Page 23 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

I’m not even kidding.

But drugs and conspicuous cars don’t mix, so I’m blending in, going five over the speed limit as I cruise over the Bay Bridge, a ninja in my white electric-powered dream.

I pull up at a nondescript warehouse in Oakland a little while later, parking in a loading zone. The sky is starting to fade, the evening air a little cooler as the sun under over the horizon. I do a quick check of my surroundings, looking for cops, enemies, anything that might interfere with my mission. A gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans, a handful of pills that look more like Pez candies in my pocket, a fresh stick of peppermint gum, and I’m good to go.

Head down, I circle around to the back of the warehouse and enter the loading dock’s open roller door. There are three beefy security dudes just inside the dock, hidden from the street but apparent as soon as my eyes adjust to the dark interior of the windowless space. They all nod at me, holding Uzi’s pointed at the floor, and I nod back in greeting, sliding the gold mask over my eyes as I make my well-worn path into what can only be described as a parallel universe in the middle of the industrial district.

I open a small door in the back of the empty loading dock, my eyes adjusting rapidly to the dark interior beyond. It’s still light outside, the sun holding on for at least another thirty minutes before it’s grand departure, but in here, it’s midnight twenty-four hours a day. I breathe in, a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth as I enter what can only be described as one, big, fucked-up fairytale-themed party, complete with Sleeping Beauty being projected onto the bare white-brick wall at the far end of the space. Translucent black sheets of gauzy silk hang suspended from the ceiling in different configurations, wrapping around low, circular daybeds that, ironically, will most likely never see the light of day. On low tables, platters of red toffee-dipped apples sit gleaming, and black rose petals are scattered on every available surface. Fat, round candles burn eagerly, some on the floor, others on tables and low walls, the entire room pulsing like a fire marshal’s living nightmare.

I know exactly where to go, heading for the stairwell at the side of the room, past the silk-draped couches and the people in various states of undress lounging upon them. I see flashes of pert breast and round, smooth ass cheek, of spread thighs and pistoning hips. Still, it’s all fairly sedate down here on the ground floor, where people know they can be seen. It’s up the stairs that I take, bouncing two at a time in my sneakers, that the real deviants are hiding out.

More security. A long, dark corridor that leads to a series of private rooms, criss-crossed along the walkway. All locked. I stroll past two more security guards on my way down the hallway, looking at each door carefully. My reputation precedes me. There are little red stickers, the size of my thumbnail, stuck to every single door. Some rooms have three and four of the little dots. Each dot represents a customer wanting to purchase my wares, and this isn’t exactly the type of thing you can just buy off the street corner. No, the drug I sell is exclusive. But it does have a rabid following, and as I enter the first door, this one adorned with three red stickers, I have to fight to keep the amused grin off my face.

The rooms in this place are identical, lavish but minimalist, outfitted with everything you could ever want for your own personal sex-and-booze bender. Chilled champagne sits in a bucket on a low marble table, three lipstick-rimmed glasses filled with bubbles and honey-hued liquid.

Three bodies move on the large bed, the hungry sounds of skin slapping on skin something I’ve become acutely accustomed to over the past three days, not to mention all of my previous visits to parties like this. I clear my throat, hoping to get their attention. There are three girls, probably in their early twenties. They’re all giggly and frothy from the champagne, and I wonder if their little party will extend to male company, or if it’ll stay just these three.

“Three?” I ask, a little louder than is probably polite for this kind of thing.

Five minutes later, the girls are lined up on their knees in a neat row in front of the bed, their mouths open, their pink tongues ready. I would crack a joke about how this looks, but I’m kind of in a hurry, with at least fifteen more customers to attend to in this one place alone. I’ve got a list of parties to go to, some over here in Oakland, others in the city, and everybody wants their dose of the good stuff before the party fizzles out. If I were an enterprising drug manufacturer I’d have staff to deliver the other doses for me, but I don’t trust anyone with my particular brand of magic.

Hence the naked girls. I place a pill on the tongue of the first one and watch her swallow it, checking her mouth and under her tongue, before offering her a champagne flute to wash down the chalky pill. She accepts, drinking the entire glass. I switch my focus to the second girl, repeating my actions, making certain that she swallows the pill.

The third girl is more coy than her friends, the introvert of the threesome. She looks at the red heart-shaped pill in my thumb and forefinger with apprehension. “I’ll take it later,” she says, crossing her arms over her breasts. I raise my eyebrows, taking my leather jacket off and offering it to her. Some people are just too damn inhibited to have a strange, tattoo-covered punk shove a pill down their throat while they’re completely naked and on their knees. I get it. But also, she’s not keeping my fucking pill to give to some asshole who will copy the formula I painstakingly created.

“It’s now or never, princess,” I say, holding the tablet up in the dim light. “There’s zero harm in saying no. Honestly.”

She stares at the pill, seemingly fascinated. “I have a really strong gag reflex,” she confesses. “If you put your finger on my tongue, I’ll throw up.”

I feel for her boyfriend, if she has one. Then again, perhaps that’s why she’s locked in a private room inside a sex club with two other women, no dicks to be seen. Except mine, and it’ll be staying firmly inside my pants for the duration of the evening, and probably another couple of days as I recover from my case of Rosaline chafe.

I coach the girl to catch the pill in her throat by tilting her head back, and she takes it like a champ, gag reflex thankfully not affected. After she’s swallowed, and sank half a bottle of champagne as a chaser, I sit on a sleek mustard-colored sofa in the corner of the room, and set my watch for thirty minutes. My cash is already downstairs, the next room ready for me. The girls go back to whatever it was they were doing on the bed, and I watch idly. I can think of worse things to be doing.

My phone vibrates nineteen minutes in. It’s Merc.

She says it was Ty Capulet who wanted her to take your pills.

Huh. Fucking figures that one of those pricks would want to take away the one good thing I’ve got going for me. Fucking figures.

Rage boils up in me at the mention of that soul-sucking family. They’re the kind of people who would climb over your dying body to take your last dollar, and they’d make sure to stand on your throat and finish you off while they were at it. The Capulets used to be like family, until they destroyed my family and scattered us to a dozen different corners of the globe. I’m the only one stubborn enough to stay in the ruined mansion that my trust fund owns, the only asset to any of our names anymore, a vestige of broken lives and ash and now, Rosaline’s blood. Fucking bitch. I didn’t know she was in with the Capulets. I never would have hooked up with her if I’d known. Now, I’m just glad I figured out what she was trying to steal before she managed to get away with it.

I hope it took a lot of torture to get that information out of her, but Rosaline is a coward. I bet she flipped on Ty before I even got to this party.

Any idea where this little shit is?I fire back. Three dots appear immediately.

He’ll be at the birthday party tonight. In the city. You know, all that bullshit where they hand over the reins, or sell the cow, or whatever.

That’s tonight.Jesus.

Something akin to jealousy ripples through me like fire, as I think of Avery Capulet getting engaged tonight.

I find it ironic as fuck that when we were tiny children, our parents had arranged for us to be married one day. Yeah. Me, a Montague, and Avery, the diamond in the Capulet family’s crown.

Guess you can see how that turned out.

When? Exactly where?I type back to Merc.

Palatial Hotel. From 8pm on. You know which one he is?

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