His stomach pitched.
“What is it?” Stephen urged, and the thread of anxiety woven through those three words marked an unusual display of vulnerability.
Broderick forced a response out past tense lips. “Nothing,” he lied. But then, was it really a lie? For in a few short weeks, everything had gone wrong—including Reggie.
Reggie, to whom a short while ago he’d revealed the most dangerous secret that could take down Broderick, his family, and all those dependent upon him.
Twenty minutes ago, he’d not possessed even a remote doubt about trusting Reggie to that damning secret. Now his future hung not only in the balance . . . but also in her hands.
Christ in heaven.
“I require a favor of you,” he said, needing his brother gone. Broderick memorized the address marked on the page and then refolded the damning sheets, following the crease line she’d set with her own hands. “I need you to return these to Miss Spark’s rooms before she discovers them gone.”
Stephen hopped up and smartly saluted. “Ya got it.” Taking them with eager fingers, he tucked them back into his jacket.
“Say nothing to anyone,” Broderick warned, holding his brother’s eyes.
“Ya going to sack her?” Stephen asked, his voice hopeful. “She can’t be trusted. Surely ya know that.” To a boy whose only remembrances were of the time he’d lived on the streets and whose home these years had been London’s most dangerous gaming hell, Stephen had grown into a person who lived by the street code. If one betrayed a man, one was dead . . . that death physical, symbolic, and more often than not, both.
Unlike Stephen, Broderick had spent his earliest years and youth coddled and oblivious to the depravity that existed outside that once safe world. Mayhap that was why he’d never questioned Regina Spark’s loyalty to him or to the club. He flexed his jaw.
“I’m not certain what is to be done with Miss Spark.” She represented just another damned problem atop an ever-growing host of them. For he could not, as his brother encouraged, simply toss her out. Not anymore. Not with her knowing everything she did.
A protest sputtered incoherently on his brother’s lips. “But y-ya can’t keep her here. Ya ’ave to know that?” There was a thread of desperation contained within that question.
“Yes,” he concurred. “I know as much.” Now, however, the question of what to do with her had been complicated by the secrets he’d shared. “You need to go.”
Stephen dragged his heels and then, with a sigh, started for the door.
“Stephen?” Broderick called after him, freezing the boy in his tracks.
The boy angled a glance back in Broderick’s direction.
“You did well,” he said softly.
Crimson splotched his pale cheeks as it so often did at hints of praise and affection.
Still, he lingered.
“’ow long do ya think Oi ’ave?”
Broderick respected the boy too much to feed him a falsehood. “I don’t know.”
It was the topic they all danced around but no one openly spoke of. Until this morning’s meeting had revealed what would invariably have to be discussed: the kidnapping of Stephen long ago that would have a marquess down upon them with charges surely brought, the family absent a member, and a fortune lost in the process.
Stephen grunted. He turned to go. “Mayhap ’e’ll let me stay? Wot fancy nob would want a bastard loike me around?”
The one who’d sired him . . .
And me. His gut twisted. I want you around.
“Run along,” he said quietly, tipping his chin toward the door.
Stephen jammed his cap back on and raced off.
As soon as he’d gone, Broderick downed his drink; the liquid stung a hot trail down the back of his throat. With a grimace, he abandoned his glass.
As they said at the gallows, three times lucky.
And given the Killorans were one vengeance-driven nobleman away from a noose about their necks, never had a saying proven more true.
After the boy had gone, Broderick surged to his feet. A curse exploded from his lungs; full of all the fury and resentment teeming inside, he focused all those energies on the one problem within his control.
Reggie Spark.
She intended to steal his staff, including his best guard, and open up a rival establishment. Despite that treachery, Reggie was the one matter that could be most easily resolved.
Through his earlier anger, hurt, and frustration at her betrayal, a clear head at last won out.
He stopped.
All he needed was to ensure Reggie’s silence and gain that which she’d been so reluctant to give—her cooperation.
Ultimately, Broderick always emerged triumphant. An icy grin ghosted his lips. And he had no intention of failing where Regina Spark was concerned.
Chapter 7
Have you found a way out? Have you still convinced yourself that is a possibility?
The next morning Broderick stood upon the dais at the center of his club, surveying the room, taking in everything and missing nothing.
It was an eclectic mix of people who wouldn’t look at one another on the streets, but in the Devil’s Den, just like in Satan’s real inferno, all sinners comingled without regard to rank. Lords shared spirits with sailors, who kept company with merchants.
Prior to Broderick’s inheriting the club from Diggory, the hell had operated altogether differently. Back then, only the most lethal, ruthless men in the rookeries sat at the tables and imbibed watered-down spirits.
Broderick had transformed this place, a hell in every sense of the word, into an empire which catered to all. He’d had the broken, scarred tables and chairs burnt as kindling and replaced it all with gleaming mahogany commissioned for the club and suitable for any nobleman’s residence.
When his father had proven himself a thief—and a bad one at that—Broderick had survived long after him and made a new life for himself here with Diggory’s three daughters and Stephen. They’d become his new family, and he’d been determined to offer them that which his own miserable father hadn’t—security.
This club sustained them, and any threat against it through the years had been quashed.
This time would be no exception.
From across the crowded gaming hell floor, his gaze landed on Gertrude. Her modest citrine skirts stood out in stark contrast amongst the scantily clad women and gentlemen surrounding her. Gertrude worked her way over to the dais.
No doubt triumphant in her victory. Pleased that she’d bested him.
“’ello, Miss Killoran,” the guard, Nerrie, at the entrance of the cordoned-off area greeted as she climbed the steps. The burly man with a barrel-like chest attempted to make himself smaller to allow her a wider path.
“Nerrie,” she returned, with a smile.
That smile faded as soon as she set her foot on the first step. Her gaze held on Broderick’s masklike features, and then she slowly continued the climb.
They remained in silence, shoulder to shoulder, arms folded in a like manner, both examining the crush of guests that filled every last corner of the club.
“It is busy,” she stated with her usual somberness. “Not even noon, and there’s not a space to be had at the tables.”