No Greater Oblivion (No Sweeter Poison #3)

1. A Year Changes Everything

1

A YEAR CHANGES EVERYTHING

Dahlia

New York City

The Present

B lood stains the pearlescent bed of freshly fallen snow beneath my feet.

Rian O’Neil disarms the man who’s been following us for the last several blocks and tosses the gun in my direction. I check the magazine while Corey and Owen, Rian’s security detail, catch up to us.

“One of Li’s guys?”

Rian lets out a ragged breath and drags his thumb across his bottom lip, smearing the blood there. “I thought you handled it?”

“I am handling it. And you know what, I’m a little offended Li sent a hitman after me. I thought we were better friends than that.”

He clenches his jaw at the bite of sarcasm in my voice. Keeping his knee between the man’s shoulder blades, Rian has the brunette in an difficult position limiting his mobility.

“Dead?” Rian asks. “Or alive?”

I sigh. I was so hoping we’d have a nice evening.

“Dead.”

The brunette barely manages a strangled cry before Rian breaks his neck.

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“I’m worth more than you could ever amount to in a thousand lifetimes.” When Corey and Owen finally reach us I gesture toward the body. “Get rid of it. It’s too close to my house.”

When I made the decision to come home a year ago, it was supposed to be a new beginning for me. Far away from the dangers of Alejandro’s life style, the threat of the twelve families, and Sandro’s relentless assassination attempts but it seems the perils have followed me here from Barcelona. For a moment, I wonder if I should’ve ever left at all but I smother the thought almost as soon as it takes form. Another day in that house and I think I would’ve lost my mind completely. I may have saved myself but it meant leaving everything—and everyone—behind. Including Alejandro.

During the scuffle, Rian’s tie came undone so I reach out to adjust it and smooth my hands over his wrinkled lapels. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone to place a call.

“How far are you?” He pauses. “There’s been a change of plans, bring the car around.”

He ends the call just as I say, “And here I thought a romantic stroll through the park would take the edge off.”

Rian isn’t amused but he rarely is. I often wonder what I see in him but then I remember how good he is with his mouth and that usually dispels any previous doubts.

We leave Central Park and step out onto Fifth Avenue where a flurry of cars whizz past us. New Year’s Eve was always my favorite holiday—it’s why Karina and I used to take our trips at the end of the year. Most people find the idea of reinventing oneself every New Year silly, but to me, it’s hopeful. No one needs an excuse to start over, be better, or live differently. But it is encouraging to have one. New beginnings were once a source of joy for me but now they are a necessity of life.

In order to survive, I must constantly reinvent myself—shedding one skin and slipping into another. A year ago, that transformation nearly killed me. Today, it’s only made me stronger.

Killian arrives in a black Porsche and cuts off the M1 in the bus lane when it tries to make a drop off. The bus driver honks like a maniac but Rian ignores him as he opens the back door and waits for me to get in. Then he takes his time walking around the back of the car to enter through the other side. By the time Killian pulls out of the spot, the bus driver is flipping us the finger with both hands.

Rian says, “When we get there, let me do the talking.”

I frown. “Why? I’m the one with the gun.”

“A gun you should’ve never had possession of to begin with.”

“Let’s not get hung up on details, shall we?”

Rian cuts me a look but it’s difficult to take him seriously when his eyes are so sky blue. There isn’t an ounce of malice in them and they’re probably the only thing that loan an ounce of humanity to him. Otherwise, the brutality of his hard, masculine features complemented by the sheer size and build of his six-foot frame make him appear almost monstruous. A quality not at all helped by the ink on his skin.

“When we get there, you’re going to apologize and call it a misunderstanding?—”

“When we get there, I’m going to tell him to go fuck himself.” I interrupt.

“Do the smartass remarks ever stop?”

“You’d have to tape my mouth shut.”

“Your mouth is how you ended up in this situation.” He lets out a breath. “If you hadn’t been antagonizing the men at Li’s poker game, you would’ve never ended up with the gun.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were concerned for my well-being.”

“Only so far as it affects mine.”

“You know, we’d have a much easier time getting along if you’d just admit you’re in love with me.”

He flexes his jaw and averts his gaze, focusing instead on the changing lights outside his window. “That ego of yours doesn’t make it easy.”

A smug smile crosses my lips. “You love my massive ego.”

Rian changes the conversation. “I don’t understand why you’re holding on to the gun in the first place.”

I seal my lips shut.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

What I value most about our relationship is that we don’t owe each other anything—fidelity, commitment, or honesty. We live our lives as we see fit and enjoy one another’s company when our interests align, which just so happens to be often. However, in the last few months our arrangement has evolved and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t becoming something real . Eventually, I’m going to have to tell him the truth. How I ended up back in New York a year ago after uprooting my life in Barcelona, where my money comes from, why Li and I don’t get along, who the mysterious ex-boyfriend who funds my lifestyle is. And most importantly, how I ended up in possession of the FBI’s most sought-after weapon.

But not yet.

T he Empress is the best kept secret in New York City.

She’s the altar at which the wealth mongers of the world come to worship. The elite rub elbows in a pool of excess luxury, drinking from crystal champagne flutes and sniffing narcotics off the edge of platinum credit cards. Paying homage to a bygone era of glamor and rebellion, The Empress is a modern take on the sumptuous, sexy style of Hollywood’s Golden Era. All clean, sharp lines with glass, marble, onyx, and hints of leather. Elaborate, modernist chandeliers light the space and seamless geometric patterns in gold and brass fill the panels on the black walls, accented by sapphire blue drapery and emerald-green furniture. A bar with an antique glass backing and tall, throne-like chairs lining the counter take up most of the north wall.

Tinted glass windows offer a panoramic view of the city skyline from west to east facing south. There’s an upper level filled with booths and doorways leading to private rooms and downstairs, more booths and seating areas fill the open space, all of them arranged to complement the center dance floor.

A waitress passes by with a tray of champagne flutes surrounding an antique, silver snuff box in the middle. I catch her by the back of her uniform and she makes an abrupt stop, careful not to drop her tray.

“Where’s Huang?”

She blinks at me several times, the words caught in her throat. “I?—”

I flip open the box and pilfer through the different pills inside before snagging an Adderall and placing it on the tip of my tongue.

“Wait!”

I grab a flute of champagne and finish it with a single swig. “Do you know who I am?”

The waitress pauses before giving a quick nod.

“Good. Go find Huang and tell him I’m?—”

“Dahlia,” Rian touches my arm. “Look.”

I follow his line of sight toward the upper mezzanine. Li has already spotted us and he flicks his chin toward one of the doorways. I hiss between my teeth.

“Oh great. It’s like getting called into the principal’s office.”

Rian ignores my comment. “Let’s go.”

We head upstairs and on the way, I lock gazes with Damiano. He smiles when he sees me and is about to excuse himself from the group he’s sitting with when I give a firm shake of the head. My friend pauses, the confusion clear as it flickers across his face. It isn’t until one of Li’s men gestures toward the hall he wants Rian and I to enter does Damiano understand. He shoots me a disapproving look and before I have time to react, someone grabs my elbow.

“She’s not going in there alone,” Rian says. The ice in his voice sends a shiver down my spine.

“Boss’s orders,” the man replies.

Rian is quick to reach for his gun, but I step between him and the guard, hoping to de-escalate the situation. Rian and Li are childhood best friends and the last thing I want is to trigger a fallout between them. Flattering as it is to have two men fighting over me, this isn’t the kind of dress that can survive a bloodstain, and I’ll be furious watching twenty-five thousand dollars end up in the trash. I’m wearing vintage Versace for Christ’s sake.

“Drop it, Ri. Please?”

A muscle in his jaw tightens. Having sensed the tension from across the mezzanine, Damiano comes up behind us and gently extracts the gun from Rian’s hand. He turns to the guard and puts on his best smile.

“Get my friend a drink, will you? We’ll wait out here.”

I take the out Damiano gives me and bolt down the hall, narrowly escaping Rian’s grasp.

At this point, I know The Empress like the back of my hand. For the last year, I’ve probably spent more time here than in my own home. My fingers graze the canvas wallpaper, the golden threads of its subtle geometric pattern shimmering in the ambient lighting. The click of my heels is absorbed by the red carpet rolled over dark hardwood floors. I can’t help but think of El Rey and the first time I wandered upstairs to the floors with the private rooms. All that beautiful velvet wallpaper and dimly lit sconces. Despite their similar aesthetics, El Rey felt as ancient as the countryside it resided in. The Empress is beacon of glamorous modernity in the world’s greatest city, adorned with the glamor of decades passed.

I make a turn and approach the double doors at the end of an isolated hall. I don’t bother knocking—there’s no point. When I step inside, the scent of cigar smoke and leather floats through the air. In The Empress’s private rooms, high-stakes gamblers roll the dice on more than just the money in their pockets. I’ve seen wealthy, powerful juggernauts lose the shirts off their backs. A Texas big-oil heir once lost the controlling shares in his great-grandfather’s company to a West Coast tech-millionaire. And last June, a Saudi Prince gambled away half his fortune and a beloved skyscraper to a German business tycoon.

Li Huang stands at the back of the room, lording over a table of five men holding cards close to their chests. Judging by the number of chips on the table, I’d assume there’s at least ten million dollars at stake, if not more. When he sees me he doesn’t address me, merely waits for me to approach him behind the table.

Once I’m close enough to touch, he places his hands on my shoulders and greets me with a kiss on both cheeks. I don’t miss the implication behind the gesture as he so rarely interacts with people physically, save his fiancé Mathieu, and such instances are infrequent. Touching me is a power play. How he exerts power over other people.

“Dahlia,” he says as he smiles down at me. “How good of you to come.”

“I couldn’t miss my first New Year’s at The Empress,” I reply. “Especially after you sent such a beautiful invitation.”

Invitation number four to be exact. Li labels his invitations numerically and purposefully skips over four and its multiples whenever possible because of Chinese superstition. When I received my invitation in the mail last week, the number on the top right hand corner stared back at me like a threat. A dark omen of what was to come.

“I have a gift for you.”

He places his hand on the small of my back and I follow him a few feet away to a bar cart. A silver cloche rests atop a porcelain plate and he removes it, revealing the champagne flute underneath. It’s filled with twelve grapes. Li lifts the glass by the stem and extends it to me.

“I’m told this is a tradition in your culture. Twelve grapes for the twelve strokes of midnight.”

I take the champagne flute from him graciously. “You’re very kind.”

“Is Rian with you?”

“He is. He was very upset he couldn’t come in.”

“I thought we could get to know each other better. In private.” His smile gleams with practiced civility. “Seeing as how you and Rian are so close.”

Li and I have never been close but the animosity simmering beneath the surface of our exchanged pleasantries is new. When I discovered what was really going on behind the scenes of his operation and how it could affect people I still care about, I made it my mission to bring him down. Getting close to Rian was merely a necessity at first and I hadn’t intended to develop feelings for him. Like most things in my life, nothing went as planned and when I found out Rian was at risk of being betrayed by his best friend, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone.

Save Alejandro’s sorry ass and expose Li’s deceit to Rian. Though, I’m really starting to question this “master” plan of mine. It hasn’t exactly gone the way I wanted and my growing attachment to Rian is proof of that.

I meet Li’s gaze head on, dark eyes glistening in the golden light, and I smile. Beautiful, mindless, and decorative. Like most of the women in Li’s world.

“Does Rian talk about me often? I hope it’s only good things.”

“Not really. In fact,” His smile deepens. “As his best friend, I should probably tell you—he’s very fickle with women. You seem like a nice girl, I’d hate for you to get hurt. Rian has a bad habit of using and discarding.”

So this is why he pulled me aside. Li would never dare give such a thinly veiled threat in Rian’s presence. He wants me to know that his best friend’s protection is only temporary because as soon as Rian decides he’s done playing house with me, Li’s going to crush me like a grape under his thumb. Well I won’t give him the satisfaction of watching me squirm.

“How funny.”

He maintains the practiced expression on his face, brows slightly drawn, cheekbones elevated as he gives a tightened smile. “What’s funny?”

“I was just thinking…I haven’t seen Special Agent Morales yet.” I let out a little laugh. “Isn’t that just so funny.”

The smile on his face dissolves. I’m not supposed to know the FBI is circling around Li’s illegal operation—smuggling chemicals from China to the US through his family’s shipping company where they’re used in American factories for the production of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and ketamine. It’s where the bulk of his fortune came from until the DEA started cracking down on his operation a few years ago. Since then he’s been forced into more legitimate forms of business to sustain his gluttonous lifestyle.

When he makes no effort to fill the silence, I leave the room without his dismissal, an offence most men have gotten a bullet for.

But I’m not most men.

D amiano’s waiting for me on the mezzanine. Our gazes meet and he dismisses himself from his conversation with Jenissa Dupree. Looping an arm through mine we descend the iron stairs together and into the madness that awaits us below.

“I thought you didn’t like Vaughn’s daughter.”

“I don’t,” he turns and flashes a smile in my direction. “But who wouldn’t like an invitation to the White House?”

Damiano may look like a golden cherub but his mind is as corrupt as sin. Jenissa Dupree is his newest conquest—daughter of Vice President-Elect Vaughn Dupree who’ll be sworn into office in a few weeks. Dupree will make history as the country’s first Black Vice President but will serve under a geriatric white man whom everyone knows made his way into the White House by default. The Republican candidate this past election season was so deplorable his own party turned against him.

The Velluccis and the Duprees have history and Vaughn’s precious daughter seems like an easy target for Damiano’s vendetta.

“What did Li say?”

“Li was Li.”

Damiano escorts us to a private booth toward the far-left corner of the club. Behind us, the landscape of Manhattan glistens under the moonlight, the city’s east side and the coast of Brooklyn and Queens winking back at us. This past winter has been the coldest in a decade, a true feat considering global warming is setting the world on fire. Most of the East and Hudson Rivers have frozen over and right now, the 59 th Street Bridge looks like it’s sitting on a tray of glass rather than hundreds of feet deep in water.

“Where’s Rian?”

Damiano’s gaze darkens, one eye gold and one eye blue. His jaw clenches and when a waiter passes, he waves them over, picking up glasses of champagne for both of us. “Antonov’s here.”

I can’t help the abrupt laugh that leaves my lips. “Well…this should be fun.”

“You shouldn’t laugh. They’re more likely to come to blows over you than their fucked-up history.”

“Hey! I didn’t know they were brothers when I hooked up with Sasha,” I defend.

My friend rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue.

Rian O’Neil.

Twenty-nine-years-old, fourth generation New Yorker of Irish descent, related to the distinguished Cahills and Fayes through his affluent, old-money mother, Orla. Related to three past governors and two senators, most of the O’Neils’s wealth came from bootlegging during prohibition before politics became the new family business. Now they’re “contractors” filling up most of the Long Island City skyline with glittering skyscrapers and condominiums visible from Manhattan. His mortal nemesis?

Sasha Antonov.

Born in Moscow to Melor Antonov, first cousin of Lukyan Maslov through their mothers, the infamous Belov sisters. Heir to the Maslov fortune, he will one day inherit a multibillion dollar arms and defense corporation, left to him by his childless cousin and Godfather, Lukyan. Distantly related to a number of defunct Russian noble houses through his blue-blooded paternal grandmother, his matriarchal lineage was largely unknown until last summer.

His mother? Orla O’Neil.

“Where’s Alyssa?” Damiano changes the subject.

“Still sick. You should visit,” I hint. “I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

“Unfortunately for me, the only man your best friend has eyes for is?—”

My phone pings with a message and I cast a glance at the name on the screen. The letter A flashes back at me and before I can shove my phone into my purse, Damiano snatches it up.

“Is this Daddy Warbucks?”

“Not funny.” I fling myself across the booth and try to grab my phone. “Give it back, Dami!”

“Are you ever going to tell us who this mysterious benefactor is?” He chuckles and lowers his hand, teasing me, before once more lifting it out of reach. “I hope you know, it’s absolutely killing Rian.”

“He could easily find out if he wanted to.”

“But he doesn’t because he respects your privacy too much. Fucking pussy.”

I elbow him in the ribs and he winces, leaning forward just long enough for me to snatch the phone back. The call went to voicemail and he didn’t leave a message. Instead, a text message pops up on the screen.

A: you can’t be serious about the developers

Me: why are you still there? My lawyers sent an order to vacate the premises weeks ago

A: I don’t understand why you won’t just sell it to me

Damiano cranes his head and tries to get a look at what I’m typing. “What lawyers?”

“Damiano!” I lean away and finish my text.

Me: I don’t understand why it matters so much to you

“You’re not married are you?” he lifts a brow. “Not that I’m judging, but Rian can get a little trigger happy with his gun.”

“We weren’t married, it’s…” Another message comes in, distracting me. “We had a house together, or, well, he bought it for me. And I’m trying to sell it to these developers and he’s being difficult about it.”

His tone becomes serious. “Does Rian know?”

“Not yet.” My phone chimes with another text.

A: you know why

“ Son of a fucking bitch .”

Damiano whistles. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

I type something then delete it. Type and delete again. Frustrated, I turn my phone off and shove it into my purse.

“Rian asked me to move in with him last week,” I confess.

He chokes on his drink. “He’s allergic to commitment and asked you to move in?”

I cut him a look.

“What did you say?”

“I almost said yes but…” My gaze wanders to my purse and I fight the temptation to check my phone again. “I’m a little tied up right now. I’ve been trying to distance myself and sever any connections between us but it’s been hard. Technically, he still supports me.”

“Really?” he asks and I nod. “If it’s the credit cards you’re worried about, I’ll take care of those. I don’t mind.”

I groan and drop my chin in the palm of my hand as I lean over the table. “You couldn’t afford me.”

He whistles. “That serious?”

“ I can’t even afford me. I turned into exactly what I always promised myself I wouldn’t.”

“A shopaholic?”

“My mother,” I remark bitterly.

Financially dependent on a man without anything of my own, save a degree I’ve yet to put to use. To be fair, in my heartbreak and naivety, I really believed Alejandro and I would get back together. When that didn’t happen, I used his credit cards to exact revenge. Not that he was ever one to restrict my spending or make me feel like my financial freedom was limited but I wanted to make it hurt, if only a little bit. Foolish thinking on my part but there’s nothing I can do to change it now.

Except cut the cord.

Lost deep in thought, I almost miss Rian as he approaches us. Before he can get a word in, I rise to my feet and throw my arms around his neck, kissing him so deeply that Damiano yells at us to get a room.

The night is young. And I fully intend on not remembering any of it by tomorrow morning.