Page 95 of Dance of Deception

Beside me, The Bull chuckles to himself, shaking his head.

“As I wassaying,” The Wolf grunts. “This isn’t about paranoia, it’s about being thorough and making sure there are no loose ends.”

The Raven exhales slowly, his fingers tapping the table with slow, deliberate movements.

“That depends,” he murmurs, “on what she knows. Or, worse, whathetold her, if anything.”

The crackling of the fire is the only sound in the cavernous space.

I keep my expression blank behind the mask, my voice a controlled growl.

“I told you before,” I say. “There’s no evidence she knows anything. If she did, I’d know by now.”

The Bull shifts slightly, his mask turning toward me. “She showed up at one of our sessions, Hound. That alone is…suspicious.”

I exhale slowly, my fingers tapping the ancient carvings in the table’s surface.

I know what they’re dancing around.

Arkadi.

His secrets.

Concerningus.

I roll my shoulders, settling deeper into my chair. “We know Arkadi was dangerous. We know he was greedy. But what we’ve never learned is what he actually had on us.”

The Wolf watches me carefully. “Yeah, which is exactly the fucking problem.” He sighs, rapping the table with his knuckles, like he just needssome wayto get rid of the energy that hums through him.

“You met with him,” he says. “Before it all fell apart.”

I nod. “I did.”

The room is silent. They already know the story.

Arkadi Ostrov had a recording, he claimed, that he could use to blackmail The Black Court and all of us.

He didn’t say what he had, where he kept it, or how much he knew. Just that he wanted afucktonof money for it.

I met with him, gauged the threat, and we agreed to talk again.

But that never happened because two days later, his fourteen-year-old daughter ran from their house, screaming to the neighbors there were girls locked in the basement.

The FBI descended, Arkadi was arrested, and we never found the recording.

I exhale, dragging a hand over the back of my neck.

“If he had something, the Feds didn’t find it,” I say.

The Raven’s mask glints in the firelight as he tips his head. “Not that weknow of.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Then, The Stag speaks again. “And now, his daughter is back in our world.”

I feel something hot suddenly coil inside me. “She's not involved with this,” I say sharply.

The Wolf’s gaze flicks to me. “She’s about to marry you. Thatmakesher involved.”

I press my hands against the stone table, exhaling slowly. I don’t like where this is going. And I don’t like the way they’re talking about her. Like she’s just another loose end to tie up.

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