Kaz’s fingers tighten around my phone.
“He said I had a week. He must have found out I moved Tommy here.” I grab my phone. “I need to get him. He needs to come home, right now.”
Before I can rush out, Kaz grabs my hand.
“He’s not safe there, Kaz.” Urgency makes me stronger than usual, and I yank free of his grip.
“Sienna.” But the harshness of his tone is still enough to stop me. “I’ll go with you.”
“What’s going on? I’m more confused now than before.” Megan throws her hands up.
“Dante is my cousin.” I explain on my way to the front closet to get my coat. “He’s here in Chicago, threatening to hurt my nephew if I don’t get him information on Kaz.”
Megan stops short in the hallway. “I thought we were done with the DeAngelos.”
“Dante’s reopening the pleasure houses. ” Kaz holds my coat out for me to put my arms in.
“Please, Kaz. We have to go.” I yank open the front door.
“I’ll call you later.” He says to his brothers, then ushers me down the steps and around to the driveway where his car sits.
Kaz doesn’t bother waiting for a driver, he helps me into the passenger seat then circles to his side.
Once we’re on the road, I text Melody to let her know we’re getting Tommy from school. She’ll need to meet us there to get the administrators to let him out since I’m not an emergency contact.
She responds immediately that she’s only a block away from the school and will be there before us.
The city rushes by in a blur of gray and light. My hands won’t stop shaking.
“Kaz?”
“Yeah?” He checks the rearview to be sure we’re not being followed, then glances at the sideview.
“What’s a pleasure house?”
Black iron sconces light the way along the long, stone-walled corridor Kaz leads me down. We pass a rotunda that splits off into two hallways, and a set of spiral stone steps that lead down to an underground floor. In the center of the circular foyer is a small wooden table with a skull sitting in the middle.
I pause at the decoration. Deep red roses fill the skull.
“Um.” I tug on his hand to stop him. “Kaz. Is that real?”
He comes to stand beside me. “Yeah.”
“It’s a real skull. An actual human skull?” I swallow against the ball of trepidation climbing up my throat at the prospect of this afternoon’s meeting.
“Yeah.” He picks it up and turns it, pointing at what looks to be a bullet hole in the temple. “One of my father’s greatest enemies. He decided to keep the skull as a reminder to us of how to deal with those that try to take what’s ours.”
He places the skull back onto the round obsidian slab.
“And now it sits in the foyer of your secret club that you own with your brothers.” I nod along with him like this is completely normal behavior.
Growing up around my brothers, I shouldn’t be surprised by anything, but as horrible as they were, they never used a human skull for a flower vase.
“Yes.” He winks at me, then grabs my hand, tugging me along again.
“Nothing weird about that,” I mutter to myself as he brings me to a thick, dark wooden door, etched with curling designs that resemble both vines and veins. “Or this.”
I trace one of the etchings with my fingertips.
