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Copyright © Jayce Carter 2022. All Rights Reserved, Totally Entwined Group Limited, T/A Totally Bound Publishing.
Revenge is a fire that burns everything, including the person who sets it.
That was fine by me—I’d happily turn to ash if I could take a few others with me.
I glanced around the busy room, at the people who moved around with no idea about the monster among them, the one with the face of a girl.
“You want a drink?” The man who asked wore a suit, and I had no idea who he was. There were people worth knowing, people important enough for me to identify and acknowledge, and there was everybody else.
I wasn’t there for fun, to make friends—those things were far outside my life. If they weren’t people I could use to get to my goal, I didn’t give a fuck about them.
However, that wasn’t the plan tonight. Every game had its rules, its roles, and I knew exactly how to play.
Tonight? I was trying to blend in, to be just another person in a sea of people who didn’t matter.
That was the plan. I needed to move through the space but not draw too much attention. It was a line—stay hidden but close enough to get the information I needed.
And what I needed was the man across the room in the white tank top, the one with the tattoos on his left arm and a shot glass in his hand.
“Thank you,” I told the other man, the unimportant one who had decided to try his luck. “But I’m okay.”
“I haven’t seen you here before,” he said, apparently not the type to take no for an answer. “I would have remembered this hair of yours.” He reached out, taking a strand of the bright and completely unnatural red between his fingers.
The audacity. I kept myself still and pulled my lips into a smile. I could bury a knife between his ribs, but keeping my eyes on the goal was more important. I’d come too far to give up what I wanted most for what sounded good in the moment.
“I’m new.” I shifted enough so he lost his grasp on my hair.
“Oh yeah? How’d you find your way here, little rabbit?”
Little rabbit? I struggled not to roll my eyes at the stupid nickname, at how little it resembled me at all. It was like so many other things—some man trying to put me in my place for no good reason, him judging me because it made him feel more important.
“I met someone at a party and he invited me.”
The man paused and furrowed his eyebrows. That’s right. Think it through. This world was all about who a person knew, about the connections they had. I could watch it all run through his head.
Who was this man who’d invited me? Could I already be claimed by someone else, someone he didn’t want to screw with? The level of unease told me where this particular man sat when it came to power.
The more fear, the more uncertainty, the farther down he was, and the more people he had to worry about. The last thing he’d want was to piss off someone who would take the offense personally.
This guy was basement-level, judging by the way he took off with hardly a goodbye.
Good riddance. I needed to focus.
The man I’d been watching tossed back his shot. He rested against the bar, his attention on a woman beside him. Her smile was tight at the corners, a sign so subtle few would have noticed it. It told me what I could have guessed already.
A whore.
I didn’t say that with any censure. Everyone sold themselves in one way or another. Muscle sold their strength, wives sold their youth and mob bosses sold their souls. Women who sold sex weren’t a bit different, other than they were often more talented.
It also made it easier to watch the man, since the professional would keep his attention.
I sipped the drink I’d ordered, the whiskey sharp on my tongue. I wouldn’t overindulge—I needed all my wits about me—but not drinking would make me stand out.
The club was louder than it had any right to be. It was full of people who thought they could move up in life, the ones who hadn’t accepted their place in the world, which was fine by me.
Hope gave me a foot in the door.
I brought my glass to my lips again, sipping more of the burning liquid, taking in the man across the room. Herold ‘Lucky’ Hanson. His parents had been idiots to give him such an absurd name, which was one reason I didn’t think his nickname fit him well. He didn’t seem all that Lucky to me.
He sure won’t be soon…
I drank one more time before approaching the bar. Voices filtered through the music, tiny bits of information I filed away as I crossed the space.
A woman flirted while admitting she was there behind her husband’s back. A man trying to put one over on his boss. Two women, sisters, who cheered while a bodyguard watched over them.
That was how it worked, though. Everyone had their own shit going on. Even though what I had going on was all I cared about, it was amazing how damned busy the world was. Everyone moved around continuously, always striving for something, running from things, toward other things, and all with a million plans.
It was the best puzzle in the world, one with parts that never stopped.
As I neared the bar, I closed in on the only conversation that mattered—that between Lucky and the woman who’d need to find a new mark for the night.
“That’s a lot,” Lucky said. “I don’t normally pay for it, you know.”
