“Shh, it’s okay, love.” She caught his hand, one of the few places he didn’t mind being touched. When he tried to tug away, she restrained his hand in two of her own. “Listen to me, Jack. Whatever’s happened, we can figure it out together.”
He fell into a fit of tears and she could only helplessly watch him break into a million pieces. That night, she didn’t go to work. She stayed up with him, listening to half sentences as he tried to put into words everything he’d been through.
She never judged him or made him feel ashamed for the things he’d done. And that made it easier to face the worst of it in his mind, even if he lacked the courage to say those things out loud.
After that night, Myrtle connected him with a man who went by the name of Wolf. Apparently, Wolf had solved a problem for Myrtle before. She hadn’t gone into detail, but Jack knew it had something to do with the scar on her stomach and the reason she would never have children of her own.
Wolf was a gangster of sorts, a problem solver—the kind that made problems disappear. He had access to everyone and everything, from the lowliest bad actors to the most powerful men. He took money from athletes, politicians, and even clergy. He didn’t take sides. Wolf was on the side of whoever paid him the most.
“I’m an expensive enemy to have,” he’d once told Jack in that strange, old-money accent that was as manmade as his fortune.
Wolf didn’t care what Jack’s problem was or who it involved. He only needed to know the desired outcome. At first, Jack had thought to pay him. Like any other problem, Wolf could make the chancellor go away. But then, after learning how powerful Wolf actually was, and how accepted he was by the classes, Jack changed his mind.
“Can you teach me how to do what you do?”
This made Wolf laugh so hard that Jack saw his back teeth. But that was only further confirmation that Wolf was like him, because the best way to tell someone came from nothing was to look into their mouth. Teeth always told a story the lips tried to hide.
Jack appealed to Wolf’s ego, and eventually he gave in. For the next five years, he became a shadow to the man. He learned every secret connection and how the world actually worked.
Wolf saw him as an extension of himself. He wanted Jack to be savage and ruthless. “When you decide something, you don’t waver, Jack.”
He taught Jack every illicit way a man could survive. Treated him as a son and a protégé. There was no question, Jack had potential. He was well read and ambitious, but what drove him most was his bone-deep hunger for revenge.
Wolf decided to bankroll his future. “The only way to turn a real profit,” Wolf said one evening, drunk on scotch and jazz. “Is to have some sweat in the game.”
By his seventeenth birthday, Jack moved out of Myrtle’s flat and into one of Wolf’s mansions, which Wolf referred to as the shallow end of the kiddie pool. By his eighteenth birthday, Jack was ready to jump in the game. And by the time he was twenty-one he’d earned what any man would deem a fortune.
He hid his wealth in biotech brands and made a hobby of studying the most corrupt investors. Giants of every industry attracted Jack’s interest, and once he found their weakness, he moved quick and relentlessly, cutting them down.
He consumed the fortunes of evil men. Most never even knew what hit them. But when it came time for the chancellor’s retribution, Jack made sure he understood what was happening.
First, he went after his interests, then his assets. Piece by piece, Jack dismantled the foundation which the chancellor stood on, and his career in parliament naturally crumbled.
But Jack wasn’t done.
He bided his time, letting the chancellor feel what it truly was to live in fear. He stripped away every last privilege until survival became his sole priority.
Next time he saw Jack, he was just a skeleton of a man, rotted from the inside out.
“Jackie? Is that you?” His hardships had blurred his memory, but Jack’s mind was sharper than ever. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to kill you.”
First the chancellor laughed, as if the words were said in jest. Then his memory cleared and he saw Jack’s motive clear as day.
He tried to run, but age and poverty had weakened him. In the end, it was personal. Jack kept him alive, even as he begged to die. And when it was finally over, there was nothing left for the authorities to find—nothing but a ring.
He looked up at Daisy, haunted by the shameful things he’d done. “I’m not a good man, Daisy. I’ve done terrible things.”
Questions moved silently across her face. “Who are the Volkovs?”
He frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“Someone told me they run the feast, but all the invitations said J.T. and Aunt Vanessa said it was you who changed her life forever.”
“You met Hunter Volkov in the hall. There are three of them. They’re brothers. People refer to them as the three bears.”
“Charming.”
