“Are you sure?”
He shifts. He’s uncomfortable. It’s kind of adorable. “I’m not sure at all. But the duke won’t accept my ignoring him for much longer. If I don’t go to him he might come to me, and I think that’s much worse. Besides, I’ve heard you want to see my castle.”
8
Eli
All day I can barely focus on my classes. I’m dreading my first day working for Nero. I’m not starting my work experience officially until we get back from Germany, but he wants me to come today to meet the team and the animals. He says he’ll be too busy to give me a personal introduction – I know it’s because he’s preparing for Saturnalia, but I don’t tell him I know that. Instead, he’s given me an address for one of his clubs and told me they’d look after me.
In my mind, I turn over everything Claudia’s told me about Nero and his business, how he’s threatening Ms. Drysdale, how he extorts money from film producers and club owners and has his fat fingers in Brutus’ prostitution ring. I balance that with Claudia’s precarious position – she’s the only surviving heir to a criminal empire that’s about to become the most hotly-contested property in all of Emerald Beach. In so many ways, it’d be easier if we just disappeared somewhere… but we can’t. Claudia’s worried about Antony and about Mackenzie showing up. I am too, and also…
If I can find a chink in Nero’s armor, something that will give Antony and Claudia their freedom, then we can all have a shot at a future without the Triumvirate.
I just have to survive working for the city’s most powerful crime boss, while secretly dating his enemy.
I don’t know what Nero’s going to ask me to do.
I don’t know what I’m willing to do.
Nero’s club is in the upmarket area of Brawley, in an old bank building – one of his first acquisitions outside of Tartarus Oaks. I don’t know what I’m expecting when I knock on the door of the Vault, but it isn’t the girl with glasses and high cheekbones and swinging black ponytail who answers my knock. “Welcome to the Vault. You must be Eli. I’m Livvie. Come on in.”
Livvie throws open the door, and I hurry inside. I stand in a grand entrance hall, carpeted in plush crimson. There’s a gleaming mahogany reception desk and old-fashioned mailboxes on the wall behind it.
I follow Livvie up a sweeping flight of stairs. She chatters about the history of the building and how Nero acquired it from the old bank and saved it from being demolished. Most of what she says flies over my head. She wears a tight pencil skirt and white tailored shirt, stockings with seams down the calves that I make a note to suggest Claudia wears becausewow, and patent leather pumps with a stiletto so sharp it means business. There’s something about her that seems familiar, but I can’t place it.
“The main nightclub is downstairs on the old bank floor. The second and third levels are reserved for private functions and VIP guests.” Livvie throws open a door to show me a small room decked out like a Romanov castle, complete with a sitting area, a private bar, and an enormous king bed. “Above here are our offices, and we keep the animals in the basement.”
“What kind of animals?”
“Wanna see?” Livvie’s crimson lips curl into a salacious smile.
“Shouldn’t I meet the trainers, do a safety course, get a tour of the facility…”
“I think you might be confused about the type of operation we’re running. Let’s go.” Livvie grabs my hand and drags me into an old-fashioned elevator, pulling the ornate wrought-iron cage shut behind us. She does a little dance as she hits the buttons and inserts an old-fashioned key to take us to the basement level, all the while keeping up a running commentary about Nero’s clubs and films and how excited she is to work with me.
I never expected to see someone so…enthusiasticabout a crime empire.
We emerge from the elevator into a narrow corridor filled with boxes and giant bags of dog food and animal feed. Judging by the delightful smell, much of it is past its use-by date.
Livvie navigates this biohazard with finesse in her insane shoes and leads me down a narrow staircase. Another smell rises up to greet me – the heady musk of manure and rancid meat. My stomach twists.
We emerge into a long, low room. Flickering fluorescent bulbs hang over glass and metal cages lining the walls. Racks of weapons, harnesses, and handling equipment, as well as tranquilizers fit for use at Jurassic Park stand by the door, but I’m drawn past them to what’s inside the cages.
In the first, a fully-grown lion walks in slow circles. His mane is matted, the fur caked in hard tufts of filth. In another, two baboons scratch at each other, their bodies covered in bare patches where they rubbed their skin raw. A white tiger slumps on the cold concrete with barely enough room to turn around, while in the glass box opposite, three tiny tiger cubs cry for her.
My throat constricts as their cries reach my ears. I put my hand up to the glass as they paw at it in desperation. They’re so tiny, their little faces and flat noses reminding me of Gizmo. But while she has a huge house and garden to play in, these guys have a filthy eight foot box.
I stagger back and turn in circles, unable to comprehend the horror of it. So many animals crammed into tiny cages. At the end of the row, another glass enclosure holds a mottled lump on a single rock. I step closer, my breath catching, as the lump moves.
“Is that… a python?”
Livvie presses her nose against the glass. “Yup. This is Essie. She’s an African rock python, about eight feet long. She has a real personality. Amazing, right?”
No, Livvie. Amazing is not the word.
I hold my breath against the smell as we walk along the row of misery. I see more lions, tigers, snakes, wolves, even a small black bear who bangs his head against the basement wall. They look like they’ve never seen sunlight or felt love. I didn’t think anything could affect me after Claudia was shot, but this…
CRASH.
