I toss the remote to Claudia, and she hits play. The screen flickers to life, showing a camera angle from the corner of a dark wooden building lit by flickering torches. Wooden bunk beds line two walls, and there’s a fire pit in the center and a few long tables and animal skins. People mill around in strange costumes. I see Cleo beside the doorway, twirling a strand of beads around her neck as she flirts with a bearded giant.
“What was this show about?” Madeline asks, stuffing a handful of popcorn in her mouth. I thought it would be hard having a teacher around while we’re trying to deal with Triumvirate business. But what’s gone down in her life has changed her – she knows better than anyone that nothing is black and white, good and evil, in Emerald Beach. We’re all painted in shades of grey. Now, she’s willing to do anything to make sure Nero can never hurt another woman.
“Oh, it was so stupid,” George says. “It was calledSo You Think You Can Viking. The contestants were all Emerald Beach b-grade celebs, and they dumped ’em in a fjord to live like Vikings for six weeks. Only the show was too cheap to film in Norway so it was all recorded on a ranch near the city with some stock images of Norwegian landscapes thrown in. Contestants got points for completing challenges – you know, build a longboat, fire an arrow, slay an ice giant, that kind of thing.”
“I can’t picture Cleo St. James doing any of that.”
“Exactly. I never bought that Cleo was cut from the show so soon – not when her tantrums made such great TV,” says George. “I was actually thinking of doing a second season of my podcast about her, but I didn’t want to be petty.”
“You can be a little petty,” I tell her.
“I don’t believe it, either,” Eli says. “I lived with a TV crew for two years. Trust me, if Cleo was being a bitch on camera, it’s because they told her to do it. She was being primed to be the show’s antagonist. The fact that she got kicked out so early… I think they needed to get her off the set.”
“But can we assume whatever she did got caught on camera?” I ask.
“The cameras in our house rolled 24/7,” Eli says. “Even when we were sleeping. And on shows like this, the contestants aren’t allowed to move outside the filming area, so there’s no place for her to do something secretly. The producers watch all the footage and piece it together to create the show. It’s almost fascinating seeing them create a narrative from unrelated little bits of your life, but then you realize you’re on TV carrying a jewel-encrusted urn dressed as Elvis, so it’s not so fun after that.”
I snort. “Shit, man. I forgot about the Elvis episode. Claws, you should see this.” I whip out my phone and type in a search. “There are clips on YouTube…”
“Don’t remind me,” Eli snaps.
I show Claudia the footage, and she bursts out laughing. It’s good to see her laugh. We’ve been dealing with so much heavy shit that not even Gabriel’s nonsense has been making her smile these days. She came home after going to the ranch with Eli and told Gabriel about Brutus’ assault, so now there are no secrets left between us. The three of us pulled her into bed and worshipped her like the queen she is, but I know that as soon as she settled back into the pillows, flushed with multiple orgasms, her mind returned to the Triumvirate.
She never stops scheming. And the deeper I fall into her world, the more I learn about the August family and their empire, the more I find myself scheming right alongside her. It’s too easy to become addicted to this life. The appeal of college and business and being an upstanding member of society fades. That was my brother’s path, and he still ended up six feet under.
If I have to choose between a life of bloodshed or walking the straight and narrow, I’d throw my lot in with Claudia all over again.
The footage quickly gets boring, even with Gabriel and Yara performing their own running commentary. In the few days she’s been with us, Yara has become part of the family. She’s whip-smart, and she has this great sense of humor. She’s always randomly quoting lines from her favorite TV shows at the perfect moment, although I doubt any lines fromSo You Think You Can Vikingwill make the cut.
In between the blacksmithing and archery are long stretches of people doing nothing and inane conversations about dumb shit. You couldn’t pay me to sit through this stuff. I drag out my biology homework and finish it off. I may not be college-bound, but like hell am I letting Eli take valedictorian.
“Claws, got a minute?” Antony leans against the doorframe, his tie loose around his neck. He rubs his red-rimmed eyes. I’ve hardly seen him around since Claudia took over as Imperator. He’s busy behind-the-scenes shoring up alliances and recruiting new soldiers, and now his club’s filled with women.
Claudia slides off her chair and moves into the hall. I follow her. It’s our unspoken agreement that I shadow her and learn how to run the business if she becomes incapacitated for any reason. Not that it’ll happen, because I won’t let it, but I intend to learn everything about managing the August empire. Antony frowns at me, but he doesn’t say anything about my presence. I think of all of us, he tolerates me the most.
It helps that I know his secret. It’s obvious to me now that he didn’t make up what he said about his eyesight. He holds things like his phone at odd angles when he thinks people aren’t looking, and I noticed a couple of sizeable dents in his car. It makes me nervous that he hasn’t told Claudia about it, but their relationship is complicated and I don’t want to be involved.
“I need those girls out of the Colosseum,” Antony says. “They’re lovely, but I can’t run fights and club nights with them hanging around, and until we can track Brutus’ accounts, this is our main source of income. You cleared out our available funds paying Nero back.”
Claudia looks at me. “Noah’s working on it.”
“I’ve done some research, but so far I haven’t come up with a solution,” I say. “It complicated. There are government agencies that can help the girls, but if we go to them it’ll mean exposing the August family’s role in their arrival.”
Claudia taps her nails against her palm. A wicked grin spreads across her face, so infectious I find my own mouth tugging up at the edges even though I have no idea what she’s plotting. “Maybe not… I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. I have the perfect solution. We go—”
Eli’s voice calls from the theatre room. “Claws, you’re going to want to see this.”
We rush inside, staring at the screen just as Eli unpauses the video. The footage has switched to a camera housed in a tree outside the Viking longhouse where the contestants are staying. It’s dark out, but the rows of flaming torches and hidden floodlights bring the entire scene into crystal clear view. I see Cleo stalk into frame, her long legs and the curve of her ass exposed in an impossibly-short smock, in blatant defiance of historical accuracy.
“What are you doing here?” she growls, staring at a spot in the trees. “This is a closed set. How’d you sneak in?”
Someone off-screen mumbles to her. I can’t make out what they’re saying.
“Figures you could weasel your way in here, although I don’t know why he doesn’t just deliver the normal way. It’s much safer. Tell him I have a foolproof system. When I go into the booth to do my personal diary, I slip the stuff into this prop drinking horn. Then the gaffer picks it up and leaves me payment when they deliver our mead rations. They can’t get enough. If we can keep up supply we’ll be exclusive suppliers in the Nordic entertainment market, and that’s all my doing. Make sure he knows that.”
The stranger says something else. Cleo holds her hands out, and the stranger throws her something. It looks like a clear plastic bag containing… I lean closer. I can’t see what’s inside. It’s too dark. But then Cleo the fool holds the baggie up to the light to inspect it.
Well, well, well.
