Page 4 of Snowed in with the Brutes
Struggling against the wind, my boots sinking into the snow, I make my way to the cabin.
The massive door, with three intricate snow leopards carved into the wood and the words "Nix Pardus" engraved above it, swings open before I reach the threshold.
A girl my age, bundled in a thick black coat with a fur-edged hoodie framing her face, steps into the cold.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here.I thought you were going to be late,” she says, her cheeks flushed as she pulls me inside, shuts the door, and takes my bag from me.
Silly me for thinking the inside of the cabin would be warmer.It’s not.My teeth chatter uncontrollably now.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, “but Mrs.Harnett—she’s my boss—wants to keep the cabin cool, crisp, and corpse-like for the masters.She doesn’t want it to become stuffy.She’s stuffy, I’ll have you know.”She rolls her eyes and shivers.“I’m Jasmine, by the way.”
“I’m Cora,” I say and manage a small smile.
“Oh, I know who you are,” she replies.
In the mudroom, she hurriedly removes my hat and coat, but I insist on taking off my own boots when she bends to help me.
“There’s a huge storm coming,” Jasmine continues in a whisper as I take off my boots and peel off my damp socks as well.
“And Mrs.Harnett was whining—no, she doesn’t whine; she snarls—that you were going to be late and we were going to be stuck here with you for who knows how long,” Jasmine adds, still whispering.
I’m just overly grateful when she hands me a clean pair of socks, a pair of slippers, and a freshly laundered wool coat.Unfortunately, it does nothing to warm me up.
“Is Mr.Arlington here already?”No matter how hard I try to inject confidence into my voice, my words are tinged with apprehension.
“Mr.Arlington?”Jasmine looks at me in confusion, then her eyes widen to plates.“Oh no.The new masters haven’t arrived yet,” she says, then notices the confused expression on my face.
What new masters is she talking about?Masters?
“Oh, you don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Mr.Arlington retired this morning, effective immediately.His three adopted sons are now the kings of the consortium and the CEOs of Nix Enterprise.They’re the ones coming for you.”
“What?”I say, despite hearing exactly what she said.Her words float around my head with a darkness that sets my entire body on fire.
This can’t be happening.No.No.No.
“It can’t be.There must be a mistake.There...”
“It’s true.”Jasmine slips her hand into her pocket, retrieves her phone, and after a few moments of tapping on the screen, she flips her phone in my direction.
My gaze collides with the first page of a search on a browser; every result has the same headline: Arlington retires from Nix Enterprise, hands reins over to his three adopted sons, their images on the side of the page.
The full impact of this change of events hits me harder than a wrecking ball.Everyone and their dog, even remotely associated with or mildly aware of the world of the mafia, knows who they are.
Above ground, they’re the ruthless businessmen who’ve grown Nix Enterprises into a prestigious mega-conglomerate worth nearly a trillion dollars.
Underground, they have the reputations of blood kings, adding even more darkness, more danger, and more deadly effects to the reputation of the Nix Consortium.They were trained by William Arlington to be indomitable.And now the entire world is theirs.
My heart thuds painfully.But I already knew what they looked like.One tiny glimpse of them two years ago, and I remember them as clear as day.
Kian Saywell, Flinn Calloway, and Sinclair Jones.
No.No.No.
It had to be Mr.Arlington I was meeting.I was prepared for Mr.Arlington, the sixty-eight-year-old head of the Nix Consortium.
