Chapter 25
ROMAN
Soft, choked moans fill the subterranean cathedral space. Torches and candles send flickers cavorting across the walls, and a sense of dark, violent excitement hangs in the air, like a drop of blood in the ocean calling the sharks.
The twin scents of cigarette smoke and alcohol tease the air. Naked or nearly-naked bodies writhe and dance together in the shadow of a looming dais, their faces masked.
Welcome to the Black Court.
It started at Knightsblood, the ultra-exclusive private college tucked into the wooded, rocky shores of southern Connecticut, just outside NYC. WASPy, old-money families send their kids to Harvard or Yale. Connected, new-money families send their kids to Northwestern and Stanford.
…Mafia families send their heirs to Knightsblood, where those sons and daughters of pakhans, dons and oyabuns learn to become kings and queens of the criminal underworld.
Bane, Laz, and I already knew each other. But it was there that we met Carmine and Nico Barone, and Nero De Luca.
And it was there that five of us started all this one cold, dark night, on a cliff high above the crashing waves of the Atlantic.
We decided to call it the Black Court.
There are few “rules” in the criminal underworld.
We exist in a tangle of broken laws. But one thing that everyone holds sacred is a blood marker—a contract signed in literal blood between two parties, which cannot, under any circumstances, be broken.
They’re sacred oaths, and without them, it would all devolve into anarchy and chaos.
This didn't use to be the only form of order that our world had.
Our fathers and their fathers before them had their own ways of trying to settle things.
But those venerable institutions—the Bratva, the mafia, the cartels, the Yakuza, whoever—have limitations when dealing with traitors or broken contracts.
They have to consider all sorts of things before they act—the loyalty of their men and soldiers, for one. Their business interests. Various treaties.
The Black Court is not burdened with those things.
That was the whole point: five of us, from different mafia worlds, putting any rivalries aside to maintain order.
We use our private resources to stay apprised of anyone who's broken a blood oath, and we hold “court”, where those who’ve broken their sacred vows are brought before us for adjudication.
The guilty are given a choice: fight, or flight.
“Fight” means they choose either fists or one of the various weapons made available to them to fight one of us.
To the death.
The “flight” option is a chance for them to run for their freedom—through a winding stone labyrinth connected to our underground cathedral court, with one of us chasing them.
No one’s ever succeeded in either one.
The masks the five of us wear, funnily enough, were a last-minute thought, added on the very night we held our first adjudication back at Knightsblood.
Now, they’ve become part of who we are, and of the myth behind the court.
Here, we’re no longer who we are outside these walls.
We’re no longer beholden to the last names that mark us, or the empires we’ll lead one day.
Here, we are only the masks.
The Hound. The Raven. The Wolf. The Bull. The Stag.
Right now, my mask—the bull’s visage with the curved horns and peering back eyes—is hot and clingy against my face.
It feels like even the mask knows that tonight, it’s doing more than hiding my identity.
Tonight, it’s a wall between the world and the warring emotions I’m sure are written in neon all over my face.
Across the cavernous cathedral space, the pre-trial party is beginning to unfold. Bodies writhe on couches, masked men and women teasing, moaning softly, and groaning in the low, flickering light.
There was a time not that long ago—though it feels like years ago at this point—when the five of us would be much more interested in this part of the evening’s festivities.
Now, we’re bored hosts idly watching the fun our guests are having without us.
The Hound, The Raven, and The Wolf are all “taken” now, without a particle of interest in the array of female flesh on display tonight—the gorgeous women in masks, slowly disrobing, kissing, touching, dancing…fucking.
The Stag? I don’t know what the fuck his deal is these days, but he’s also thoroughly disinterested in the women around us. As if there’s something or someone else sucking up all his attention.
And me?
Well, I’ve also had a distinct lack of interest in any of this lately, in contrast to even a few months ago.
I blow air through my lips.
Was I interested? I mean, actually interested? Or was I just so deep into a role I portrayed to everyone around me that I became that character?
This has been on my mind for the last few days, since I stormed out of Val’s.
I’ve been “straight” my whole life. At least, I’ve told myself I’m straight.
I’ve thought of myself as straight because, well, what else would I be?
I've slept with women—lots of women—and it’s not like I spent my entire teen and adult life “forcing” myself to fuck girls.
Over the last few days, that's brought a whole slew of questions into my head.
Among which is… Am I bi?
I turn back, forcing myself to watch the scene unfolding across from me.
Two women, masks covering the tops of their faces, sensually embrace as they kneel on one of the couches.
One is already nude, and I watch as she slowly, teasingly, pulls the straps of the other girl’s dress down.
When it pools at her knees, the two of them slowly come together, nipples rubbing, breasts squeezing together…
their mouths opening as they start to kiss…
I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s every straight male’s porn fantasy. And as a king and lord of this secret space, I know full well that I could walk right over there and instantly be invited to join them.
But I don’t.
I don’t even want to.
And I have no idea how to digest that—as if I even had the bandwidth for it right now, with a certain someone taking up my every thought.
I have every fucking right to be furious at him. Fuck whatever “favor” he thought he was doing me the other day, setting it up so that Dasha would walk in on us.
That wasn’t a favor, it was humiliation. My identity and my sexuality are mine to share how and if I choose to do so at all.
Making that decision for me by arranging for Dasha to see me on my fucking knees sucking a guy off was…
Fuck.
I hate that the rage that boils inside me is tinged with a throb of desire that pools low in my stomach and sends a tingle right to my cock. I hate that even now, after that fucking psycho stunt, I can’t force myself to feel anger toward him.
I mean, yeah, I’m angry. For one, he’s not psychic. Maybe he had a good idea how Dasha would take it, especially since he knew about her apparent love affair with Maks. But the way she did end up reacting wasn’t guaranteed.
She could have run out and gone directly to her father about it. Or mine.
The cold dread that claws its way through me just considering that scenario is paralyzing.
Or what if she’d demanded even more money? I mean, eight million isn’t nothing to me, but it’s not going to break the bank either. It just involves dipping into some funds, and I know that’s going to get back to Stepan at some point, which means I’m going to have to lie to him, which I hate doing.
But, bottom line, it could have cost me zero dollars, and what he pulled still wouldn’t be okay.
Who and what I am is for me to obsess, self-flagellate, and agonize over. Not him. Not anyone else.
“Your glass is looking a little light, Bull.”
I close the door on any thoughts of Val and lock it up tight before I turn to glance at The Stag as he looks down at me.
“Do I sense an imminent worried comment about my health and well-being?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, brother,” he says quietly. “Not tonight.” He clinks his glass to mine and holds up the bottle of vodka. “I was actually going to ask if you needed a refill on your prescription.”
The towering antlers on his own mask swivel as he shakes his head again and sinks into one of the chairs across from me.
“Nope, no lectures tonight,” he growls, leaning over and pouring a generous splash into my half-empty glass. “Not with what you’re dealing with.” He exhales. “Look, arranged or not, I’m sorry about Dasha running off with some other guy.”
It’s been a week since that day, and I gotta hand it to the girl: she didn’t hesitate at all. We met once more after that, just the two of us. She confirmed she’d received the money, thanked me, and hugged me, telling me she hoped I’d find my own happiness.
After that, she and Maks disappeared.
Obviously, this hasn’t happened in a vacuum.
The Lukashov family is in chaos, with Bogdan apparently on the warpath.
It goes without saying that my father is losing his fucking shit probably even worse, since this means he’s back to square fucking one when it comes to trying to get cozy with Cosimo Sangrini.
I couldn’t give less of a fuck, as long as the secondhand limelight from Dasha’s escape doesn't shine anywhere near me.
“I think we both know how not broken up about that I am,” I shrug.
The Stag nods his head. “I know. But still.” He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Arranged marriages in our world are as common as vodka. But Dasha was a good one. Smart, sexy—”
“If you feel like tracking her down and heaping this praise on her yourself, Romeo,” I drawl, “you have my blessing.”
He chuckles, raising a middle finger. “I’m just trying to cheer you up, or if that fails…” he raises the bottle in his hand. “Numb you up?”
“Well, if you insist,” I murmur, extending my glass for another splash of vodka. After I take a sip, I glance up at him again. “You gonna tell me who this mystery girl of yours is?”
“There is no mystery girl.”
“Mystery guy?”