Chapter 12 Catacombs Ask
Dim, bluish light streams in through the stained-glass windows inside The Antihero Syndicate’s tech sanctum, buried in the catacombs beneath St. Michael the Redeemer Church.
Monitors blink, the green glow an eerie reminder that The Syndicate isn’t whole.
The place is soulless without Aleksei’s presence.
But the quiet is good. Gives me time to think before I do the one thing I hate most. Ask for help.
And what prompted you to ask now? Your sister was born with a heart condition.
I ignore the clench in my gut and tell myself it’s because of Jasper’s recent threats. Because I’m no closer to finding the key than I was when I started a few weeks ago.
He’ll hurt Celia after the moratorium is up.
Unacceptable.
You can always take Aria. Do what you’re good at. You don’t need to torture her too much—do it lightly. She’ll fold.
My teeth clamp down hard on my cheek, and a metallic taste floods my mouth. I’d rather gouge my eyes out than hurt Aria.
Grunting, I take apart my gun on Aleksei’s old desk, the barrel, magazine, and slide clattering onto the hardwood surface.
Focus, Ren. Deep breaths in, then out.
My fingers tremble, and a stray bullet rolls to the floor with a clang.
“Fuck,” I mouth, reaching down to grab the fallen piece.
Click.
Click.
Stiffening, I ignore the familiar sounds of the lighter and the quiet footsteps.
Damn drama queen.
“You’re here early,” Elias says.
Not answering him, I wipe down the parts—a well-oiled gun is the difference between life and death.
“And apparently in a mood,” Elias comments.
Slamming the magazine back into my weapon, I spin around and sign, “Has love turned you into a nosy man? You didn’t make so many pointless comments before Lana.”
“Going for the jugular, I see.” Elias steps into the light, the scar spanning his cheek twisting as he works his jaw. “I’ll let that one go, but say one more bad word about Lana and the next victim of gun violence will be you.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
We stare at each other for a few beats. His mouth twitches, then he motions for me to follow him.
“The others are here early. Might as well start.”
Church bells toll above, and incense seeps through the cracks into the Hall of Saints, the main passageway connecting all the rooms in the catacombs.
Oil lamps light the statues of the thirteen apostles, heads bowed in prayer. I stop, as always, in front of St. Paul, wondering what he’d do if he were in my place. After all, the man struggled between his desire to do the right thing and the impulse to do evil.
“Is it your sister?” Elias asks, standing in front of The Syndicate chamber.
My head snaps up.
“Celia’s condition has worsened?”
“Yes and no.”
I brush past him into the meeting room, finding Sebastian and Sofia already seated in their usual spots at the table, both still wearing their usual masks—a precaution we all take, except Elias, to keep the wrong people from clocking an Irish mob lawyer, an Albanian queen, and the king of the underworld in one room.
Sebastian McEntyre, lawyer and professor, drums his penknife against the bishop inlay on the table, and Sofia fiddles with a makeup compact at her spot as the queen.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that compact is actually a weapon.
“Did you get it out of him? Was it his sister?” Sebastian asks Elias.
“He’s being stubborn.” Elias takes a seat by the rook. “But I don’t think it’s Celia.”
Sebastian tsks under his breath, removes his silver mask, and sets it aside. He flips open his laptop, his glacial eyes pinned to the screen.
Then he spins the computer around.
“It must be this.” He grins, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. The damn psycho.
My gut tightens. On the screen is Aria’s bounty with a timer showing the time left before it becomes active.
Five weeks, ten hours, five minutes, and twenty seconds.
Then the hunt begins.
Every opportunistic bastard in The Association will come for her.
“Ah. The bounty.” Sofia shuts her compact before flicking her gaze at me. “Are you telling them?”
“Took you long enough, Sebby.” I sit in my spot as the knight and plop my boots onto the table. “Aleksei would’ve found that eons ago.”
“Call me Sebby again, and I’ll use this penknife on you,” Sebastian growls.
I smirk.
“And the bastard isn’t here, so I’m all you’ve got.” Sebastian hurls his briefcase at me, and I duck before it hits me square in the face. “Feet off the table. Disgusting.”
“Your ego is wounded.” I grin, but sit back up. “I thought psychopaths don’t have feelings.”
“Ego is not feelings. It’s identity,” he snaps.
“For someone who pretends not to know sign language, you’re understanding me pretty damn well right now.”
He flicks me the middle finger.
“Why is it every time I come in here, I regret it?” Heavy footsteps thump against the stone floor, the scent of incense blooming stronger in the room.
Father Rafael Mancini, but everyone calls him Rafe, steps through a hidden door in the wall, his violet robes fluttering with his movements.
“That’s a question only you can answer since you picked us off the streets like sewer rats and created this,” I motion to the room, “and you keep coming back for more.”
“Thou shalt not kill,” he mutters, making the sign of the cross.
Sebastian scoffs. “A bit too late for that, Rafe.”
“I’d ask you to do Hail Marys if I knew you’d listen.”
“And you’re not a priest, so you can’t do shit.” Sebastian arches his brow.
Rafe sighs and rubs his temples as he takes his seat by the king inlay. Sebastian is technically right. Rafe has been a transitional deacon for years. No one knows why he hasn’t taken the final step to being ordained. God knows the parish treats him like a priest.
“Boys,” Sofia clicks her manicured nails on the table and says, “focus. Ren has a problem, and it has to do with Aria, whom he has a crush on and won’t admit.”
“I don’t.”
“You’ve been distracted. Red flags all around,” Sebastian says, his cold gaze assessing. “Getting a key from a little nurse? You can do that in your sleep. So the question is, why haven’t you?”
“Rule three: No innocent women or children.” My nostrils flare, but I don’t look away.
“Bull-fucking-shit. I didn’t ask you to kill her. Just truss her up. Get what you need.” Sebastian smiles wide, like a shark right before a kill. “Or I can do it for you, I can—”
I slam my hands on the table. “You stay the fuck away from her.”
“Aha. And there it is.” A satisfied smirk ghosts his face.
“Calm down, Ren,” Sofia says. “Ignore the psycho. We’ll figure this out.”
“Let’s begin the meeting. For the vow,” Elias says.
“No mercy. Our ruin for their fall,” we answer, uttering the words that have bound us together for over ten years—to take down The Association at all costs.
Elias says, “The problem is simple. She has a ten-million-dollar bounty on her head to give up some key, and when that timer runs out, every bastard in The Association will come after her.” He eyes Sebastian’s screen and frowns.
“They only mention retrieval and a secondary task. Do you have any idea what it is?”
My hand grips the gun on my lap. “No. They won’t tell me.”
The task is to kill her afterward, but I can’t tell them. There’s no chance in hell they’ll trust me to be part of the plan, given I’m Si Shen and everyone knows I’ve never failed an assignment.
“Hm.” His frown deepens.
“It’s going to be a mess. Especially now,” Sofia comments, a pensive glimmer in her eyes.
Heads swivel her way.
She lifts a shoulder. “With the Berishas down, only five families remain on The Council. It’s open season; everyone else wants to move up.”
“The Albanians especially,” Elias adds. “They won’t give up that seat without blood.”
“And you think whatever key Aria is supposed to have will be important?” I sign.
“The Kongs put ten million on it. Might as well have put up a sign with flashing arrows.” Sebastian rakes his fingers through his dirty-blond hair before adjusting his cufflinks. “It’s leverage, and I want it.”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“It’s piqued my interest, and that’s enough.”
“Lana would be upset if anything happened to Aria,” Elias comments. “And The Association would hurt her, no question about it.”
“Lana this, Lana that,” I sign.
“You’re skating on thin ice, Ren.”
“Emotions. Terrible things. Looking at you two makes me sick.” Sebastian twirls his damn penknife.
Closing my eyes, I motion, “They’ll hurt Celia if Aria doesn’t give them the key they’re searching for.”
The room abruptly silences.
“I never told you before…but Celia is a mandatory ‘guest’ at the Kongs. And…I don’t think they’d keep her as a guest much longer if I’m not useful to them.”
My heavy exhales billow out of me. The Syndicate knew we were raised by the Kongs and live on their compound, but they never knew my sister had always been a captive behind gilded bars.
“That’s the missing piece—that’s why you want to take down The Association,” Elias murmurs. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“And risk you doubting my loyalty to the cause?”
“It’s a hell of a motivator. We wouldn’t have doubted you.”
“It’s a weakness, and that makes me a liability.” I slam my hands on the table and stand. “I’d have run off with Celia a long time ago if I knew it’d work.”
“No one leaves The Association or the Triads alive.” Elias steeples his fingers.
“You’re sure Aria doesn’t have this…key?” Sebastian asks.
“Yes.” Her frightened face appears behind my eyelids. How she trembled in the hotel room in my arms, the sounds of her screams still waking me up in the middle of the night. She doesn’t know anything.
“Then we need to find it or prove she doesn’t have it,” Rafe muses, staring at the crucifix on the wall. “Or better yet, find out what the key unlocks.”
“Until we know,” Elias says, “we keep her alive.” Then he turns to me. “And by that, I mean you keep her alive.”
A tense beat of silence follows.
Sofia’s mouth curves as she says to me, “Careful there. You’re looking awfully attached.”
Ignoring her, I focus on Elias. “Why?”
I kill. I don’t protect. Lana was a one-off favor.
“You are a Kong insider. They expect you to be around her.”
Panic strangles my throat. I grab my gun from my holster and disassemble it again. Her moans in the theater, her warmth when I held her during her nightmare—the memories batter my mind.
“Don’t tell Lana. She’ll tell Aria. It’ll only scare her. It won’t help anything.”
My fingers slip. I stab myself with the pin. Blood pools on my fingertip.
Fuck.
Elias clears his throat, and I look up.
Understanding dawns in his eyes. He nods.
I glance away.
“I need your help. Extricate Celia unharmed. Get access to the Kongs’ black market organ registry and find a heart for her. All hands on deck.”
Silence blankets the room.
I can’t do this alone. But I have The Syndicate, the people I’d die for, who’d do the same for me.
Resolve steels my spine when I finally look up. “And we need to keep Aria alive.”
Sebastian snaps his fingers. “It just occurred to me why you’re all worked up over that nurse. There’s a pesky little emotion inside you—”
“Guilt,” Rafe supplies and clasps my shoulder. “You have her dead fiancé’s heart. You want…atonement.”
Something wrong and heavy presses on my lungs.
Atonement? Is that what this is? When my ticker finally gave out after the shooting, Sebastian pulled some strings, and karma—the sick bastard—gave me Blake’s heart.
I’m the last person who should’ve gotten it.
The image of Aria teasing Blake that Valentine’s Day flashes before my eyes. How happy they were. How bright her smile was.
A phantom ache flares where my scar is. I stare at my half-assembled gun.
I motion to Rafe, “Just like you. You wanted atonement too, right?”
Rafe never told us why he offered us sanctuary—a bunch of criminals committing sins with no remorse.
A shadow crosses his eyes, and he glances away. “Some things you can never atone for, but the effort always counts.”
His words echo in my head.
Aria’s guileless eyes appear behind my eyelids. The dimple on her left cheek when I made her laugh in the theater. The sweet, intoxicating taste of her mouth.
I’m the last person she should be mixed up with.
Guilt. That’s all there is to it.
It has to be.
My borrowed heart gouges another beat.
I think about her tears at Blake’s funeral. Her devastation.
“The fog clears when you’re around,” she’d murmured at the theater. “I’m…at peace.”
Then I think about her lying in a pool of her own blood, broken and unseeing at the cruel hands of The Association.
No.
They don’t get to break her.
“We need to save her.” I fist my shirt.
Every god has a weakness, even Si Shen. And perhaps this is mine.
Her.