She was going in again. This time, she wouldn’t be content with observing from the periphery. This time, she was going to find out exactly what the Rosovs were hiding in the depths of The Poisoned Serpent.
Even if it killed her.
EIGHT
On night four, everything changed.
Crystal chandeliers cast rainbows across the polished marble floor, while a jazz quartet played on a raised stage, their melancholy notes winding through the cigarette smoke that hung in the air like fog.
But tonight, Nadi’s evening was far away from the luxury of the club. No, her night was consumed by clanging pans and the barking of food orders. She was playing the part of the head chef. The good news was it wasn’t the first time she’d had to do the role before in her life. The woman had called in sick, and she’d been the one to intercept the phone call earlier that day, so it had been easy enough to swap into her form and take the position on the line.
It was when she had her head down, prepping scallops for the dinner service, that Braen walked in. “You’re late for our downstairs guests.”
He gestured at a row of plates on the prep shelf next to him. “These will do. Get a tray. Let’s go. My guests are getting impatient, and if they haven’t eaten, they’re liable to faint before the evening kicks off.”
“Yessir. I’m sorry.” Grabbing a large black tray from a stack, she filled it up with the plates he had gestured at and followed behind him obediently.
Braen was in a hurry, and she made sure she was appropriately cowed, embarrassed, and afraid of him. When he took her down to the basement, and to a door that shouldn’t have been there—as it wasn’t on any of the floor plans that Raziel had shown her—she felt the hair on the back of her neck start to stand up.
The vampire reached into the pocket of his coat, pulled out a set of keys, and clicked open a hidden lock tucked away behind a false steam pipe along the wall. Pushing open the bricks, it revealed a corridor that was just as lavish as everything else, if far more dimly lit.
This was still a public-facing space—just far more salacious.
What was going on here?
Braen’s expensive shoes clicked loudly on the wooden floor as he led her deeper into the basement, before turning the corner into a room.
Nadi’s heart lurched in her chest. She almost staggered and dropped the plate of food all over the floor.
She almost shifted into Ivan and bludgeoned Braen to death where he stood.
It took every ounce of her will—every shred of self-preservation—every voice in her head screamingDon’t do it, you fool, you’ll die—to keep herself from flying into a rage.
In front of her were men and women. Chained. In various stages of barely clothed or fully nude. All young, all beautiful, all on their knees, all clearly prisoners…
And all of them fae.
“Well?” Braen snapped. “Are you an idiot today? What are you waiting for?” He gestured toward the prisoners. No…Theslaves.
“S-sorry. Not feeling my best today. Almost called out sick.” She stepped forward with the tray of food, before placing it down on the ground, passing out the plates. The fae in front of her didn’t even look up at her. Her hands were shaking as she returned back to the door, clutching the tray hard enough that her knuckles were turning white.
Braen frowned. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Wilma. I shouldn’t have been so cross with you, then. Well, then go home, take the rest of the night off. Your work ethic really will be the death of you, you know.” He reached out and put his hand gently on her arm, smiling at her with an honestlysympatheticand kind smile. “You know how wound up I get on big nights. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. Go on home, I mean it. It’s about time one of those lousy line cooks of yours learned how to step up.”
The jarring change in his mood was like putting a hot glass plate into a bucket of cold water. It shattered something in her. She just kind of went numb from it all. Nodding, she smiled weakly. “Thanks. I-I’ll do that.”
The kitchen door swung shut behind her with a soft whoosh, cutting off the distant sounds of clinking glasses and muffled jazz from the dining room. The back alley behind the club was mercifully empty, lit only by a single bulb hanging over the service entrance. Nadi pulled her false cardigan tighter around her shoulders and started walking, her glamor-summoned sensible shoes clicking against the wet pavement.
The cool night air bit at her cheeks, but she welcomed it. Anything was better than the suffocating atmosphere she’d just escaped. Her mind churned as she replayed the conversation, trying to make sense of Braen’s sudden shift from anger to sympathy. It felt wrong, like a mask hastily slapped over his true face. The way his fingers had lingered on her arm, the too-practiced concern in his voice—it all left her feeling somehow dirty.
Because it had beenreal.His concern for his employee had been sincere. He cared for “Wilma” as someone he looked after in his company. When he hadNadi’s peoplechained up like animals in the basement. The jarring whiplash of it made her want to retch.
But that was simply how the world worked, wasn’t it? Some people were alwaysless than.Always able to be looked down on. Spat on. Or in this case? Traded. Sold. A commodity like food at a restaurant, and nothing more.
She turned onto the main street, where the glow of illuminated signs framed in bulbs painted everything in gradient tones of yellow and amber. A couple stumbled out of a bar, laughing too loudly, and she stepped aside to let them pass. The normalcy of it—people going about their evening, oblivious to everything going on in the shadows—felt surreal after everything that had happened.
Twenty blocks stretched ahead of her, but she didn’t mind. The walking helped, each step putting more distance between her and Braen’s sincere kindness and abject cruelty.
Her breath came out in small puffs as she passed under streetlights, each one creating a brief circle of warmth before abandoning her to the shadows again. A taxi honked somewhere in the distance, and she could hear the distant rumble of the elevated train. The city moved around her like a living thing, but she felt separate from it all, wrapped in her own bubble of shock and disgust.
