I would never talk, because it was as simple as this: snitches end up in ditches.
I would not fraternize with the men who belonged to the establishment, or any man who operated along the same lines—criminal.
This rule was the most serious of all. Women who worked for Club Desolation had disappeared because of it. At the very best, they would take her to live somewhere else, and the man she was fooling around with would be killed. Worst-case scenario, she’d be buried miles away from the man she had risked her life for.
This was assurance that the one thing they valued the most, their organization, would never go down because of the good-looking help. I was, in all the ways that counted, and even the ones that didn’t,theirs.
They owned me because I owned some of their most valuable secrets.
Sometimes I wondered if they owned my missing memory, too. The void in my mind belonging to this place. This massive structure fit for kings of the underworld that hid secrets and blood—and part of my life.
Club Desolation was started by Murder for Hire, Inc., and it hosted men from many different criminal syndicates on the regular.
This was their place. Their palatial office with perks. It reminded me of a Gotham City mansion that had been moved to Desolation, New York.
We were actually on the outskirts, right before Desolation became…more desolate. Not that our area of New York was full of high-rise buildings and posh shops, but it had more to offer than Desolation proper. Our area was greener, filled with mostly undeveloped land, whereas Desolation itself was full of potholed cement and rundown buildings. We were sandwiched between one of the most desolate parts of New York and New York City itself.
Some of the girls even called our area “The Fade,” because it felt like a gateway from one world to another.
For whatever reason, I used my hands to outline the shape of Club Desolation, the architecture reminiscent of Romanesque and gothic, and all that surrounded it, before I closed my eyes. I forced my mind to work, to remember everything about it by memory alone.
Surrounded by woods on all sides, it sat deep into the property, and no matter when the sun was out, it seemed to hit the structure itself and nothing else. The woods surrounding it always seemed deep and dark, almost fathomless.
The lake in the back was picturesque, but all the women who worked at Club Desolation, or as we mostly called it, Club D, thought it was haunted. I guess that was what happens when the bosses are killers—it was a convenient place to dump bodies. They were too smart for that, though. The lake had been drained a time or two, and nothing was ever pulled up but debris.
The gardens behind it, set up in labyrinth style, had areas tucked away with statues that seemed to come straight from some European country.
The inside of the place was spectacular, much more welcoming than the outside. The dining room was romantic but in a masculine way, all burgundy walls and ornate black furniture. Each table always had a pristine white rose in a crystal vase in its center. The chandeliers were archaic and had candles for lights. The room could be used for evening parties or for lunch, and it fit both occasions without seeming too plain or too regal.
It had a gym that could rival one of the most extensive ones in NYC, and a bath house that could have been used in ancient Rome. The difference between the one inside and the primeval ones they had in Rome was that there was one massive pool in the center, but many private rooms that surrounded it. Even though these men usually ran in packs, they liked their privacy, too.
It also had a poker room, an extensive bar—for drinks and cigars—and a study that had more books than our public library.
The most spectacular space was the ballroom. It rivaled something out of a princess movie and was mostly used to collect debts—charitable events that were really fronts.
All in all, it was a place fit for men who claimed murder as their profession, and for the men who came to them to make contracts and more.
Imagine dining over a two-hundred-dollar plate while conversing about someone’s murder? Yeah, that happened daily, though these men did it in a way that was secretive. They talked in circles and in ways that sounded like one thing but meant another.
Even though I’d never lived life outside of the one I knew, I also knew that this one wasn’t normal.
I lived life on the darker side.
There was no way to associate with the night and not be touched by it, which brought me back to my earlier thought—if I’d made the right decision by taking the oath.
Whenever I thought about it, a dark cloud of ash seemed to hover over my head, about to reveal the flames that would consume me alive.
What the fuck was I missing? Why did the oath feel like a death sentence when it was all I’d ever wanted before? There had to be something else out there. Something…more than this. Something that made me feel alive when all I felt was dead inside. I wondered, and not for the first time, if this life I'd chosen—this path that I'd taken—had killed something inside of me.
A gust of wind surged up, and from the other side of the tree, a rose fell over. By the looks of it, it hadn’t been there for long. The petals were still firm and smelled fresh. In the glow of the full moon, it was almost black, but I could see that its true color was burgundy.
I wondered if my heart looked the same—still beautiful, but with a darkness that was forever part of its makeup.
My fingers stroked the velvety petals, and after taking a deep breath, I went to walk away, but I stopped when the moon’s light hit something I’d missed. A sliver of glass.
Silver went straight through the sharp piece, glinting off it, as I lifted it up. It was almost shaped like a small dagger with no handle. I turned it back and forth, almost mesmerized by the way the moon coated the glass in mercury. All except for one spot that was smeared with blood. It was old and dried, rust colored, but I’d know it anywhere.
The sight of blood made my stomach turn, even though the blood was old. The smell came back to me, full of copper and salt, and triggered a wave of nausea. I ignored it, refusing to letthatmemory, which had somehow escaped the fire of my mind, get the best of me.
