Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
The number of safe places was dwindling with every encounter I had in this damned city.
As soon as we made it back to the brothel, Max was packing what little belongings I had left.
Elli and Andre arrived soon after, but Max refused to keep me there any longer, fearing it would give Damien an avenue to find me again.
Max decided to avoid that by taking me to his main gambling hall, claiming it was the only place free from Damien’s influence. Andre insisted on driving us to the next spot, and Elli tagged along, demanding I repeat every word of my conversation with Damien while we drove to the hall.
She was furious when I finished. Max’s anger had refreshed as well. Andre’s driving became agitated, taking turns too quickly and tossing me against the metal frame.
“He’s gone too far this time, Max,” he muttered to the man beside him in the front seat.
“I’ll handle it.” A vow that sealed the rest of the conversation.
Andre finally came to a stop in front of a club named the Final Wager, which overlooked the canal.
I thought I could see the lanterns of the ships moored in the South Docks from the edge of the Lower District, but the fog was too thick.
The night concealed anything beyond the frothing current that made a muddled reflection of the full moon above.
“I’ll meet you and Andre around back,” Max said to Elli as he grabbed my hand and pulled us from the car. The brick building loomed tall before us, windows glittering gold and soft music spilling from the cracks in the brick. A doorman nodded before opening the entrance.
The club was packed, patrons drinking and smoking and dancing in the shadowy corners of the room. A bar made a circle in the center, with three bartenders to keep the party going and the tabs open. Max pulled me close as stares collected around us.
“The card pits are in the back,” he murmured as he watched me scan the place. “This place is just a front, like the brothel.”
“You have a gambling hall at Ronny’s as well?”
“I once had a hall in nearly every hotel and bar in the New City,” he said, “before Damien pushed me out in a matter of weeks and turned them into opium dens.”
He brought us through another pair of guarded doors, where a spiral staircase stretched to the upper levels.
The base floor was the pub, the second level the gambling hall.
Each floor was guarded by a Cursed or two, guns strapped to their hips.
We climbed past the hall and the third floor where some of Max’s staff apparently lodged.
My legs burned when we finally made it to the penthouse on the top floor.
“I’ll bring up the rest of your things in a moment,” he said, pulling aside the curtains to the windows that faced the canal.
Moonlight spilled a silver glow across the empty apartment until he flipped on a switch and filled the room with warm light.
It was simply furnished, with the main room collecting a leather couch, and two tufted chairs around a quiet hearth.
A dark stain colored the wainscoting, and brass sconces lined the deep green wallpaper surrounding the room.
I couldn’t sit, despite the options. My nerves had me pacing the room as the rest of our group joined us. Andre collapsed in a chair while Elli poured a drink at the wet bar in the back of the room.
“I screwed up, Nina,” Andre muttered. His normally chipper disposition fell flat. “I should have made sure we all got home together. I had no idea Damien would be waiting in the alley.”
“What is Damien’s deal with you? Why a kiss?” Elli asked.
“Because he wanted to rile me. When he saw Nina alone, he also saw an opportunity,” Max murmured, leaning against the back of the couch as he stared hard at a spot on the wall. “He wanted to take Nina like he took Valveron from me, to throw me off balance so I would agree to a duel.”
“He took two of Max’s dice from me at the same time,” I explained to Elli, ashamed I’d lost something so important, so irreplaceable.
She made a noise of frustration, slapping the polished bar with the flat of her hand. “Well, fuck. How did he know you had the dice?”
A long silence. How did he know? There were only a few, the majority in this room, who knew Max had given me the dice.
Except one. It was obvious immediately. “Ronny must have told him. She’s the only other person who knew.”
Elli sighed, nodding as she recalled herself. “I don’t understand, though. Damien has only been cruel to her girls. Why would she help him?”
“He must have something on her,” Max muttered to himself. “If anything, she could be in danger, too.”
Elli cursed under her breath, dragging a hand through her short hair. “I don’t know about this, Max. There’s still time to back out. You’re down to your last die.”
“You don’t think I can beat him on my own?” Max asked, hands bracing his waist.
She shifted on her feet. “That’s not… I only mean you don’t feed, and if you don’t have all your relics to compensate…”
“She has a point,” Andre spoke up, pinching his chin with a thoughtful look. “The dice are your replacement for Archetype blood. Going against a Cursed like Damien without your full stores—”
“Wait.” I clung to his words, looking at Max. “You’re physically weaker without them? Hell, Max, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Enough!” Max shouted, glaring at Elli and Andre.
“I don’t need relics to beat the bastard, and I’m sure as hell not backing out of the fight now.
It would only appear to Damien that I was too afraid to face him without the dice, and I won’t give him the satisfaction.
Especially after…” He looked at me before his stare shied away. “After everything he’s done to me.”
“To hell with his satisfaction,” I said, a seed of anger blooming. “I won’t let you risk your life over this.”
He winced. “Well, I’m glad everyone has so much faith in me.”
Elli caught the ache in his voice, nudging her counterpart. “We should go, Andre. Will you meet us at the brothel later, Max? We’ll need to start the duel agreement.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Max told them. “There’s something I need to take care of first.”
Max returned his attention to me, and I didn’t appreciate the simmering flame flickering in his warm eyes.
Picking up my suitcase, I escaped to the only hallway branching from the main room to find somewhere I could disappear to.
Max was being impossible. I’d come here for a simple purpose: to find my mother.
But every time I solved one problem, a dozen more took its place.
An unused bedroom was my first option, dark and damp without a blaze from the hearth. The curtains were drawn shut, the bed made, the lights off. This place appeared like it hadn’t been touched in a while, like the rest of the flat.
Max followed a few minutes later, throwing open the bedroom door. “Not so fast, you. We need to talk.”
I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t someone waiting for you back at Ronny’s?”
He shut the door and locked it behind him. “No. There isn’t. Not anymore.”
“Poor you.”
“Nina!”
“I get it! I messed up. You don’t have to come in here and berate me about it.” I was furious with myself already, ripping off the bracelets and the heavy earrings Elli let me borrow.
His nostrils flared with a quick breath. “That’s not why I’m angry, Nina. You shouldn’t have left Ronny’s without protection in the first place.”
“I had Elli—”
“Who was high! You both were foolish to go out tonight without me or Andre to look out for you. Someone could have recognized you! Someone could have wanted you.” He spat the word like it was bitter in his mouth. “And then someone did. Who just so happens to be the vilest man in the city.”
“And I told you, I’m sorry,” I admitted as I ripped off my gloves and tossed them over the dresser. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
He sighed, softening his tone. “Why did you leave anyway? I thought you didn’t smoke. Were you angry with me?”
He’d provoked something spiteful in me, hiring a courtesan, but in truth, it wasn’t the only reason I was curious about the dens.
I stared at the wall as I explained, avoiding his stare.
“Opium isn’t completely unfamiliar to me.
I knew people in the Fissures who indulged in the stuff sometimes.
And we used it as an anesthetic in the surgery on occasion.
It helps with pain. So I just wondered if it would help with mine. ”
His brows pinched. “Yours?”
I nodded, my eyes still heavy and fighting to shut. I leaned against one of the bed’s four posts. “I just wanted to not feel anything for a moment. The anxiety. The worry. The hurt. I wanted to be numb to it all.”
“Nina…” His shoulders sank as my name chased a sigh. “You think you can burn your pain away? That it won’t be waiting for you the second the smoke clears?” His voice dropped low, rougher than before. “It works until it doesn’t, until it costs you more than the pain ever did.”
“So I learned,” I said. My temper cooled, and I closed my eyes, wishing I could undo the entire day. “Had I been in my right mind, I might have been able to make better choices tonight. I might not have ended up in that carriage.”
“We all made mistakes tonight.”
I peeled my eyes open, finding him running his hand through the length of his silvery hair.
Orange eyes traced my frame, burning trails wherever they wandered.
The air between us had a weight from our words, the ones we’d hurled at each other and the others we’d buried.
I wanted to strip myself of this regretful burden. Shed it like a second skin.
I settled on taking off my dress.
“Stop,” he whispered.
“What?” I tossed the metal waistband with the gloves, making a small pile of silk and brass in a nearby chair.
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m just getting comfortable. You can leave anytime.”