Chapter One #2
Was it true? Was Brighton run by beasts? Had she encountered them tonight? No matter how much she wished she could unsee what she’d witnessed, she could not.
“It’s fine,” she said to Prince after the beat of her heart finally started to settle, rubbing his back. “They didn’t catch me.” Her gaze moved to the window, and she slowly rose, padding over to peek through the window to the street below.
Not a soul stirred.
She let out a deep breath of relief. So far, she’d been remarkably lucky. If they didn’t know who had witnessed their deeds, she was in no imminent danger. However . . . “Should I move to another town?”
No, that wouldn’t do. Mr. Fitz had paid six months’ rent in advance, and apparently her landlord had made it clear that the payment would not be returned no matter what. Plus, her secret inheritance was generous, but not an endless pit of wealth. She and Prince were stuck here for the time being.
But what about Mr. Rollings?
You can’t help him, Calliope.
She studied the street below. If there was one thing Calliope had learned from her time with Duvessa and her daughters, it was that the world favored those who looked out for themselves.
She couldn’t afford to dwell on Mr. Rollings.
Her life, her survival, depended on her focusing solely on herself.
However, she couldn’t do nothing at all.
Her conscience would haunt her forever. So, she’d pen a letter to Mr. Fitz.
He might be able to assist Mr. Rollings where she could not.
Her breath hitched as two shadows moved into the street. She jerked from the window, pressing her whole body against the wall, heart leaping several beats. After a moment, she cautiously craned her neck to confirm that she wasn’t imagining things.
Oh sun and stars, she wasn’t.
Two men tracked the street below. She recognized the caps on their heads instantly. The air froze between her lungs and throat as her gaze remained fixed on them until their silhouettes cleared the street.
Calliope wanted to scream into a pillow.
I’m sorry, Mr. Rollings, but there is nothing I can do for you right now.
*
Maxen Fury loved the night.
Darkness wasn’t just where he thrived, it was where he ruled.
On the other hand, he hated trouble.
And trouble always occurred in threes. They caused complications.
And if there was one thing that he, one of the seven bastard sons of the Duke of Crane, wanted to avoid at all costs, it was complications.
They had a way of turning deadly. He’d learned that the hard way, long before he’d been old enough to understand the cost.
Damn it all to hell.
He should have known this night would gather into a pile of shite the moment he caught sight of the new shop right next to his bolt-hole this morning—all bright and sweet.
Dagger, that arse, who managed all their properties, had rented out that blasted one without his permission while he was busy setting up a warehouse in Worthing for the past fortnight.
His brother also hadn’t given him any additional information other than he’d been too gloomy and should enjoy some freshness.
He still wanted to throttle the man.
How could the arse be so careless? That shop—that space—was where they hid their barrels. What would happen if they required the gunpowder?
He pushed the thought aside with a curse. No use lamenting over it now. The deed was done and could not be undone for the time being.
Maxen scowled at the man sprawled on the ground.
Now this.
What the bloody hell had he done to deserve this bloody mess?
And what the hell had he just heard? His sharp gaze followed Dagger’s to the shadows beyond the buildings where the unmistakable sound had come from.
“Someone is watching us,” Dagger said darkly.
Bloody fine.
“Who’s there?” Maxen called out, and then added for good measure, “Show yourself. Obedience begets lenience, resistance begets wrath.”
Silence.
Maxen motioned to the man sprawled on the ground.
“Keep an eye on him. I’ll go have a look.
” He set off in the direction of the noise without waiting for his brother’s response, cursing his luck.
He hadn’t wanted to come out tonight to meet this fool, Rollings.
But he’d had no other choice. He ran these streets.
He did the sweeping if there were messes to clear. Especially missing cargo messes.
And when there was proverbial blood in the water, Maxen always hunted.
He strode briskly through the dark, his whole body on high alert, a scowl forming when he heard another sound. This one almost like an oof, followed by footsteps fleeing, confirming they hadn’t been mistaken.
A little rat.
He broke into a sprint, a slew of curses filling his mind as his joints suddenly protesting the sudden charge. He couldn’t let some gutter-born sneak slip into the cracks. Not when the possibility existed that it might be an enemy spy.
“Stop!” Maxen growled as a small figure in the distance came into view.
The sneak showed no signs of heeding his warning and continued to scurry away.
The darkness obscured his vision, but they appeared to be a lad—a child—who probably hadn’t even sprouted facial hair yet.
That didn’t mean much. Children growing up on the streets oftentimes couldn’t be considered children at all.
Boys and girls grew up fast in the gutter. Sly. Cunning.
Just ask him.
No, this wouldn’t be just a boy.
A spy.
They had to be.
His gut had never been wrong before. Shite. Where the hell was Reaper? He should have been in the shadows, keeping an eye out for any unwanted nuisances. How had his brother missed this little pest?
Another sibling who could use a good throttling.
The shadow vanished down an alleyway, and a blur shot beneath him.
Bloody hell! Maxen jolted, boots slipping as a hellish cat streaked underfoot.
He barely avoided stumbling and planting his face into the dirt.
Another foul curse left his lips when he whipped his gaze up again and could no longer tell which alley the lad had darted into. “Damn it!”
He dragged a hand through his hair, frustration forming a poisonous pit in his stomach.
A low chuckle filled the street.
Reaper emerged from shadows, amusement animating his entire face. A dark cloud instantly pulled at Maxen’s brows. “What the devil are you laughing at?”
His brother shrugged. “You lost your prey. A first.”
Ah, yes. Trouble always occurred in threes.
Confound it. The last thing he had time for was a little rodent on the loose. “The thing was slippery,” he said begrudgingly.
“You’re getting old, brother.”
Maxen scoffed. “Do not talk about my age. Where were you? You were supposed to have our backs. You missed the boy before I did.”
“I did have your back. No harm came to you, did it?”
“You call a rat escaping no harm?” Maxen started forward and chose an alleyway he thought the lad might have darted into, but there were so many he was blindly guessing at this point. He hated guessing.
“Don’t be sour. That specific spot was cut off from my vision.”
Not good enough. “You should have scouted the area. Patrolled it.”
“I did. There was no one when I passed that section. Your mouse couldn’t have been here for long.”
Meaning they shouldn’t have overheard or witnessed too much, but they still overheard and witnessed enough. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“So we silence the person.” Reaper said with another careless shrug, following him with silent steps. “Are you sure this is the correct alley?”
“You tell me. I stumbled.”
“My apologies, frère, I was watching you stumble.”
Maxen grunted, fingers itching to wrap around his brother’s neck. As if calling him brother in French would spare him his ire. Fine. It might. But to silence their little crack-crawler, they had to find him first, and there were too bloody many cracks and all of them were dark.
“Is now the time to admit I can’t claim to regret not keeping an eye on the alley since I got to catch you in a cat tangle?”
Maxen glared at this brother, who flashed him a grin. The arse lifted a hand, a shoe dangling from his finger. “They did, however, leave this behind.”
His brow shot upward. “A shoe?”
“A woman’s slipper to be exact.”
His gaze fixated on the feminine item. “So it wasn’t a lad after all.”
Reaper tossed the slipper over and Maxen snatched it midair. He turned it over in his palm grimly, the imprint of a heel barely fading.
A woman. A bold one. A foolish one.
Something in him, something primal, something absolutely foreign, whispered: Find her. Find her right now.
“A girl would be my guess, yes, but what girl creeps around in the shadows in the dead of night?”
Even more guesses. He hated guessing. “One from that wretched club of aristocrats playing at smuggling.”
“They were dealt with.”
“Organizations like that aren’t always fully handled.
There are always foxes that wish to become wolves.
” As if he needed any more hindrances. He was building an untouchable empire.
For that, he needed more power and more blunt than any enemy.
He could not have weaknesses. Could not have rats slipping through cracks.
“I don’t know. The way this person fled, perhaps they weren’t wearing it,” Reaper pointed out. “It could have slipped from the bag they carried.”
Maxen grunted. “You don’t think it was one of those blue-blooded feather heads?”
Reaper stepped up to meet his pace. “Those women are aristocrats. Could they give us both the slip like this?”
Good point. “So a spy, then. But who would send a girl?”
“Him.”
A shiver shot down Maxen’s spine.
Him?
No. It could absolutely not be. He wouldn’t meddle in their affairs.
It would mean war if that were the case.
Again. The late Duke of Crane, their father, had been the cruelest blackguard alive.
The current duke, their half-brother, was a recluse, and no obstacle to them.
He might even become an ally, albeit a reluctant one, in the future. “It’s not Crane.”
Reaper shrugged, a silver coin appearing between his fingers. He rolled it lazily over his knuckles. “Could also be the other him.”
Sirius?
That man, their uncle on their father’s side, had been “reported” dead ten years ago.
Only they knew it to be a bold lie. Their uncle was as bad as the late duke.
Certainly cunning. An outright coward in Maxen’s view.
He had never coveted his brother’s title.
No, that would have placed him under the scrutiny of the man he feared most, the Crown, and society as a whole. So he set his sights elsewhere.
Sirus Faiththorne didn’t have the spine to build an empire of his own.
He was a vulture who fed off the work of stronger men.
What he wanted, he took in the dark and had no qualms hiring cutthroats to do his dirty deeds.
The man stood for the one thing they stood violently against: killing as a means to an end.
Maxen felt a throb in his temples coming on.
They’d shipped him off in a crate years ago, bound for the East and never meant to return. It was the fastest way to deal with persistent pests without crushing them beneath a boot. Without blood.
But if he had found a way to claw himself back . . .
God help them all.
If there was one thing Maxen had learned in all his thirty-two years of life, one couldn’t fight a phantom in the shadows. Until he saw the blackguard’s face with his own damn eyes, he would not believe their uncle had returned.
“Let us hope it’s not him.” Maxen’s grip tightened on the slipper. “I want this girl found.”