Prologue: THE DEVIL’S LAIR
The FBI Agent
Saints Hollow Neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois
So this is whatthe devil’s lair looks like.
Across the street, a well-fortified complex of dark marble or limestone exteriors looms among the decaying historic neighborhood. Towering walls and hedges protect it from the public eye.
I keep the engine off. No heat. No radio. No movement that might give away how I’ve been here for fourteen days, watching the compound from across the street, hoping to spot something that’ll tell me what Elias Kent’s role is in The Association.
Guards. At least four I can spot. All armed and alert.
Snow drifts down, but everything’s silent—like a graveyard.
The first time I heard of The Association was in a redacted agency email mistakenly sent to me. The email vanished while I was reading it, like someone had deleted it permanently from the servers.
IT called it a technical hiccup.
It wasn’t.
In their world, The Association is above the law. Evidence doesn’t disappear. It gets corrected.
A wise person would look away. But I didn’t.
My curiosity cost me.
An ache settles over my lungs as I reach into my suit pocket and pull out my wallet.
I stare at the picture, the edges marred with dried blood. I trace the nose, the lips I remember as if it were yesterday. Then I flip it over to the message scrawled on the back.
Stop looking. Erase The Association from your memory. This is your final warning.
Fury churns up my spine and I snap my wallet shut.
Drop it, Tristan. It’s above your pay grade.
As if evil has a pay grade.
A movement on the second-floor window catches my eye. I pull out my binoculars and adjust the focus.
A woman stands behind the glass like an antique doll kept in a case.
Long brown hair, her gray eyes stare forlornly out into the street. Her hand clutches something on her chest…a necklace?
Lana Anderson doesn’t look like a bride in love.
I pick up the fragment of The Antihero Syndicate charter I found a few months ago.
Rule Three: no innocent women or children.
“Do you count as innocent, Lana Anderson?” I murmur. “Or is your husband using Rule Three to protect you?”
I blow out a breath, my exhale a ghostly vapor writhing through the air.
Then I open a new document—official letterhead, sterile wording. If I don’t survive this, at least there’s a paper record.
I will figure out what Elias Kent is hiding.
