Chapter 6
EVELINA
After a few days passing in a hazy blur, I realize I will physically have to remove the invitation from my immediate vicinity or else I’ll keep reading it over and over, freaking myself out and possibly losing my nerve to go.
So I tuck it out of sight into a book on dance theory that I sometimes bring with me to Knightsblood for my class there.
Wondering if I’m legitimately insane.
A piece of me knows that I must be, at least in part.
It's the only explanation for why I am still be considering showing up at Blackbriar Hall, which Google tells me is an old Carnegie family mansion up on a peak in the Adirondacks north of New York. I casually asked Val about it the other day after seeing a few pictures, and he just rolled his eyes and said it was his brother’s “evil Bond villain lair”.
It didn’t do a thing to calm my nerves. I mean, the place already looks like a haunted mansion.
But receiving the invitation is really just a natural extension of all the insanity that came before it.
Like sneaking into Club Venom, which led to my first chilling encounter with Vaughn.
That’s not something I do, at all. “Evelina Nikitin” and “sex clubs” go together about as well as brushing your teeth after drinking orange juice. But even if it had been a pet store or a wellness center, I don’t sneak into places.
I don’t wear disguises, or use fake names, or try to seduce drunk men to get into somewhere I shouldn’t go.
That’s just not who I am.
…Right?
Or maybe I’ve gone twenty-three years only thinking I knew who I was. That's becoming a theory with stronger legs than I'd like it to have the more I think about it.
The night in the woods up on Griswold Hill is another jarring example. Forget the things that happened that were out of my control. It’s the fact that I was there at all that worries me.
I know I’m naive about the world, and probably a little too innocent. My friends like to lovingly tease me about it, but… They’re not wrong.
That said, naive doesn’t mean “stupid”. I don't make a habit of getting into cars with men I don’t know very well, and letting them drive me into secluded woods. God only knows what might have happened to me if Vaughn hadn’t…
A shiver ripples through my body.
It’s not the first time I’ve witnessed a murder.
That was when I was twelve.
It was just Dad and me then: Roman was already off at Knightsblood. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard shouting downstairs. I ended up following the sound down to the basement, where I saw my father standing by while one of his men pointed a gun at a man, bound and gagged on his knees.
I looked away, but couldn’t block out the sound of the shot or the splatter of wetness against concrete.
Then, when I was sixteen, my father took me with him to a business thing in Chicago.
We were leaving a restaurant via the back door when the hitman one of Dad's enemies had hired jumped out and attacked us. My father singlehandedly managed to rip the gun out of the guy’s hand, knock him to the ground, and put a bullet between his eyes.
It’s things like that make me conflicted about his current predicament.
Yes, I know he tried to kill Roman and Val. But then I think of that time at the restaurant when he literally saved my life.
And that is exactly how I find myself the bearer of an invitation to join one of the most secretive, powerful, and dangerous underworld organizations on Earth.
Family is still family.
“Oh my God, they’re so fucking CUTE!”
Milena squeals as Selene wraps her tiny arms around the stuffed monkey that I just gave her.
I know she’s only five months old and can’t sleep with it until she’s at least a year.
Still, I wanted her to have it, and I wanted her to get it so early because, selfishly, I want that stuffy to be her first one, and I want Auntie Evie to be the one to give it to her.
Next to Selene, her cousin Bella burbles and rolls over onto her stomach on the play mat, looking equally adorable.
Across the room, slumped on the couch looking exhausted as only a new parent can, Kratos chuckles and rakes a tattooed hand through his messy hair.
“Poor kid seems to have gotten all her genes from me, though,” he sighs, nodding at his daughter, Selene, and then turning to wink at Bianca. “Guess we’ll just have to have a couple more so the world gets more of your good looks.”
Bianca used to dance with us at the Zakharova before she took a leave of absence after getting pregnant with little Selene.
I’ve known her since long before that, though: her bothers Carmine and Nico were buddies of Roman’s at Knightsblood.
Carmine now runs the Barone Mafia family and is married to our friend and fellow dancer, Lyra.
And Nico is married to another of our “ballet bitches” crew, Naomi. It's all rather…incestuous.
Bianca snorts a sharp, sleep-deprived laugh as she eyes her giant of a husband. “You want to have another one?”
“Just one?”
She rolls her eyes and jabs him in his firm chest with her finger. “Listen, buddy, if you want to be the one waking up three times a night trying to get a kid to fucking latch onto a chapped nipple, be my fucking guest.”
Milena and I crack up from the floor where we’re both ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the babies. Kratos lets out another rumbly laugh as he wraps an arm around his wife and pulls her close.
“Babygirl, I’d get boobies surgically attached if it would make your life easier.”
Milena makes a puppy-dog face. “Aww, that's so fucking cute.”
Bianca shoots her a look. “It’s really not.” She grins as she twists her face to look up at Kratos. “Please don’t. I like your chest just the way it is, sans boobies.”
He grins. “And I just so happen to like your chest the way it is, too. With boobies.”
“Ugh. You mean the ones that are sore, gnawed on, and not nearly as perky as they used to be before our darling daughter came along?” Bianca pouts.
Kratos just smiles, touching her chin with two fingers and lifting her gaze back to his. “I wouldn’t change a fucking thing, babygirl,” he murmurs. “Believe me, you’ve never been hotter.”
She blushes. “You’re just saying that.”
“Come into the other room and I’ll show you how much more than ’just saying it’ I am.”
“Hi, we’re right here?” I groan.
Bianca giggles and buries her face in her hands as Kratos roars with laughter.
“Seriously!” Milena adds. “There are children present!” She turns and sticks out her tongue at me. “Plus Evie! I mean, delicate ears? Hello?”
“Ha ha ha,” I retort, giving her a dramatic scrunched-up face.
“So how’re all my ballet bitches doing?” Bianca sighs. “I feel like I’ve been in an underground bunker cut off from the world for the last few months.”
I shrug. “I mean, nothing much new to report. Everyone’s waiting on Kir to pop the question to Brooklyn any day now.”
Bianca grins. “And how’s Bane and Dove’s world tour going? God, that’s so freaking cool that they could just take six months off of life like that.”
Milana sighs. “Dude, for real. I don’t think I would have the balls to ask Kuzmina for half a fucking year off from the company with a guarantee of coming back.”
Bianca laughs. “I mean it helps that she’s incredible.
“True,” Milena nods. “Oh, and don’t forget, she’s not going by Dove anymore.”
“Right, right,” Bianca nods. Then she giggles. “I feel like I need a cheat sheet to keep up with all the changes and drama you all get up to at the Zakharova without me.”
We all laugh. Then I turn back to the two adorable babies rolling around on the play mat.
“I feel bad,” I sigh, looking at Selene and then at Bella, Kratos’ brother Hades’ infant daughter that Kratos and Bianca are watching today while Hades and Elsa are out of town.
“I should have brought another stuffy for Selene's cousin.”
Kratos laughs. “Trust me, that kid is good in the stuffy department. Hades spoils the shit out of her.”
Milena coos at baby Bella as she leans over and tickles her toes. “She looks just like Hades.” She grins and glances between Selene and Kratos. “Do the kids in your family ever get any DNA from the parent who isn’t a Drakos?”
Bianca rolls her eyes, jabbing a thumb at Kratos. “Dude, you should see his brother Ares’ and his wife Neve’s kid. You'd swear they freaking cloned Ares.”
Kratos beams. “Yeah, Achilles is going to be a little heartbreaker when he gets older. And if the Drakos genes extend past looks, that one…” He points at Bella. “She's going to be fucking trouble, just like her dad.”
Bianca laughs. “That’s where it stops. Deimos and Dahlia’s little girl Noor is pure Dahlia—oh my God, that hair. Freaking gorgeous. And Calliope’s boys Lachlan and Ronan are total miniatures of her husband, Castle.”
I don’t know Kratos’ family that well. I’ve only met some of them a few times. But it always amuses me that he and his siblings—and now at least one of the next generation too—were named after ancient Greek gods, titans, and muses.
Bianca glances at Milena. “Hey, do you and Nero know what you’re having yet? I have perma-baby brain and can’t remember if you’ve found out.”
Milena’s husband is Nero De Luca, head of the De Luca Mafia, certified psychopath and a good friend of my brother’s.
Milena glances down at her still completely flat stomach and lays a hand over it with a shy smile. “We don’t know. We've decided we want it to be a surprise.”
Bianca hoots a laugh. “Since when do you like being in the same area code as surprises?”
Our blonde friend grins. “Nero’s…altered my opinion on them,” she says with a flush to her cheeks.
I smile. “Aww, that’s sweet.”
Bianca cracks up, and Kratos flashes a shit-eating grin.
My brow furrows. “Wait, why is that funny?”
Bianca cackles. “She means Nero’s changed her opinion on surprises with the little games they play involving him jumping out and chasing her down before fucking her.”
“Girl!” Milena shrieks, turning beet red as Bianca howls with laughter.
Meanwhile, my face becomes the surface of the sun.
“Oh,” I mumble awkwardly. “I…get it now.”
“Sorry, Evie,” Milena giggles, wrapping an arm around my shoulders as she, Bianca, and Kratos laugh. “Your poor innocent ears.”
Innocent.
Naive.
Ignorant of all things sex.
I know they’re just teasing, and it really doesn’t bother me.
But they’re not entirely right.
Maybe I don’t know as much about it as they do, given that they’re both married and, you know, obviously have sex lives. But I know more than they think.
I know what I’ve found online late at night.
I know the spicy Booktok recommendations I’ve read.
And I remember the one time I almost took the biggest leap of all.
It was months ago. I was feeling adventurous, and I don’t know…
Horny, maybe?
Whatever the reason, I found myself reading online about an app that Club Venom—the same Club Venom where I crashed Vaughn’s party—had released: a Tinder-esque experience that could match like-minded kinky people for “meets” outside the club.
You didn’t have to be a Club Venom member to use the app, but there was still a vetting process. They promised absolute discretion, and I understand why: I mean, they cater to some of the most powerful underworld people in New York.
So I signed up.
I made a profile.
…and then I got a match.
That’s as far as it went. I was never going to meet the guy I matched with—I think the whole thing was more an experiment for me than anything.
Regardless, the day he asked me to meet, our conversation in the app was randomly deleted, my profile got blocked, and then my account was put under review.
A small part of me suspects Roman might have had something to do with that. But he’s never brought it up.
Thank God. Because I’d literally die of mortification if my bother talked to me about my online conversations with a stranger involving dark, depraved…well, I don’t even know if they're fantasies. More things I’d read about in books or online that felt…thrilling.
“Sweet, innocent Evie,” Bianca grins.
I groan. “C’mon, I just haven’t had enough coffee yet. My mind’s slow.”
Melina gives me a “yeah, right” look. We both know I didn’t get the joke because I’m a complete dork when it comes to sex at all, let alone sex that involves being chased down.
I shiver.
I mean, what?
“Well, little miss primal play,” Bianca giggles, eyeing Milena, “get your freak on now, before you’re too tired even to bathe yourself after the baby comes.”
I laugh along with the rest of them. Inside, a different question is creeping through my thoughts.
What on Earth is primal play?