burn this city to the ground to keep his throne warm.
“Your call, Lucas,” the dealer said.
Right. Cards.
“It’s Beck,” I corrected. “And I’ll raise. Let’s make this interesting.”
In a room full of men who didn’t see money as an object, value was assigned to less tangible items. Favors, especially the kind I offered, could endow a person with things far more valuable than riches. Things not bought with dollars and cents.
“I’m in the mood to make a deal,” I said.
That got their attention. Especially Stefano’s.
He’d never approved of my line of work, claiming it was fraught with dishonesty and treachery he couldn’t abide.
Gambling with paper and bills was more his speed than wagering souls.
He liked his risks visible, his terms enforceable, and his hands clean.
I wagered in broader strokes. Fortunes. Futures. I’d dabbled in life and death more times than I could count. It was a business I’d been steadily backing away from. Not because I’d gone soft, but because I’d stopped needing it.
But tonight, I was putting my cards quite literally on the table.
The other players must have known me or at least known of me, judging by the ripple of whispers that answered my statement. But my pitch was for the wraith. Tailor-made for Maslow because he was the only one in this room who possessed something worth betting on.