Page 44 of Gilded Whispers

Sharp. Metallic. A whisper of violence beneath the marble and steel that make up much of this room’s decor.

I take out a cigarette and light the end, inhaling a long draw of smoke. Stella will kill me when I get back, but it’s better than letting my nerves get the better of me in a group like this.

Killers. Every last fucking swinging dick in here has put bodies in the ground and I have a feeling I’m leaving this room only two ways. A man brought into the fold.

Or a fucking body bag.

Clandestine meetings have a tendency to have no other outcome in my world.

Ares, an old friend from New York, leans his heavy frame against the far wall, gold cufflinks gleaming, gaze sharp as a blade. That fucker doesn’t miss a thing and he doesn’t even have to look your way. His buddy, Reaper, isn’t much different. He’s found a chair at the head of the table positioned in the center of the room and has a shit-kicker propped up on the polished edge with cigar smoke curling around his jaw. Calm. Focused.

But he’s already measured me from the ground up and I’ve only just stepped through the fucking door.

That leaves one of the Genesis men. Harlon Constantine. He doesn’t leave Chicgo much. Not with the shit going on there. He is the only one with his back turned away from all of us. He either trusts every asshole in the room, or he’s stupid.

I don’t think for a minute that man has ever been the latter. He’s on the far side of the room pouring liquid into a black-glass chalice with hands too steady to belong to a man without sins.

Not a word is spoken as I walk deeper into the room.

Then again, no salutations are needed. This isn’t a friendly meeting. The vibes are all wrong for it.

Nah, this isn’t a meeting.

It is a reckoning.

I come to halt in the center of an unlisted sublevel beneath the Gilded Key Society in the heart of Seattle. An empty level known only through whispered deals and blackmail. I should know. I made the purchase deal for the owner of the Society a couple of years back.

“Let’s not all speak at once, assholes.” I toss a black sheet of folded paper on the table. “Got your invite. So, am I being summoned or sentenced. It’s cold as death in here and someone could find a light switch for fuck’s sake.”

To the far right of where Reaper sits, the shadows shimmer with movement. Burning red gleams from the darkness. A hint of cinnamon and dark cherry hits me and I instantly know the devil lurking in the corner.

I drop my cigarette and stomp out the fire, not taking my eyes off his direction. “Lucian Fucking Coasta. What the fuck are you doing here?”

No answer.

The cherry of his thin cigar brightens as he draws on the end. He leans in the shadows, arms crossed, dressed in black-on-black, with a slow-burning smirk and a ring carved with the seal of a snake strangling a rose.

I eye them all. “If this is about the Ritual, I’ve already told you?—”

Reaper cuts me off with a voice like gravel soaked in gasoline. “Your name was found in Ritual’s logs, Emilio.”

Fuck. I scrub my hands down the length of my face. Chicago’s seedy club turned luxury hang out for people with bad ideas and the money to make them happen is the last place a person wants to find their “name in the logs”. Someone is out to ruin me and my brothers. Convincing these men of that will try every level of patience I have and then some. Old habits tend to revive themselves in my line of work and I’m not known for keeping my mouth shut when I’m being called a liar to my face.

“And you know any of this how?”

Lucian takes this moment to step forward. He holds my gaze with midnight eyes as he slides a drive across the table. He jerks his chin toward the piece of red plastic. “Pulled from the wreckage just before the fire consumed Cross’ establishment last night. Don’t trust me, call him yourself. What’s on that is real.”

“And encrypted,” Ares added. “No one has access to it but the men in this room. But it doesn’t change the fact that your name is down as our enemy. Names only end up in the log if Cross puts them there.”

“There are other ways. Nothing is unhackable. I have no entanglements with Chicago.” I look pointedly at Harlon’s back. That’s his city. He allows a few others to work within his territory, but they have to be one of two things. Either blood brothers or key masters.

Let me explain. There is a clandestine society within the Gilded Key Society. I’ve always considered it a front for shady shit. Now that I am a key master myself, I’m in a position to say I was right all along. Being a key master is where the real power is found. Empires rise from the depths of the Society. Thrones are built. And lost. I should know. Mine fell and my brothers and myself are just now rebuilding our empire.

Key masters engage in activities that shape the fate of so many lives. The men before me as all key masters. Rhythm Cross is too. He’s also known as killer, punisher, and widowmaker, the leader of the Lords of Chaos and the brother-in-law to one of Ares’ crew members. The criminal empires we forge are all connected. Think of it like cog in a clock. One break the whole fucking thing stops time until it’s fixed. And for us, that means someone gets offed.

“Cross can hand over a million flash drives with terabytes of data. Still isn’t one hundred percent proof I was involved with anything that goes against the key masters. I made me and my brothers take our oath seriously.”

“Good to know,” is all Reaper says as he raises his chin back and pushes rings into the air like this is just another night in a dark room for him. I’m starting to see how he got his name.

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