Page 6 of Carved Obsession
I nod. “Otto is in the office, and there are two employees in the back doing inventory. We’ll be back before opening tonight.”
He nods and waves goodbye as Maddox and I head toward the exit.
Midnight, our speakeasy, is our only truly legitimate business—if you ignore The Fightclub, which Maddox manages in the expansive basement. Mainly because we use it for both legal fights, where he is the reigning champion, and the money laundering business Finnigan has become an expert at. So, we can’t exactly call itlegal.
This is the joy of ruling The Sanctum together—we’re all specialized and focused on specific areas. The tech team and the speakeasy are mybabies,as Finnigan calls them.
Vincent’s specialty, on the other hand, is not all that palpable. He understands and sees how everything moves in this society, obtaining information out of thin air, weaving connections, and moving through the shadows that seem to speak to him. And he’s the master of interrogation without violence. Not my personal preference, but still.
Midnight, though? It’s my sanctuary away from home. Our unofficial headquarters too. Comfortable. Moody. The entrance is concealed in a back alley, a secret we’ve tried to keep, though people in Queenscove talk. Rumors fly. But admission is by both membership and password, so rumors alone wouldn’t gain them access.
Realistically, we have a year—at a stretch, two—before we have to close this location and re-open somewhere else. A speakeasy only works if kept secret. Private.
And considering our clientele, privacy is paramount. Politicians, criminals, good and bad, come here for neutral territory. They fear us—The Sanctum—but keeping us close is better than risking being on our bad side. And sometimes, we use them. Much less than we used to since we figured out we shouldn’t break the hand that feeds us, but we still listen in, extracting relevant information when they’re enjoying our complex cocktails. We just avoid using the gained knowledge on the person we got it from.
And that is our core business—information. Our power lies in our knowledge. Our fortune is built on it. Information may not be tangible, but it sure as hell generates a lot of income when traded or held against someone. Blackmail, exchanges, money, secrets, rights, swaying, trades, and deals...so much can be done with the right information. When they try to keep secrets from us, if Vincent can’t make them talk, they rarely escape me. With network access, I can find any information about a person who has ever touched technology. Even the corners of the dark web aren’t dark enough to blind me. I’m good. And it’s not ego talking, just pure fact.
Yet, not good enough to find her.
Maybe Maddox is right. Maybe she was just a tourist.
That knowledge pleases and disappoints me all at once. Because the intrigued look in her eyes is still here, looming in the back of my mind.
We step into the shaded alley, the backs of the gray-stoned period buildings shielding it from the midday sun. They do nothing for the subtropical humidity of our coastline, though. We walk under the old stone archways on the winding alley toward one of Queenscove’s main streets that should be bustling with both locals and tourists right about now.
“Is Finn coming, or is he hiding with Evie in their new beach house?” Maddox breaks the silence.
“You sound a little salty about that.”
He grunts in response. Maybe he’s feeling left out. Finnigan is the third one of us to have found who is likely to be his wife in a few years. Ronan, his brother, was the first, though he hasn’t been officially part of the syndicate in many years. Even some of our employees seem to have found love within our organization. Maybe Maddox craves the same connection. I sure don’t. I don’t quite understand the appeal. Sure, I meet with women, weplay—mostly in Morrigan and Loreley’s club—but I’ve never felt the need to expand on it.
We walk onto the main street, the sun burning hot over the people filtering onto the shaded terraces of the restaurants and cafés lining the sidewalks.
I’ve traveled extensively due to our work. I even went to university up north from our southern coast, yet I never found a place I enjoyed more than Queenscove, with its stone-or-brick period buildings steeped in character, the green borders lining the streets filled with birches, palm trees, and colorful flowers, and the old wrought iron streetlamps that were restored years ago.
There’s something about our city that appeals to me. Maybe it’s the lack of skyscrapers, making it look so much less like a city than it should. Or maybe it’s the fact that we actually had an influence on the way this city looks and operates. In the past, we used our influence to sway a couple of ordinances. One was about raising the allowed height of new structures, and the other was about limiting short-term rental permits and new hotels.
We had our own personal interests in this, since Queenscove is already a tourist spot and we didn’t need it to become even more popular. More people mean more chances for people to discover just how rooted in the underworld this place is. Our port and rail connections make it very desirable for all sorts of illegal activities.
My phone vibrates in my pocket as we walk toward the restaurant, and I stop to pull it out.
“Finnigan’s already at The Anchor with Vincent and Cillian,” I say as I read the text.
“Cillian?” Maddox mirrors my thoughts.
I read the text again, but there’s no explanation as to why Vincent’s brother-in-law is joining us for lunch. The redhead got thrown into the deep end of heading his old man’s family business, and even if it’s been just over a year, he sometimes comes to us for advice. He may be family to Vincent now, but the man seems to know how to keep The Sanctum close. The right way. Even if his businesses are mostly legal.
The tips of my fingers fly over the touchscreen as I send a response to Vincent, though I glance before me as I begin walking again. The restaurant is barely five minutes away from here and I could find out the answer soon enough, but I have an inherent distaste about walking into a situation unprepared.
A familiar ghost of a current coils in my stomach.
“One of these days, you’re going to trip and fall on your face.”
I cock an eyebrow, throwing a glance his way in response, before going to check for a reply.
Minutes pass without one, and the restaurant is only a few steps away now.
The current sizzles in my abdomen as my fingers tighten around the phone. Almost three decades of this and I haven’t gotten used to the ridiculous sensation.
