Page 1 of Under an Endless Moon

ONE

OTTO

“This one should be easy,”River said, though it sounded almost like a question as he glanced around at our crew.

We were down in the hidden basement at Kane’s, which was the most popular club in our small town of Moonlit Ridge.

The heavy thud of music seeped through the cracks, vibrating the ceiling and walls.

Down here where we were secreted away, the small space was dim and dingy, the single bulb that hung from the ceiling the only light in the room.

Five of us sat around the big circular table beneath it. My attention bounced around at every member of Sovereign Sanctum:

River, our leader.

Kane, our money launderer.

Theo, the protector.

Cash, our hacker.

Then there was me, the deliverer.

Tension was always tight whenever we met like this. You’d think that after doing this for close to ten years and the lives we led, it would have abated by now. But no, I could taste the apprehension that would forever leak from our spirits.

“No. I don’t foresee any problems,” I told him. “Everything is set.”

River shifted his attention to Theo. “You’re sure they’re ready for transport?”

He kept his voice low like someone was going to overhear when we were buried thirty feet below.

Angie and her two sons had been hidden away at The Sanctuary for two months. It was the motel Theo owned and ran, a cover since we used it as a transition house. A temporary place to shelter those who we were helping to give new lives while we figured out their permanent accommodations.

Theo gave a tight nod as he roughed a tatted hand through his shock of black hair.

“Yeah. Angie is still skittish, but I’m not sure that’s going to change any time soon,” he said.

“She’s been through it,” Kane agreed.

River turned his dark gaze to me. “Then it’s a go for you. Are you ready?”

Every one of us had a specific job. A task in our organization. Mine was to get them to their new homes. The one who was there when they went on their own.

I gave my crew a giant grin, playing light the way I did. “Always ready for it.”

Kane laughed with a shake of his head. Dude was covered in tats like the rest of us. But he still somehow came off a little more polished.

“You always take it on like you’re running a game,” he tossed at me.

“Only way to live life, isn’t it?” Especially when we never knew when it was going to come to an end. Had never had the illusion that I was going to make it to be an old man.

Might as well live fast and hard and to the extreme while I had the chance. Use up every second that I was given. I could almost feel the end coming up fast. A roil of hatred burned through me when I thought of what I’d discovered. Finally picking up the scent of the motherfuckers I’d been hunting for the last seven years.

I glanced at my left hand where two stacked Ss were tattooed with an eye in the middle of them. A broken, mangled heart sat atopthe dagger that ran it through. I flexed my hand, trying to quell the rage, to tamp it down and save it for when I could use it.

Vengeance was coming and it was coming soon.

I forced myself back into my typical casualness when River grunted at me. My best friend was nothing but a grumpy asshole, though he’d softened a bit since his girl, Charleigh, had come into his life.

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