The raven caws again, and this time, I jump.
A sharp intake of breath and a tensing of my limbs is all, but it’s enough to throw me off.
I step under the covering of the expansive porch, the balcony that leads directly from my bedroom with its tinted glass wall of windows and a hidden door.
My free hand grazes the butt of the weapon at my hip.
The line is quiet.
And when I start to shift my phone away from my ear to see if we’re still connected or if I’m waiting out nothing, a voice speaks.
“It’s Lele. He’s at Orange.”
Then the call ends.
CHAPTER
TWO
LYDIA
The nightclub is chaos.
I’m unsurprised, considering it’s the weekend. Ely University is a stone’s throw away and their students need something to do with all their excess energy and hormones, but it doesn’t stop the shot of anger slicing down my spine when I exit the Range Rover from the passenger side, Fox slipping silently from the driver’s seat and catching up to me in quick strides.
There are people at the door of the standalone building, smoking and laughing and doing lines from the back of their fucking hands. My coke, I want to scream at them. My brother inside this club, needing help.
I don’t know what’s wrong.
I called Lele five times on the twenty-minute ride here and he didn’t answer. I called the owner of Orange, Berlin Bishop, and he said he was at Clawson’s, the gas station situated on the precarious line between Stone Fell and Ellicottville. A place he owns too because his grandmother passed it down to him and his parents were murdered by people they owed money to. Why Berlin Bishop, who makes nearly as much as I do, chooses toman the gas station on weekend nights, would perplex many people. But I know why. He does deals under the guise of honest work, and the cops haven’t quite caught on yet.
Or maybe they’re happy to see a local thrive.
I shove my way through the crowd of teenagers and twenty-somethings, Fox pushing people aside for me with his own taller, wider frame, and the menacing look in his gray-blue eyes that says he’ll shoot you if you don’t watch the fuck out. I barely notice him from my periphery, but I feel his presence. With a blond ponytail and hard features, he’s handsome in a ruthless way. Forty to my twenty-two and not someone you want to pick a fight with. Besides, I know the weapons he’s got stashed under the Kevlar vest he wears.
I didn’t bother taking the gun off my hip.
What, like the bouncers aren’t going to let me in? Everyone knows Bishop wants me as his wife, and Bishop has the final say here. He’s not in love with me, though. In fact, if we got married, we’d kill each other, but he wants what I can offer his business dealings.
I yank open the blacked-out door of Orange without saying a word to the two burly men flanking it, and immediately I’m plunged into darkness. It’s freezing, too, much colder than the cool fall air I stepped out of, and I feel the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The lobby is gothic architecture when the lights are on, not much different from my decor on Riddle Lane—and I’ve been told it wasn’t like this until Berlin Bishop met me—but in the dark, there’s nothing to see but the faint neon orange glow coming from two dark double doors ahead. The entrance to the dance floor, a world of seduction and nightmares alike. Bass pumps beneath my black leather heels and the scent of tobacco, marijuana, and cotton candy fills my nose.
“He’s not in there,” I say to Fox without looking at him. I know because if something happened to my brother on the dance floor, people would be spilling out of those double doors and right now, the party seems to be raging right inside.
I turn to the right, down a narrow, dark hall. People line the walls as my heels click on the black marble floor and I catch couples making out, doing lines, and I’m pretty sure three people are fucking as I walk by them.
Someone says my name in an awed whisper, but I don’t look back and I know with Fox behind me, no one is going to put a fucking finger on me.
Tension beats through my body as the music grows fainter and the black staircase at the end of the hall comes into view. It spirals up and I know exactly what it holds.
Another bouncer blocks the entrance but when my eyes meet his dark ones, he steps aside.
My name might be whispered, but you don’t forget my face.
I hear Fox grunt something to the employee but I don’t pay attention. I walk up the steps quickly, not even close to being off balance in my stilettos.
I wear them everywhere except during training sessions with Eve, one of which I’m supposed to have at sunrise.
I grit my teeth and silently cuss Lele out in my head.
