Page 31 of Dance of Deception

“I know you do,” The Wolf purrs, rolling his neck like a boxer before a fight. “Too much talk lately and not enough action. I say we make an example of someone. Burn a house down. Start stacking bodies. Then they'll get the message.”

I don’t react. I’m not thinking about the Russians. I’m thinking about her. The little dancer who saw more than she should.

Who ran. Who fought.

Whobroke.

…And who doesn’t realize she belongs to me now.

The sound of a glass clinking against wood makes me glance up. The Stag has finally moved. He doesn’t say anything, which is fairly on-brand for hiim. He just pours himself a drink, his movements precise and unhurried. The whiskey sloshes as he tilts the bottle, and I catch the faint lines of old scars beneath his sleeve.

I notice one of the women watching him from across the room, her gaze slow, considering.

I almost laugh.

She has no idea what she’s looking at. She watches him like he’s a prize, not realizing he’s a curse. Few people understand what lives inside The Stag.

The Bull’s bloodlust is loud.

The Wolf’s hunger for violence is constant, like mine.

The Raven’s is lethal in its secrecy, like the thin blade in the darkness you never see coming.

But The Stag’s?

His is buried. Deep. Twisting.

And when he decides to take action, it isn’t impulsive. It’s calculated. Final and absolute.

I watch as he swirls his glass and takes a sip. Then, silent as ever, he sets his glass down with a deliberate clink, the sound barely audible over the low hum of conversation. Then, he speaks.

“Are we ready?”

The rest of us glance at each other and nod.

It’s time. The final note of any night where Court has been in session.

The chatter around us continues, the women still draped across the furniture, sipping wine and whispering among themselves about the men they’ll never truly have.

The five of us move toward the heavy iron door at the far end of the room. The crowd doesn’t follow. They wouldn’t dare.

We step through, and the door groans shut behind us. The inner sanctum is smaller, darker. No velvet. No crystal. No old woodenshelves with leather books. No watching eyes. Just stone walls and the weight of the ages.

The air is thicker in here, heavier.

A single fire burns low, casting long shadows against the carved oak table in the room’s center.

We don’t speak as we move toward our places.

The Raven reaches for the whiskey bottle, pouring a slow measure into five waiting glasses.

One by one, we take them.

We lift our masks.

No one outside this room has ever seen us like this, nor ever will.

We look at each other—not as masked shadows, not as the myths whispered about in the dark corners of the criminal underworld.

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