Page 48 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

A woman with highlighted blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and a straight, pointed nose stands up as we enter. She sweeps past us, giving us a cool look as she leaves the office.

“My sister, Natalie,” Julian says, by way of belated introduction. Then he jerks his chin toward the doorway. “Shut the door.”

Gage glances my way, so I do it.

There’s a chair opposite Julian’s desk, and the guy waves a hand at it like he doesn’t care who takes it. So Gage does, sitting down and leaving the rest of us to stand behind him. I bet it makes him look powerful, sitting there with us as his backup, while Julian is alone on his side of the desk.

But this is Julian’s turf, so it wouldn’t be smart to get too confident. Even I know that.

“I’ll admit I’m surprised to have a visit from you,” the man says, speaking to Gage but glancing around at all of us. “I know you by reputation, but I wasn’t sure we’d ever have the pleasure of doing business together. Is there something I can do for you?”

We all know why we’re here, but we can’t just come out and ask Julian if he’s the one who put Ivan’s chopped up corpse out at the gala. Gage always has a plan, though, and the rest of us let him handle it.

“We were at the gala the other night, just like you were,” Gage says, leaning back in the chair. “After the surprising turn of events that night, we’ve been doing some talking. Ivan St. James’s death left a fairly large gap of power in the city, wouldn’t you say?”

Julian nods. His hair is a darker blond than his sister’s, but the family resemblance between them is easy to see in the sharpness of his features. “Of course. Whenever someone that well-connected and well-established dies, all the little worms come out to try to fill his spot.”

“Exactly. We’ve been worried about a new player trying to rise up on the scene here. Someone untested and not aware of how we do things in Detroit. We think whoever killed Ivan and displayed his body like that might be trying to fill his spot and take his power.”

“So why are you talking to me about this?” Julian asks, a wary, cunning look passing over his face.

“If that happened, it would concern all the current mafia operations in Detroit,” Gage says. “Anyone with an established business here would be affected. So we’re trying to find out if anyone knows anything about who this new player might be.”

Julian sits back in his own chair, mirroring Gage’s pose a bit. There’s a smug look on his face, and he doesn’t look bothered by anything Gage just said.

“I don’t know who went after Ivan,” he says. “Although I can think of plenty of reasons why someone would. He was arrogant and hoarded his power, which always makes someone an appealing target. Him dying doesn’t bother me all that much, but the fact that his body was displayed like that? That fucked me.”

“Oh, really? Why?” Gage asks. “You don’t strike me as the squeamish type.”

Julian snorts and shakes his head. “It’s not the fact that he was hacked into pieces. It’s that he was put out at all. I had a deal that was supposed to go through, and it was maybe infringing a little on Ivan’s turf, but whatever. He’s dead. But the buyer got spooked when Ivan showed up like that. Thought maybe he was next or something, I don’t know. Point is, it cost me. Whoever had the bright idea to put Ivan’s body on a fucking pedestal like that is an asshole, and they better hope I don’t find them.”

“I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way,” Gage points out.

He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I don’t have any info for you.” The smug look returns as he sits forward again. “And if I did have information, I’m not sure I’d share it. It helps to have the upper hand in situations like this, don’t you think?”

Julian winks at Gage, and I have to hold myself back leaping over the desk to punch his stupid face in. Not that we need his info at this point. He basically just admitted that it wasn’t him who dredged Ivan’s body up from the river and put it out at the gala. Since he’s all mad about it and it fucked up his business deal, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for him to have done it.

Gage smiles back at the guy, and it’s his predator smile—the one that usually comes before he fucks someone up. Part of me kinda wishes that Julianwasinvolved in all of this, so we’d have a reason to come after him and start some shit. Compared to our trip to the Diamond Devil headquarters, this meeting is boring as hell.

“I understand,” Gage says, his tone chilly but not rude. “Hopefully your deal recovers once people stop being skittish about Ivan dying.”

Julian shrugs again. “It’ll be someone else eventually. That’s how things work, it seems. You get too big for your britches and then someone takes you out. Ivan was a paranoid son of a bitch, but he wasn’t entirely wrong to be, in the end. Someone did want him dead. And then someone was sick enough to turn his corpse into ‘art.’” He drums his fingers on his desk. “This shit just happens. All you can do is try to make sure you’re not next on the list.”

He smiles at Gage, and Gage smiles back, all polite aggression. It’s dumb posturing, because no one’s going to start shit in here, so Julian’s just trying to seem like he’s top dog or something. None of us are afraid of him.

I glance at River, but her face is blank and composed. She’s looking at Julian, but it’s like she’s not really seeing him. You’d probably have to know her to be able to tell this, but I’m certain her mind isn’t on him at all. At least not on the conversation we’re having with him in this moment.

Gage and Julian talk a bit more about the state of things in the criminal underworld of Detroit, discussing how the landscape is likely to shift now that Ivan is gone, but I tune them out. No one’s getting hit or stabbed or fucked up today, so I don’t feel like I need to know everything they’re talking about. One of the others will be listening, and if it’s important, I’ll find out from them.

Eventually, Gage scrapes his chair back and gets to his feet. He nods at Julian, who doesn’t get up or show us out or anything, just goes back to his laptop.

Smug fucker.

We head out of the office and back into the main part of the building where the ring itself is. No one really spares us anything more than a few curious glances as we head for the door. But before we make it out, River glances to one side and then stiffens, stopping in her tracks.

Her face goes pale, and her jaw drops. Stepping out from the little formation of bodies that surrounds her, she strides over to a woman off to one side of the gym who has her back partly turned to us.

There’s something almost manic in her eyes as she reaches out a hand, putting it on the woman’s arm. “Han—”

The woman turns around, and River’s voice cuts off. Whatever she sees in the woman’s face makes River’s expression shut down as if someone slammed a door on her emotions. She shakes her head and backs up quickly, looking rattled and a little bit lost.

“N-never mind,” she says. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The woman looks confused and a little annoyed, but she gives River a semi-polite nod before she turns back to whatever she was doing.

When River comes back over to us, her face is still shuttered and drawn. None of us say anything, heading out to the car in silence. She climbs into the back seat between me and Ash, craning her neck a little to look back at the building as Gage starts the car and pulls away.

“I thought that was her,” she whispers to herself. “I was so sure.”

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