I find Nico in our massive mirrored walk-in closet when I get home, and my core clenches as I drink in the sight of him: perfectly tailored black slacks, crisp white button-down shirt molding to every plane and groove of his hard, muscled torso. It’s half-unbuttoned, showing the chiseled, tattooed slabs of his chest.
His eyes catch mine the second I walk in.
“How’d it go?” he asks.
I blink. “Hmm?”
His lips curl into a small smile. “Leonard.”
Right.
I’m still thrown by how good he looks. Clean-shaven. Hair damp, combed back. And…cologne.
He looks hot. And not in the usual way. This isn’t brooding-in-a-dark-corner Nico in black jeans and leather jacket. This is hot-spy-from-an-Armani-ad Nico.
“It was…” I shake my head. “Fine. He’s not a fan of yours.”
Nico smirks. “Imagine that.”
“But I set a trap for him,” I add sadly. “And he walked right into it.”
Nico looks up sharply, noticing the way my voice falls. “How so?”
“I asked him if he’d been involved in the bombing, and he said no, he had no idea who the Obsidian Syndicate was.”
His face darkens, and his eyes flicker.
“He didn’t even blink,” I continue, my voice cracking. “I only said ‘syndicate.’ But he said the full thing.”
Nico steps closer, jaw tight.
“I’m sorry, Naomi.”
He doesn’t seem surprised in the slightest. It makes me feel like even more of an idiot for being surprised.
Nico turns, grabbing a tie from one of the drawers. Then a jacket from a hook near the door.
“Are you going out?” I ask dully.
“Yeah.” He glances at me. “Sorry. I know you just had the whole Leonard thing. But I have to deal with something. Business.” He smirks a little as he turns to me. “What don’t you order whatever you like for dinner, open some good wine, and watch something trashy until I get home.”
My brows knit.
Business? Wearing cologne?
But I don’t say anything, because I know much doing so would make sound like world’s most insecure girlfriend.
Especially since I’m not a girlfriend.
I’m not…anything.
I fold my arms, watching him shrug on his jacket, the fabric molding to his body perfectly.
“What kind of business?” I ask. “Mafia stuff?”
He turns to face me, his expression unreadable. “Stuff you don’t need to be concerned with.”
That hits harder than I expect.
“Hey—where were you earlier?” I ask. “This morning, I mean. When I woke up.”
He stills.
“Am I being questioned?” he growls.
I lift a shoulder. “I mean, you always know where I am. It feels a little one-sided.”
He steps closer and cups my jaw in his hand. His thumb traces my cheekbone.
“It’s just mafia stuff,” he says, more gently this time. “Part of my life I don’t want to involve you in.”
“Why not?”
His eyes darken.
“Because you’re good,” he murmurs. “Too good for the darker parts of me.”
I stand there for a moment after he disappears out the bedroom and down the hall. Just as I’m about to follow, there’s the sound behind me of a text coming in. I turn, looking toward the vanity to see Nico’s phone.
It chimes again, a second text lighting up the screen.
Ignore it.
It’s not your phone.
But then I frown.
He knows every single facet of my day, and gets all territorial about friends like Vaughn, and I don’t know anything about all his little secrets?
“Part of my life I don’t want to involve you in.”
Translation: I get to have secrets and you don’t.
The phone chimes again.
This time, I walk over. I tell myself I’m just getting it so I can bring it to him, in case it’s something serious. But that’s a hilarious lie.
I’m straight up snooping, is what I’m doing.
I hesitate before I pick it up.
I shouldn’t look. Shouldn’t care.
But I do, so I do. And when I do, I scowl at the name: Melissa.
Melissa
You want it?
Nico
Very much so.
Melissa
😘
My chest constricts.
Those are from ten minutes ago. The next texts are the three that just came now.
Melissa
I love it! ❤️❤️ It’s the PERFECT gift!
Melissa
OMG you are the sweetest 😍😍
Melissa
PS thank you for coming over earlier. You really know how to show a girl a good time.
My lungs seize up.
I stare at the screen, not breathing, not thinking, not even feeling—just frozen.
It all makes sense. The suit. The cologne. The vague non-answers. The secrecy.
Thank you for coming over earlier. You really know how to show a girl a good time.
I see RED.
“Because you’re good. Too good for the darker parts of me.”
Apparently, little miss Melissa lacks any annoying “goodness”.
My fingers curl around the phone as a green, venomous beast snarls inside me.
The sound of footsteps has me jumping. And where the savage version of me would whirl and throw the phone at his head and demand answers, the real version of me quickly sets it down on the vanity and spins to make it look like I’m pawing through my clothes on the rack.
“There it is.”
Nico darts past me and grabs his phone. His scent—clean, masculine, a bit of leather—swirls around me as he twists me in his arms and leans down to kiss me.
I turn my head to the side, letting his lips only brush my cheek.
“I’ll be home late,” he murmurs. “Order something good, remember.”
I just nod as he turns and strides out of the room, a truly terrible idea curling like smoke inside my chest.
The cab pulls away before I can chicken out.
Alone at the top of the alley, I quickly scurry behind a dumpster, peering around it to see Nico disappearing through a nondescript steel door set into the concrete wall. No signage. No lights. Just a keypad.
Initially, I decide to wait a full thirty seconds before I move, but when I notice the door starting to swing shut, I change my mind and hustle.
I get to the door just in time, kicking an old coffee cup into the gap. It’s close, but the door doesn’t latch all the way as my pulse hammers in my chest.
Am I seriously doing this?
This is idiotic. It probably is a mafia thing, which would make following him immeasurably stupid. Or it’s a dumb poker game, and I’m going to look like a fool when I come barging in.
You’re going to drive yourself nuts wondering what it is until you see for yourself.
…Annnd there it is. That’s the voice that wins out.
The temperature drops the moment I’m inside: a cold draft curls around my legs like smoke. The walls are stone—old, rough-hewn, and I can feel the hallway sloping slightly downward.
For a moment, just before the door closes, I consider the fact that it’s pitch black in here. But just as I whirl back to the door, it clicks shut with heavy finality.
I fumble for my phone, but then the space illuminates automatically thanks to dim lights set into the floor, right by the walls.
My eyes widen as they adjust to the dimness. I’m in a stone hallway that looks like something out of a medieval castle, with carved pillars and recessed alcoves splattered with dried candle wax.
What the hell?
I walk quietly, careful not to let my heels echo. Far ahead, I hear the soft scuff of Nico’s shoes and I keep pace, hugging the side of the hallway as it rounds a curve.
Eventually, the corridor opens up slightly. Vaulted arches stretch overhead like ribs. It’s quiet, with the hum of something ancient.
Suddenly, I hear a door wrenching open on heavy hinges. I scurry forward, then flatten against the wall as I watch Nico slip through a heavy, intricately-carved wooden door. It closes behind him with a dull thud.
I jog forward and immediately try the handle.
Locked.
I press my ear to the wood. There’s nothing.
Shit.
Dead end.
Except—
I glance down the hallway, beyond the side door Nico just slipped through. It’s not a dead end. The passage continues, winding around the next bend.
And I can hear the soft, muffled sounds of voices.
I keep going.
The corridor narrows around me before it opens up again. The air becomes warmer, perfumed—incense, maybe.
Then the light shifts. A soft orange-gold glow filters through a series of archways ahead, flickering like flame.
When I step through the final arch, I stop breathing.
I’m standing in a cathedral.
Like, an actual cathedral.
Gothic arches stretch up into shadowed vaults overhead. Backlit stained glass windows glow along the walls. Pillars etched with vines and bones reach toward a ceiling traced in gold leaf.
A grand dais sits at the far end of the space with five high-backed thrones on it—black and gold, and empty.
But that’s not what steals my breath.
It’s the people.
There are dozens of them, maybe more. All masked. All elegant. All in varying stages of undress.
Some recline on velvet chaises. Others lounge on silk-draped couches. Bodies are tangled in corners, pressed against stone walls, stretched over carved benches. Couples, throuples, even one…whatever you call four people enjoying each other at the same time.
Skin glows in the candlelight. Hands roam. Mouths meet, and the space throbs with both softly feminine moans and deep, masculine groans.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I press myself into the shadows of the archway and just watch.
A woman in a gold Venetian-style mask straddles a man wearing a similar one. His hands grip her thighs as she rocks above him. A third masked figure—another man, I think?—kneels behind them, mouth pressed between their bodies.
I shouldn’t be here. I definitely shouldn’t be here.
What the fuck is this place? A freaking sex club?
Nico walked right in.
I grip the wall, bile bubbling up my throat. My chest tightens with a mix of betrayal and humiliation and rage.
Fuck him. If this is what he needed to sneak away for, to wrap himself in luxury and decadence and other people’s bodies—maybe even this fucking Melissa bitch—then fuck. Him.
But I’m not leaving yet, not until I see more.
I double back quickly, ducking out of the cathedral and into the hallway before anyone notices me.
My chest heaves. My heart hammers. More than anything—more than the danger and the thrill and the sounds of sex behind me—I feel exposed.
I’m the only one without a mask. Not to mention, everyone out there was dressed in some blend of gorgeous formalwear and vaguely Ancient Greek or Roman attire. Meanwhile I’m still in my skirt and silk blouse, looking like I’m late for a business luncheon. If anyone looks at me for more than a few seconds, it’ll be glaringly obvious I don’t belong here.
I pass the door Nico went through earlier.
Still locked. But this time I realize there’s another door opposite it that I missed earlier, probably because I was distracted by the sounds of the people in the main space.
That door does open.
Woah.
It’s like a spa inside—or a sumptuous, elegant changing room. Gilded sconces glow on every wall. The air smells faintly of jasmine and honey, and tiled hallways lead to what look like showers, steam rooms, and who even knows what else.
Then I glance at the far wall, and my pulse skips.
It’s a rack of dresses and costumes, just like the women out there were wearing. Black silk. Gold embroidery. Leather straps and thin, glimmering chains. Above them, resting on elegant metal hooks, are the masks: plain, gold, vaguely Venetian.
I move slowly through the rack, fingers trailing over the dresses, the laced corsets and collar pieces. One in particular catches my eye—an obscenely skimpy little black number cut about a foot higher than anything I ever actually wear. It loops around the nape of the neck, tiny little straps holding barely-there pieces of black silk over the breasts, with a plunging—and I do mean plunging—neckline that delves so far down that I’m sure you would see my navel.
I don’t think, I just grab it and slip behind a screen.
When I step out, I almost don’t recognize myself. Not just because I’m wearing a mask.
My hair is loose. My shoulders bare. My body…transformed.
I look fucking hot.
Blushing, I grab a pair of strappy gold sandals and a thin gold sash that wraps around my hips.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
Too late.
No one looks twice at me when I step back into the cathedral.
I’m just another person behind a mask now. Even if my heart is racing and pounding against my ribs.
Soft laughter and exquisite moans ripple through the space as I walk slowly, trying not to stare.
My face heats as I lay eyes on a muscled, tattooed man, groaning as he tangles his fingers in the dark hair of the woman on her knees in front of him. She’s wearing only a see-through golden gauzy skirt, her hand busy between her thighs and her lips wrapped around the man’s cock.
Another couple is on a velvet chaise, him holding one of her legs up as he rams into her from behind.
Holy fuck.
Every wall, every couch, every shadow holds some act of sin.
I keep walking, glancing around, simultaneously trying to spot Nico and dreading that I will.
Suddenly, I jump at the sound of a low bell tolling from somewhere high above.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The entire cathedral stills.
Voices cut off mid-laugh. Movements stop mid-thrust. Heads turn almost in unison toward the raised dais at the far end of the room, and the people that were fucking not three seconds ago stop and adjust their clothes, or get dressed.
A door opens behind the thrones.
My heart lurches into my throat as five figures step into the room.
Tall, built men, dressed in sleek, tailored black suits. But it’s the masks that make the breath still in my lungs.
A dog. A bull, with sharp, vicious horns. A bird of some kind, maybe a crow? A wolf. And finally, a stag with towering antlers.
They move like gods.
Kings.
Predators.
The crowd is all drifting forward, finding seats in chairs arranged in semicircular rows around a stone area in front of the dais. I join them, lingering at the back.
One of the masked gods—the dog—steps forward.
“The Black Court is now in session,” he growls in a deep, gravelly voice. He turns, nodding to two men dressed all in black with plain masks standing by a door.
“Bring out the accused.”
Yeah. I should not be here.
At. All.
