Look but don’t touch was the cardinal rule.
As if Nicandro had ever followed the rules. ‘Rules are for boring fools,’ as his mother would say, although her voice was now a distant echo from the past.
Numerous greetings vied for his attention and he offered a succinct nod or a quick ‘good evening’ and volunteered nothing more. Conversations were like fires—they tended to sputter out if he deprived them of enough air.
His purposeful stride didn’t break—hadn’t since he’d been Nicandro Santos, a terrified seventeen-year-old boy who’d boarded a cargo ship in Rio to hide in a filthy container bound for New York. It hadn’t faltered when he’d concocted a new identity to ensure anonymity from his past life, emerging as one Nicandro Carvalho, who’d sold his pride on the streets of Brooklyn and then wrenched it back by working his fingers raw on construction sites to put some semblance of a roof over his head.
Nor had it swayed when he’d bought his first property, then another, over endless harrowing years, to earn enough money to bring his grandfather from Brazil to be by his side.
An unrelenting purpose and a cut-throat determination that had rewarded him with obscene power and wealth—until he’d been graciously accepted into the covert ranks of Q Virtus, where his sole purpose was to infiltrate and take it down from the inside.
So here he was. And this was only the beginning.
A plan over ten years in the making. Rewriting history to make the Santos Empire—his legacy of a life that had been stolen from him, along with his parents—whole once more.
Nic shut down his thoughts as mercilessly as he did everything else. Otherwise the burning ball of rage that festered and ate away at his insides like a living, breathing entity would surely explode and incinerate everything and everyone in its path.
‘Hey, Nic, what’s the hurry?’
Narciso’s voice shattered his ferocious intent and this time he did turn, to see his friend looking dapper in a tailored tuxedo, sans jacket, leaning against the main bar, Scotch glass in hand, the top half of his face shrouded in a gold leaf mask that reminded him of a laurel wreath.
Nic felt the constricting steel band around his chest slacken as a smile played at his mouth. ‘All hail, Emperor Narciso. Dios, where do they come up with these things?’
‘I have no idea, but I’m certainly feeling on top of the world.’
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. ‘Of course you are. How is the ball and chain?’
Narciso grinned at the blatant cynicism, his smile reaching the scalloped edge of gold.
Hideous masks. Requisite to afford them some anonymity, but they only served to aggravate Nic to the extreme—just as everything about Q Virtus did.
A gentlemen’s club for the elite. Prestigious. Illustrious. The most sought-after membership in the world. Run by a deceitful, murdering crook.
Ironic, he thought, that grown men, multi-billionaires, would sell their soul to be a member of Q Virtus, virtually handing their business confidences, their reputation, their respect and trust to a common criminal.
Not for much longer. Not after Nic had finished exposing the cold, hard truth and crushed Zeus beneath his almighty foot.
‘She’s as beautiful as ever. Come, take a spin of the wheel with me. I’d like a quiet word.’
Impatience clawed at him with steel-tipped talons, slashing his insides, but Nic resisted the compulsion to decline outright. It had been too long since he’d seen his friend and he wanted a quiet word of his own.
‘Let’s grab a private table,’ Nic said, not wasting a moment, simply ushering Narciso towards the lavish roulette room and a private table at the back.
Within ten minutes they had drinks in hand and the full attention of a male croupier dressed in red footman’s livery. ‘Gentlemen, please take your bets.’
Nic tossed a five-thousand-dollar chip haphazardly at the marked numbers adorning the roulette layout and waited for Narciso to make his choice.
‘Twenty thousand dollars on black seventeen,’ the croupier confirmed impassively.
Nic whistled a huff of air. ‘Feeling reckless without your lady present?’
‘Feeling lucky. That ball and chain does that to me.’
Yep, his partner in crime was still drugged on a potent cocktail of regular sex and emotion. He just hoped the hangover was a long way off. Nic didn’t relish seeing the lights go out in his eyes. Sad, but inevitable.
The wheel spun in a kaleidoscopic blur and he eased back in his seat to afford them a modicum of privacy. With time at a premium and his patience dwindling he jumped right in. If he waited for Narciso to start the conversation he might be there all night.
‘Tell me something. Don’t you think it’s odd that we’ve never seen a glimpse of QV’s Mr Mysterious? Not once.’
Narciso didn’t waste time pretending not to know exactly who they were discussing. He simply arched one dark brow and spoke in that rich, affluent tone that had used to fell women faster than a forest fire. ‘So the man likes his privacy? Don’t we all?’
‘There’s got to be more to it than that.’
‘So suspicious, Carvalho.’
The white ball plopped into black seventeen and a satisfied grunt filled the air. Typical. Served Nic right for not even caring where his chip landed, but right now he had more important thoughts swirling around the vast whirlpool of his mind in ever-narrowing circles. Always leading back to the same thing. Zeus.
‘Maybe he’s not fit for polite society,’ Narciso suggested. ‘Ever thought of that? Rumour has it the man is associated with the Greek mafia. Maybe he’s scarred with a dozen bullet holes. Maybe he’s mute. Maybe he’s shy. Over the last few months—since the last meeting, in fact—the rumour mill has churned up all kinds of ludicrous tales.’
Oh, he’d heard the rumours. Of course he had. He’d started most of them.
‘Doesn’t it bother you that Q Virtus could be dirty?’ he asked, his voice all innocence with the required edge of concern. ‘It obviously bothers some. There are a few members missing this weekend.’
Amazing what a few ‘have you heard?’ whispers in the right ears could achieve. Doubt was a powerful thing—destructive, flammable—and Nic had lit the torch with a flourish, sat back and watched it spread like wildfire.
Narciso shrugged, as if the thought of being a member of a club that was morally corrupt was water sluicing off a duck’s back.
‘The club might’ve had shady beginnings, but even my father and his cronies say the place is clean as a whistle now. You and I personally know several members, and all of them have made billions from mutually beneficial business deals, so I doubt any of it is true. Rumours are generally fairy stories born from petty jealousy or spoken from the mouths of people who have an ulterior motive.’
Very true, that. But the fact that Nic had numerous ulterior motives was something he kept to himself.
‘Still, I want to meet him.’ What he wanted, he realised, was back-up if something went wrong tonight. If he conveniently disappeared he wanted Narciso to know where he was headed.
‘Why? What could you possibly want with Zeus?’
To bring his world crumbling down around his ears. To make him suffer as his parents had—as he had and as his grandfather had.
That old man, whom he loved so dearly, was the only family he had left. The man who’d harangued and railed at him to stand tall, who had propped him up as he’d learned how to walk again when Nic would rather have died in the same bloodbath as his parents.