“Not it,” Carson mutters, touching his nose. Gideon shakes his head quickly.
“Fuck, I’ll do it,” Sebastian grunts. “She doesn’t scare me.”
“That’s because you weren't there the night she helped us set up that Swedish diplomat,” Carson spits, making a face. “Youmissed the horror show of watching her stomp on the poor dude’s nuts.” He gulps. “In fuckingstilettos.”
We creep single file up the stairs, pausing in the hallway outside a bedroom where we can hear a wooden paddle slapping against bare skin, followed by the giddy groans of a man.
I glance at Seb and nod.
Showtime.
Sebastian bursts through the door first, yelling like a fucking madman. The man chained to an iron Saint Andrew's cross on the wall immediately shits himself, screaming in terror around the ball-gag stuffed into his mouth. Miss O, true professional that she is, makes agreatshow of dropping her sadistic Hard Domme facade and screaming in what truly sounds like fear when Sebastian grabs her around the waist and starts bellowing about “burying her in the woods” as he drags her from the room. She does manage to sneak in a quick wink at me on the way out.
That leaves Carson, Gideon, and me alone with one Cyril Weathers.
Wearing a cock cage.
“My my my,” I sigh, rolling my neck and slowly pulling a gleaming knife out of my coat. “This, Cyril, is what they call being up a shit creek without a paddle.”
“But literally,” Carson says, his nose wrinkling as he waves a hand in front of his face and nods at the actual shit Cyril just deposited on the floor beneath his spread and bound legs.
I walk over to the chained man. He whimpers pathetically as I slide the tip of my knife up his cheek, slipping it under the leather strap of the ball gag. With a flick of my wrist, the strapis severed, letting the gag and a mouthful of Cyril’s spit dribble down his bare chest.
“Bancroft!” Cyril squeaks, his initial terror subsiding a little. I watch as it slowly morphs into a delightful mix of shame, a different kind of fear, and a horrified realization of what's unfolding around him.
“Wh-what’s the meaning of this!?” he blurts, desperately trying to appear angry…which, let’s be real, is pretty hard to do when your dick is locked in a cage and there’s shit running down your legs.
“This, Cyril, is your official notice.” I smile. “If you recall, the last time we spoke, you werenot very nicewhen it came to sharing your views about me joining the board of directors of Knightsblood.”
Cyril sits as treasurer on the board of directors for Knightsblood University, one of the mafia world’s greatest little secrets.
Knightsblood, barely ten miles from where we are right now, is basically the mafia version of Harvard, Yale and Princeton all rolled into one. A very old-school, old-money, exclusive-as-fuck“ivy league for the underworld”, where the heirs and offspring of Russianpakhans, mafia dons, kingpins, Yakuzaoyabuns, and more come to get a world-class education.
…And also make the connections they’ll need later when they eventually ascend their respective thrones back home.
I never went to college. Neither did Sebastian, Carson, or Gideon. So my desire to join the board of directors has nothing to do with "revisiting my youth" or "giving back to the college" or any of that bullshit.
Like everything I do, it comes from a place ofambition.
Soon, one of the current board members, Andrés Torvallés, heir to thehugelypowerful Torvallés family in Spain, is going to be…resigning. I already have the rest of the members in my pocket, who will gladly vote me onto the board, Then it's just a short step to becoming chairman of that board. But a vote for chairman has to be unanimous.
And I amgoingto be chairman.
Again, this isn’t because I secretly harbor a deep love of meetings and paperwork. It’s because when I see Knightsblood, I see opportunity.
The most powerful criminal organizations on earth are not the ones you’ve heard of, or who get turned into movie tropes. The Comorra. The Bratva. The Cartel. These are obviously powerful, insanely well financed groups.
But the real power is bigger than petty crime, trafficking, and getting muddied in the street-level dramas of organized crime. Entities like the Torvallés or d’Auvrelle families have been around forcenturiesand influence global politics and history.
Thatis real power. But getting there means evolving.
That’s where inserting myself into position of power within Knightsblood comes into play.
If I control the board, it means I control the university. It means that I can influence the future of the underworld on a global scale. It gives me a monopoly on information, with access to allsortsof normally confidential information regarding some of the most powerful mafia families on the planet.
It means I become a powerbroker on a scale almost never before seen in the criminal underworld.
So that’s why I need onto the board of directors for Knightsblood. And right now, it’s only Cyril standing in my way.
