Chapter 3 Ask No Questions
Chapter three
Ask No Questions
The Heart’s Entertainment District ran on blood and artifice.
Every club and theater was a living organ in the city’s anatomy, pumping the elite through arteries of polished obsidian and gold-veined marble.
On nights like this, the whole district shimmered with the pretense of pleasure—one-way glass and pheromone fog masking the rot beneath.
Greyson moved with the indifference of a man born into luxury, onyx mask fixed so tight it seemed part of his skull.
The stares that clung to him in the club lined corridor were all protocol and predator.
Dancers in their crystalline bodysuits hoping he’d open his wallet, masked patrons high on Boundary spice, too out of their minds to recognize him.
He ignored them, or pretended to. Every gesture was observed, cataloged, and noted for use in future blackmail if needed.
Tonight, Greyson’s steps took him to the far end of the entertainment sector, an establishment dressed in platinum trim, playing shifting holograms of dancers whose bodies stretched and bled into one another with every pulse of the music. Above the entrance, sat a simple sign.
Thane.
Even in the Heart, only fools used family names for clubs—unless you were too powerful to care, or too dangerous to be touched.
Callum Thane was both.
The inside was a velvet womb, with shadows clinging to every corner.
Low light accentuated the dancers on their platforms, and the masks staring up at them.
Even for this early hour, the club was packed.
There was always an uptick of business in Callum’s clubs the days after an execution, as if the elite needed to remind themselves that they were still alive.
Greyson pushed through the crowd, making his way to the back where stairs leading to Callum’s office sat.
He didn’t need a meeting, didn’t need an appointment to see himself up.
The two guards standing at the base of the spiral stairs didn’t bother scanning his biometrics as he approached, only stepped aside so he could pass.
He took the steps two at a time, hands pushed casually into the pockets of his black business casual attire, and watched as the large glass door slid open at his arrival.
Callum waited for him, perched in a leather desk chair, mask shimmering with gold and copper filigree.
The rest of him was covered in a dark suit, the top buttons of his crisp shirt open to accentuate the deep brown of his tattooed flesh where necklaces hung against his bare chest. His ringed fingers tapped a restless code against the desk.
He was always in motion, even seated. Excessive energy coiled under the practiced languor of a Heart-bred host. The air in the room tasted of smoke, expensive gin, and bleach.
“Grey,” Callum greeted as Greyson stepped inside the spacious office. He didn’t rise, just flicked two fingers in a lazy salute. “If you’re here to shut down my club, you’ll have to stand in line. Three Veyra have already come this week. But you can skip to the front.”
Greyson eased the door closed behind him, the lock whispering shut. He crossed to the drinks cart—neatly curated with an array of options—and poured two fingers of gin into a tumbler.
“Only three? I would’ve expected the entire militia with those private anti-scan rooms you just opened.”
“You know how it goes. Law makers never live within the law. Of course, they left satisfied, and I gained three more secrets to keep them off my back.” Callum winked at Greyson as he lifted his own glass to the slit in his mask.
Greyson huffed, it was as close to a laugh as he could muster. He set the glass down on the desk’s edge, and leaned over it, head lowered. For a moment, neither spoke.
Callum’s mask caught the light, fracturing it into patterns that crawled across Greyson’s hands.
“You’re not here for pleasure or shit talk,” he said. “Something’s wrong.”
“Everything’s always wrong.” Greyson straightened, folding his arms. “Today it’s only more so.”
Callum waited, letting the silence thicken. He always did this, forced Greyson to fill the void, to name the thing that clawed at him.
Greyson looked away, eyes settling on the dance floor below through the one-way glass walls. “I hesitated, Cal. At the execution yesterday.”
Callum stilled for only a breath, then lifted his glass to the slit in his mask again, taking another swig as the rings on his right hand clinked against the crystal. “I saw.”
Greyson felt the anger again, rising hot beneath the cold. “She begged. Begged. It wasn’t dignified. But it was—” He couldn’t finish it, so he let the silence say the rest.
Callum stood, smoothing his jacket with both hands.
He closed the gap between them in four strides and rested a hand on Greyson’s shoulder.
The gesture would’ve been dangerous outside the walls of this club where Veyra eyes could construe it as weakness.
Here, it was necessary. Their masks hid nothing from each other, not really.
“You do the best you can,” Callum said. “You always do.”
Greyson looked at him. “That’s not true.”
“You’re not your father, Grey. No matter how many times he tries to carve himself into you.” Callum squeezed, gentle but immovable. “You’re better than him. You still have a heart.”
The words should’ve comforted, but instead they scraped him raw. “If I’m so much better, why did I put a bullet in that man’s head? Why have I put a bullet in hundreds of rebels’ heads?”
Callum shrugged. “Because you’re not a fucking idiot. You still have survival instincts. If you didn’t, you’d both be dead. Maybe that’s not enough. But it’s something.”
Greyson exhaled a slow, shaky breath. “He’s arranging a Vow. Moraine Daunt.”
Callum whistled, low and sympathetic. “That’s quite the match. They’re not even pretending, are they?”
Greyson shook his head. “He wants to make an example. Show the city I’m loyal. If I’m married off to that family, there’s no room for rumor.”
Callum took his hand from Greyson’s shoulder and tapped his ring against the desk’s surface once. “They’re fucking right about that. Are you gonna do it?”
“I don’t have a choice.” Greyson didn’t say the next part. That he was both afraid that he would, and that he wouldn’t.
Callum eyed him, searching. “Why did you really hesitate, Grey?”
Greyson didn’t answer at first. The memory of the woman’s scream hung in his mind, a ghost that refused to be exorcised.
“Because,” he started, “her only crime was falling in love with a man from the Boundary.” He surprised himself with his honesty.
“And though I cannot fathom being willing to die for such a feeble emotion, I thought maybe, if I let her go, it would . . . balance something. That it would start to heal the hurt my family has caused.”
Callum shook his head. “Balance does not exist in New Found Haven. And it doesn’t matter whether it was by your hand, or the Veyra, she was never making it off that platform alive.”
Greyson nodded. “I know.”
“Besides,” Callum started again, his voice lighter now. “Love has brought down empires, and your father knows it.”
Greyson snorted. “What do you know about love?”
“Nothing.” Callum chuckled. “I only know of lust, and I would do unspeakable things in the name of lust. So, I can only imagine that if I found love, I’d also be willing to die for it.”
Greyson smiled then, shaking his head but saying nothing.
“Do you not love me, brother? Would you not die for me like I would die for you?” Callum added, with mock offense.
Greyson downed the remainder of his drink. “I’d kill for you without question, but dying for you . . . that’s debatable.”
A full-bodied laugh flowed from under Callum’s mask as he sat back down at his desk and propped his polished boots onto the surface. “You may still have a heart, but you lack emotion.”
Greyson refilled his glass before falling into the chair across from him.
“You have enough emotion for the both of us.” Greyson teased as he swirled the liquid in his tumbler.
Callum’s smile reflected in his eyes. “That’s what got me kicked out of the Veyra training program. Too sentimental, and not enough of whatever the fuck they wanted me to be.”
Greyson remembered the first time he and Callum met.
Late-night tactical drills, both of them exhausted, masks fogged with sweat, neither willing to let the other win.
Callum would sneak rations to the janitorial staff, would hack Heart surveillance just to prove that he could.
That kindness, mixed with his brilliant mind, and firm hand, was what made Callum dangerous.
“You ever regret not finishing?” Greyson asked.
Callum shook his head. “I get to run my own show. Only now, I serve the liquor instead of the lies. Pleasure instead of death . . . for the most part.”
Greyson flinched at the word. His only job was to serve death on that platform.
Greyson studied him. “You do more good in this club than all the Veyra combined.”
“Tell that to my father,” Callum said, voice brittle. “Last time I saw him, he told me I was a parasite. Feeding off the city’s vices.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “I told him it runs in the family.”
Greyson’s lips curled. “I’m sure that went over well.”
Callum shrugged. “He didn’t disown me. Guess he’s still hoping I’ll make a scandal big enough to get myself shot by you on live stream. Until then, he gets free drinks and plausible deniability.”
Greyson swallowed back bile at the thought, the idea that his best friend could do something to land himself on that platform, and he would be the one ordered to take his life. Greyson would never do it. He would, in fact, die to protect Callum if it came down to it.
For a time, neither spoke. The music from the club below swelled, muffled by the double glass, but still present, like the ache in his chest.
Callum broke the silence. “So, what now?”