I’ve spent most of my life being told I’m smart. Often, that’s been preceded by the word “too” and followed by with the words “for your own good”.
I’m inclined to agree.
Being smart comes with perks, of course—lots of them, especially if you’ve got the social skills to back up that intelligence. Being relatively sure you’re the brightest person in any room you walk into opens up a slew of possibilities. It’s like when Neo in The Matrix starts seeing “the world” as the code it really is.
I know. It sounds incredibly narcissistic, comparing yourself to the savior/Christ figure in a film. But it’s not narcissism. It’s just fact. Although I’ve been called a “narcissist” for merely being aware that I’m a lot fucking smarter than most people often enough that I had myself assessed.
…Nope. Not a narcissist.
Just smart, with a healthy dose of cocky fucker and a few Machiavellian tendencies sprinkled on top.
I can’t help it. It’s not that I’m looking to stir up shit. I just get supremely bored with the world as it is, and without the string-pulling or the shit-stirring, that boredom can become overwhelming.
Back in high school, being the way I am got me into trouble. Again, not because I went looking for it, but because everyone around me—teachers included—had their walls up around me, thinking my intelligence meant I would know their thoughts or be able to unearth their darkest secrets.
I mean, it does, but not because I can read minds. I can read people.
So, I got bored. And when I get bored, I start…toying with things. Influencing people. Interweaving lies with just enough truth to be very convincing, and then seeing how far I can take those lies.
Luckily, high school was quick, because I skipped two grades. That meant I could go to Knightsblood University while Carmine, my older brother, was still there.
Now, high school might have been afraid of my brain and its weird mental lockpicking abilities. Knightsblood, on the other hand—the notorious “Ivy League School of the Mafia world”—welcomed me with open arms.
And it’s at Knightsblood that all this began.
The Black Court.
From where I sit, sprawled on an elegant leather couch, I watch as the hedonism unfolds around me.
The music pulses low and dark—a slow, hypnotic rhythm that thrums through the cavernous underground cathedral. The air is heavy with the swirling scent of perfume, smoke, whiskey and sweat, the hum of pleasure-laced laughter blending seamlessly with the sensual movements of the people—mostly women—around me. Bodies writhe in the golden candlelight, all bare skin and silk. Pure temptation.
I grin beneath the mask covering my face as I breathe it all in.
The Black Court isn’t in session tonight. There’s no trial, no judgment, no execution.
Tonight, the five of us are merely meeting. But a Court meeting—whether it’s more of a check-in, like tonight, or something grander, like a trial itself—means the whole hedonistic, bacchanalian show.
That’s another thing about being the smartest person in the room and having the energy to match it: I fucking crave shit like this.
The excess. The stimuli. There’s a roaring, deranged NEED for mayhem, violence, and chaos that is always with me, grinning like a madman over my shoulder from the back seat.
I call him my dark shadow.
It’s not psychosis. I’m not crazy. I mean, I frequently act like I am, but on a diagnosable level? No. Carmine, on the other hand… Well, I don’t think you need to be a board-certified psychiatrist to see my brother is wired differently.
I glance across the room to where he’s sitting by himself, just outside the revelry, a moody little emo fuck staring at his phone.
Granted, if I what he had waiting for him back home, I wouldn’t be interested in the bevy of gorgeous, half-naked women laughing and giggling their way around the party either. Maybe once upon a time, Carmine would have been indulging—at least begrudgingly, because, see above, moody little emo fuck. And woe betide whatever girl who was foolish enough to give his brand of crazy a spin.
But Carmine is a married man now, and I’m guessing the woman responsible for smoothing out some of his rougher edges is the reason he keeps staring at his phone. I’m also guessing if he wasn’t wearing his Hound mask right now I’d be rolling my eyes at the nauseating grin on his face as he texts her.
A shrill giggle pulls my attention across the room, to where another of our group lounges on a couch similar to mine, a leggy brunette sitting on his knee and running her fingers over the edge of his Wolf mask.
…Speaking of diagnosable sociopaths…
The Wolf, despite being masked, is clearly watching the girl on his knee like a predator contemplating his next kill. He’s not even touching her—his arms are draped over the back of the couch behind him. But you can see the tattooed fingers of both hands tap-tap-tapping in a manic, unhinged staccato that hints at the beast prowling inside of him. A hungry animal that doesn’t distinguish between pleasure and pain.
Yeah, good luck, sweetheart, I think to myself as I shift my gaze back to the girl giggling on his lap.
Five of us, and two are certifiably insane lunatics.
Not great odds. But, hey, it works.
I turn to glance over at The Bull and chuckle silently. He’s the exact opposite of Carmine right now. Three women are winding themselves around him, draping their bodies over his broad, muscled shoulders and lap, whispering into his ear, tracing fingers over biceps that strain the physical limits of his white linen dress shirt.
And the motherfucker looks bored. Disinterested. His fingers idly trace over the exposed thigh of the blonde curled against his side, but he’s simultaneously scrolling mindlessly on his phone.
Typical. Dude has issues.
My attention next turns to The Stag, who is currently doing a great job of mimicking Carmine’s aloof, emo sulky-boy aesthetic. He’s off by himself, which isn’t unusual. Same as The Bull, he’s got a small handful of female admirers half-crawling all over him.
Whom he’s pointedly ignoring. Not like The Bull, scrolling his fucking Instagram or whatever. No, The Stag is just sitting there looking straight ahead, shoulders squared, hands relaxed at his sides, like the fucker is meditating or something.
Okay, scratch that, we might actually have three certified looney-toons in our midst. But I don’t think The Stag is the same as The Wolf or my brother.
He’s genuinely something even more fucked up. I’m just not quite sure what.
“You look bored.”
I slowly pull my attention from The Stag and the rest of my friends to look up at the two women standing in front of me: masked, gorgeous, and wearing slinky dresses transparent enough to show both the shade of their nipples—one light pink, the other dusty rose—and their personal tastes in body grooming—one shaved, the other with a little heart on top.
How adorable.
“That would be because I am,” I say lazily, not really looking at them.
“Well…” Pink Nips, Heart Bush blushes coyly. “Maybe we could help with that.”
I nod slowly, lifting a shoulder as I drag my attention back to them “Maybe.”
Hope glitters in their eyes.
“First, answer me this: you’re locked in a cell. The floor is dirt, and there’s just one window, but it’s too high to reach. You’ve got no food or water, but there is a shovel. However, you’ve only got two days before you die of thirst, and you can’t dig a tunnel because you’ll die of dehydration before you ever get out. How do you escape?”
They both stare at me for a second.
“I’m…confused,” Dark Nips, Bare Pussy says. Her voice shows it. “You want to put us in a cage?”
My brows shoot up. “How the fuck did you get that from what I said?”
“You said there was a cell—”
“It’s a riddle. How do you get out.”
The first one taps a manicured finger against her filler-plumped lips. “Oh! You dig a tunnel!”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“He said there’s not enough water to dig a tunnel,” the second one quietly admonishes.
“Why would you need water to dig?”
“Lightning round is over,” I grunt, standing and pushing past them. “I’d recommend The Bull, or if you don’t mind a little bruising, The Wolf or The Stag.”
I can feel their confused gazes on me as I head to the bar.
You use the shovel to dig up the dirt floor and make a pile of it to stand on, so you can reach the window.
I mean, fuck.
At the bar, I pour myself a drink. But I end up just staring into my glass, frowning, shaking my head.
What the fuck was that?
I should be indulging. That’s part of the game, part of how I keep my edge sharp. Who the fuck cares if they were Mensa members. Or, you know, capable of solving a riddle that shouldn’t be beyond a nine-year-old kid.
It’s not like I was recruiting them for a fucking think tank.
I glare into my drink. For a second, I consider going back over there and trying the game with someone else. But then my mind drifts back to the rooftop last night. To the girl with the trembling lips. With the wild, staccato pulse in her neck beneath my grip. With the wide, shocked eyes when I licked her blood off my finger.
Like I said, I’m not a psychopath. I wasn’t going to just let her fall.
But part of the game is letting people think that I might.
Is it regrettable that she saw what she did last night? Obviously. And yes, it’s worse because she and my sister dance together. It would be much better if she were some rando.
But I know Naomi won’t talk. For one, she’s too…rigid. I don’t know her well. Not at all, really. But I know enough about her to know that girl is wound up tighter than Carmine’s ass when you make a joke about Lyra leaving him—which, for the record, is not advised.
Trust me and what I’m pretty sure is a hairline crack in one of my ribs.
Naomi’s beyond “good”. She’s so “good” that I know she’s willing to keep quiet, even if what she saw was a crime. In her mind, a personal direction to her is more important than right and wrong.
No, she won’t say shit. And even if she did, I have an alibi for last night. The rooftop was dark, the city loud. There are no cameras up there. People disappear all the time.
Just the same, I’ll need to remind her at least once more not to mention what she saw. I’ll be subtle—maybe a dead rat nailed to her door with the words “snitches get stitches” written in rat blood.
What? A flair for the dramatic is a sign of a sharp mind. And again, I’m not fucking psychotic. Pretending to be one always gets your point across, though.
Plus, it’s just plain fucking fun.
But as I swirl the whiskey in my glass, I’m not thinking about nailing rodents to Naomi’s apartment door. Not really.
I’m thinking about her parted lips, and the way her breath caught when I licked her blood off my finger.
“Raven.”
My thoughts scatter as I turn, spotting the rest of them headed for the door to the inner sanctum of our world down here.
The Bull nods his chin at me. “We’re going in.”
I nod back, knocking back another sip from my glass before following the rest of them into the room that we and only we ever enter.
The music and laughter from the party fade away as we step through the door, leaving the debauchery behind.
Five chairs around a circular table in the center of the chamber. No throne. No head of the table. All of us, equals.
Five Shadow Kings, like it’s been since day one.
We take our seats, all still masked. The Hound, my brother, leans back, tracing a finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. The Bull stretches his huge frame out, rolling his muscled neck, and The Wolf leans forward, elbows braced on the table and hands clasped like he’s seconds away from snapping someone’s neck. The Stag nods silently as he takes his seat at the same time I do, both of us reaching into pockets for cigarettes. He gets his lit first and then tosses me his lighter, which I use with a nod of thanks and then throw back his way.
I exhale a slow plume of smoke as Carmine clears his throat. “Let’s talk about it.”
By “it”, he means the fact that someone’s been poking around the Court.
This isn’t anything new, of course. There’ve always been whispers about us and the vigilante justice we mete out. Rumors like that spark all sorts of interest, so it’s not unheard of to have people trying to sneak their way into our world, if only out of sheer curiosity.
But something feels different this time. This isn’t someone merely poking at a rumor. Over the last couple of months, it’s felt more like there’s a concentrated effort to test our boundaries and probe for any weakness. It feels very purposeful. Very orchestrated.
“They’re methodical,” The Stag growls quietly, taking a drag of his smoke. “Whoever they are, they’re not just sniffing around for shits and giggles. They’re looking for cracks.”
My brother leans back. “Do we think it’s Kir?”
The table goes quiet for a moment.
Kir Nikolayev, head of the Nikolayev Bratva, is exactly the kind of person who would have a bone to pick with the Black Court. Kir’s old-school Bratva, the kind of man who believes in the traditional way of doing things. A lot of the old guard is like that—even the fathers of some of the men in this room.
The Black Court doesn’t play by the rules of the old world. We judge criminals who should have been judged by their own people and take justice into our own hands.
And Kir in particular has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t like that.
But Kir’s the easy answer. Too easy.
“I don’t think it’s Kir,” I say.
The Wolf drums his fingers on the thick wooden tabletop. “Why not?” he grunts.
I tap the ash from my cigarette. “Kir doesn’t play games like this.” I glance over at Carmine sitting next to me, still wearing his Hound mask. “Not now that we’ve got the friction out in the open. He knows about us, we know about him. For now, I think it’s a stalemate.”
Carmine nods slowly. “I’m inclined to agree. Kir’s a motherfucker, but he’s a motherfucker who comes at you and sticks a gun in your face, he doesn’t skulk around in the shadows. It’s not his style.”
The Stag watches me carefully. “That lead of yours last night. How’d that go?”
I grimace before I slowly take a drag on my smoke.
Last night’s meetup with Omar was supposed to give us an insight to the people…or person…who might be prying into the Black Court. I have a whole network of underworld “connections” or “little birds” throughout the city, and I’d heard from more than one of them that this guy Omar had been mouthing off in a couple of bars about his dickhead boss being “on the hunt for the Black Court”.
That’s why I arranged a meet: to figure out if this guy was full of shit, or if he really was an employee of the person who might be trying to dig into our secrets.
Turns out, Omar was full of shit. He also overplayed his hand.
“If you were this interested in meeting me, then that means you’re worried about what me and my crew might already know about your little club.”
Pro tip, Omar: don’t drop the only ace up your sleeve when you’re alone on a rooftop with someone like me.
I clear my throat. “The meet was a dead end.”
“How dead?” Carmine asks dryly.
I exhale smoke, lips curling. “The kind where you’d need a shovel to scrape it off 7th Avenue.”
The Bull chuckles, shaking his head. “That good, huh?”
I shrug. “The whole thing was a setup to see if we’d react to someone like him mouthing off about his boss digging into us. And we did. I walked right fucking into it.” I frown, rapping my knuckles on the table. “But then he overplayed his hand, so I took care of it.”
The Wolf laughs darkly. “Good. Motherfucker got what he deserved.”
I lean back, stretching out my legs. “But it means whoever’s looking for us is getting bolder. More deliberate.”
Carmine’s mask turns toward me, and I glance over at him.
“Yes?”
“We can assume there were no witnesses?”
I roll my eyes. “You were more fun before you became don.”
Carmine slowly raises a middle finger.
“No,” I continue dryly. “There were no witnesses.”
I don’t know why I lie.
But it stays there, hanging in the air between us before I look away.
The Stag clears his throat, his voice a low, gravel rumble. “For now, I say we all double down on security until we figure out if this is Kir or someone else.”
The Hound nods. “Agreed.”
The Wolf cracks his knuckles, something unhinged sparking in his eyes. “Next time we’re exploring possible leaks, I call dibs on having some fun.”
I grin. The Wolf would eat someone alive if we let him.
The meeting moves on, shifting to other business, but my mind drifts.
Not to the dead man from last night, or the looming threat of whoever’s hunting for us.
To her.
Naomi fucking Kim.
I frown, rubbing my thumb along the rim of my glass.
It’s nothing. She’s nothing.
She saw something she shouldn’t have, but she’s too smart to talk.
And if she was thinking about saying something? I’ll make sure she thinks twice. Fear is a powerful motivator.
Still… I close my eyes, exhaling through my nose.
The memory of her tastes like smoke and blood and something else I can’t put a name to.
I don’t fucking like it.
