My shoulders were stiff. I rolled them back as we made our way towards the Entertainment District. After our little blackmailing excursion early this morning, Audrey and I had gone back up to Trevor Gale’s territory to scout out the buildings again. While our surveillance had required some casual-looking strolls along the streets, it had mostly consisted of staying quiet and still in cramped locations while we watched the different spots. When we had at last gotten all the information we needed, or at least all that we could get, it was far into the night. And my shoulders were unhappy.
Next to me, Audrey discreetly stretched her arms as well.
“I wish we could…” she blew out a sigh and waved her hand in a frustrated gesture, “prepare more.”
“Me too.”
“We only have a plan for how to get through the first building. We’ll have to improvise the rest. And I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, I know going in blind isn’t exactly ideal.” I shrugged. “But since we can’t see what’s in there without actually going in, we don’t have a lot of options.”
“I know, but I still don’t like it.”
“Noted.”
She tilted her head and looked up at me with narrowed eyes, as if she couldn’t quite tell if I was being flippant or not. I raised my eyebrows, which certainly didn’t help her assessment. Clicking her tongue, she gave my ribs a half-hearted slap and then slid her gaze back to the busy road ahead. A soft chuckle rolled off my tongue.
“So, tomorrow night then?” she said.
“Yeah. We’ll have to get word to Mi-ri, Winston, and Dennis in the morning.”
She nodded. “Can we trust them not to run straight to Trevor Gale and rat us out?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re more scared of Levi than they are of Gale, so I don’t think they’d want to risk pissing off the King of Metal by helping his enemy.”
“Good point.”
We fell silent as we rounded another corner that took us onto one of the most crowded streets in the Entertainment District. It was the middle of the week, but these parts were somehow always filled with people, regardless of what day it was. A group of drunk young women were buying street food at one of the stalls while two middle-aged men strode straight from one gambling den to another. One of the red doors opened a short distance away and a mixed group of men and women poured out onto the road. Their cheeks were flushed, probably from the activities they had either watched or engaged in, but their eyes glittered with joy in the light from the purple and pink oil lamps.
“It’s a system, right?”
I glanced down at Audrey.
She nodded towards the building on our left. “The color of the doors. There’s some kind of system to it, right?”
A small smile pulled at my lips. Observant as always.
“Yes, there is,” I replied.
“Green for gambling.” It was more of a statement than a question. “And yellow for food and or drinks.”
“Yeah. And red for pleasures of the heart or the body. To watch or to engage in.”
“And blue?”
“Recreational drugs.”
She hummed and nodded again. “Everything a person might need to escape a harsh or boring life.”
“Yep. That’s why the Entertainment District never sleeps.”
Before she could reply, a woman with piercing blue eyes moved away from the food stall she had been waiting by and stepped out right in front of us. Exasperation washed over me. I recognized her immediately. She was one of Levi’s people.
“What do you want?” I asked before she could open her mouth.
“He wants a word,” she replied. “The Silver Snake. Right now. He has made a reservation in your name.”
I grumbled a curse under my breath but gave her a nod. She walked away at once as if our conversation had merely been a quick apology for almost bumping into us.
“So…” Audrey began. Both annoyance and a bit of wariness laced her voice when she spoke. “We’ve been summoned?”
“Yeah. And unfortunately, we need to stay on the asshole’s good side, so when he calls, we show.”
She let out a vicious curse. “Damn, I hate taking orders.”
“You and me both.”
But we didn’t have much of a choice so I led us towards another road that would take us to The Silver Snake. It had been years since the last time I had visited that particular establishment, but it looked almost exactly the same as it had back then. A red-painted door, windows with heavy red curtains blocking any view from the outside, and a wooden sign with a twisting snake drawn in silver on it.
I glanced down at Audrey as I held open the door for her. I knew exactly why Levi had picked this location to meet. It wasn’t just because he wanted to make sure that no one saw us together, which would have ruined the secrecy of this mission. It was also to punish me.
Rich perfume enveloped us as we stepped into a nondescript room with dark wooden walls and floor, and only one piece of furniture. A counter made of the same polished wood. Behind it was a woman with flowing hair and an easy smile on her lips.
“Welcome,” she said. “Do you have a reservation or would you like one of the drop-in rooms?”
“We have a reservation,” I replied. “Callan Blackwell.”
Paper rustled faintly as she flipped through the ledger that I knew she had below the edge of the counter. Her eyes ran back and forth a couple of times before she looked up. That pleasant smile stayed on her lips.
“Of course.” Reaching down, she opened one of the small drawers that were set into the back of the counter. When she straightened again, she held out an intricate key towards me. “Here is your key. Enjoy your stay.”
“Thanks,” I muttered as I took the key.
Audrey tracked our movements with sharp eyes but said nothing. I motioned for her to follow as I started towards the doorway to the right of the counter. A hallway awaited us there.
Our shoes thudded against the spotless floorboards as we passed several rooms. Each door had a number set in metal on it. The flowing decorations on our key specified the number fifteen, which I knew was upstairs. It had always been my room of choice, and it both annoyed me and terrified me that Levi knew that.
Tense silence hung over the hallway as Audrey and I made our way towards the wooden staircase at the end of the hall. My heart started up a nervous beat as we reached the corridor upstairs and continued to our room. I knew what Levi was planning, and I wondered how Audrey was going to react.
The lock let out a soft click when I turned the key. After drawing in a bracing breath, I pushed down the handle and stepped into the room with Audrey behind me.
Levi Arden was standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed, as if he had known exactly when we would be stepping across the threshold. His sharp features were set into an unforgiving expression, but a mocking glint crept into his eyes when he met my gaze.
The door clicked shut behind us. A moment later, Audrey moved to stand next to me. Her eyes scanned the room around us. I kept mine on Levi since I knew exactly what it looked like.
There was a bed and a couch, and then some other pieces of furniture that were a bit harder to identify for the untrained eye. And then of course there were the handcuffs and spreader bars and other numerous sets of restraints that hung from the walls or rested on flat surfaces. In short, The Silver Snake was a sex club. You rented a room and then you brought your partner, or casual companion, and spent a few hours enjoying the well-equipped facilities.
When I flicked a quick glance at Audrey, I found a hint of surprise and confusion on her face. But before I could say anything, Levi spoke up.
“Callan,” he said in greeting. “Audrey.”
“Sir,” I replied.
Satisfaction bloomed in his gray eyes. There were only so many times I could push my luck by calling him Levi, at least until the deal was struck, and he was already on a mission tonight so pissing him off further would only be stupid.
Then the satisfaction disappeared, and only lethal power took its place as Levi stared us down. “I received a plea for protection today. Apparently, a shadow mage is being blackmailed by someone matching your descriptions. Anything you want to tell me?”
“By all hell,” Audrey snapped. “What part of ‘do as I say or I will poison your wife’ did Dennis clearly not understand?”
Levi raised his eyebrows as he shifted his attention to her.
“It’s part of the plan,” I amended before he could decide that he didn’t like Audrey’s tone.
He slid his gaze back to me. “The plan?”
“Yes.”
“So you want me to allow you to blackmail my citizens?”
“If you want Gale’s head, then yes.”
“I can’t let things like this go unanswered.”
“You don’t need to,” Audrey cut in. A confident expression laced her cheekbones as she met his stare. “Tell him that you’ll handle it. We only need until tomorrow night, so tell him that you’re tracking us down. He’ll show up and do as he’s told on our mission that night, and then you can miraculously find us the next morning and make us back off so that we won’t blackmail him any further. Which we wouldn’t do anyway because the mission is already done.” She shrugged. “Win, win.”
Silence descended on the room. The oil lamps in the ceiling cast Levi’s face in harsh lines as he studied the poison mage before him. He cocked his head.
“You know, you’re far too intelligent to be working with someone like Callan,” he said, and then flicked a glance towards me before returning his full attention to her. “If you ever decide to leave Eldar, you could always come work for me.”
She gave him a sharp smile. “Thanks, but I don’t work for people. People work for me.”
Levi let out a silent laugh that was barely more than a few expelled breaths through his nose, but a lethal glint crept into his eyes. Audrey only continued watching him. That arrogant expression that she usually wore was firmly on her features.
Fuck, how could something be so hot and so damn reckless at the same time? Acting like this around Levi was not only dangerous, it bordered on stupid. But the fact that Audrey never backed down was also something that I loved about her.
The silence stretched for another few seconds.
I suppressed the urge to shift my hands closer together.
Then Levi clicked his tongue. “Fine. You have my permission to blackmail the shadow mage until morning the day after tomorrow.”
Audrey gave him a nod in acknowledgement. When he shifted his gaze to me, I inclined my head as well.
Relief flowed through me as Levi started towards the door. I had for sure thought that he was going to comment on the use of this room, but maybe me calling him sir had been enough to stop his petty revenge.
As if he had heard my damn thoughts, the bastard paused right before opening the door and looked back at us. The malicious glint in his eyes as he met my gaze told me everything I needed to know. Curling my fingers into a fist, I braced myself.
“You should stay a while,” he began, and shifted his gaze between the two of us. “If you leave straight away, it will look suspicious.” His eyes met mine again, and a vicious smile spread across his lips. “Since you used to come here a lot while you worked for me, no one will think twice about you using it again now. I even picked the room that you always favored. All not to raise any suspicion.”
“How thoughtful of you,” I began before finishing with a slight emphasis, “Levi.”
His eyes flashed. For a moment, I thought he might retaliate for that, but then he flicked a glance towards Audrey. With a smug smile on his lips, he shot me a look that was clearly a mocking good luck, and then he disappeared into the hallway.
The door shut behind him with a click.
Closing my eyes, I blew out a long breath.
I didn’t know if I wanted to open them again and see the expression on Audrey’s face.
