King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)

I barely waited until the O’Connors were out of my neighborhood before firing up my computers and starting my own research.

The most annoying thing about investigating the drug and brand was I only had Enrico to go on. He was the only connection I had between the branded women and the drug. If only he hadn’t disappeared, squirreled away by the O’Connors, I’d have been able to ask him in person. It was amazing what hooking a guy’s balls up to a pair of jumper cables could shake loose. The cables didn’t even have to be connected… just the threat of frying the baby-makers was enough for most men to cave.

Since I had no access to Enrico, and clearly Bran O’Connor wasn’t going to allow me to question him, a thought that still made my blood boil, I had to get creative. Taking the search to the digital realm was taking back control, and it felt good.

What felt less good was how squeaky-clean Enrico was. The man had nothing going on. He was a city employee and kept his nose clean. There wasn’t even a hint of tax evasion in his accounts, which meant one thing… someone bigger and more important than him had given him the drugs. Enrico was a dead end… I needed whoever had supplied him. Which meant I had hit a wall.

Sol went home to the Moroni compound uptown the next day. Her memory was as hazy as Doc had warned me it would be. Marco and I had given her some bullshit story about hitting her head, and she seemed to accept it, more or less. Marco and I had agreed that he’d stay by her side when she was at the compound, and I’d accompany her whenever she went out.

Once she left, the apartment seemed cold and empty. I was exhausted. I yawned and went to the kitchen for my tenth coffee of the day.

Seeing as I’d been up nearly thirty-six hours straight, today was going to have to be sponsored by caffeine.

My very inexpert sketch of the brand, scanned and uploaded, had come up with a few hits, but nothing substantial. I had feelers out on my usual conspiracy theory boards and other cold-case forums.

The only other obvious thing I could do?

Stalk Bran O’Connor and his merry band of thugs. My reasoning was that since Bran was doing his own investigating, I could piggyback on his research, since he’d been able to question Enrico.

The problem was that I was pretty sure that none of the men I’d met so far were the O’Connor family IT guys. They seemed more like muscle, except for the medic.

After my coffee, I wandered back to my desks. While I’d been gone, my computers had shifted into a maintenance mode. Maintenance for me was a constant running check on various databases for De Sanctis family members, as well as alerts set up to reveal if any of the famiglia properties were being bugged. It was harder to check possessions, but as long as the bugged possession was brought onto one of our established, monitored properties, I’d see the ping.

There was a ping to attend to when I sat down.

I blinked at it, surprised.

It was my very own house.

Someone had bugged my apartment.

Someone. I had a perfect idea who. The only man who would dare. My bossy, dominating, cocky asshole himself.

Unluckily for him, it was the break I’d been hunting for.

I didn’t get stalked, I did the stalking, always… something Bran O‘Connor was about to find out.

Endless hours later, with a satisfied sigh, I stood and stretched. I’d found the bug in an unopened package in my front hall. Smart, but obvious. Instead of smashing it under my heel, I hacked into it and traced it backward. Bran had a sneaky little hacker listening into my everyday life. I’d bet good money he had someone following me when I left the house, if I ever did that. I hitched a ride on Bran’s IT guy’s tail to see what he was researching.

Aldo Sepriano and something called The Enclave.

Cha-ching. I loved a good shortcut. The low road was perfectly fine for me, thank you very much.

Now, after a whole day of deep diving The Enclave and Aldo Sepriano, I needed to come up for air. At the very least, I needed to go to the store and get more coffee. I was out.

My cell rang, and I snatched it up when I saw the name on the display. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

Sol sighed. “I can’t rest anymore. I’m bored. I feel fine, I just don’t really remember the last few weeks. It’s liberating, really. If Enrico is completely not into me, I’m glad I don’t remember it.”

“Memories are important… they keep us from forgetting stuff and doing it again,” I muttered, still raw at the idea that forgetting could be a blessing.

“I’ll never repeat it — I promise. I’m already over it and ready to do something fun. Are you in?”

“Stop, you’re too peppy, I can’t handle it right now,” I said, collapsing on the couch.

I’d barely slept in three nights, and it was threatening to come crashing down on me any moment. I rubbed my bleary eyes. My contacts were gritty and dry. Putting Sol on speaker, I headed to the bathroom to take them out, putting my glasses on instead.

I caught sight of myself in the mirror and nearly screamed. Yikes. I didn’t just feel like a cave dweller, I looked like one… or like some type of anemic, underfed, nocturnal animal that had never seen the light of day before. Or a worm. Yeah, worm worked.

“You’ve been MIA for days, and it’s not fair. Who am I supposed to go out with if you won’t play with me? You know Papa only lets me hang out with you.”

I nodded. “He is very wise. The rest of your so-called friends are idiots.”

Sol laughed. “Then it’s confirmed, you need to hang out with me, and go out and meet some sexy members of the opposite sex, before both our lady parts wither and become like dried figs.”

“Thanks for that visual.” I headed back to the living room and sank down on the couch.

“You, specifically, need to go out and get over Bran Flakes, or whatever his name was,” Sol announced airily, drawing a chuckle from me.

“Bran Flakes?”

“Sorry, All Bran O’Connor. Should I keep going? I have cereal puns for days.”

I laughed. “That’s got a nice ring to it, but I’m sorry to burst your bubble, I’ve barely thought about him. Nothing went on there, just drop it.”

“Hmmm, sure it didn’t. Marco caught me up on it all. There was something, I know that for sure, but I guess you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

Why the hell Marco had thought that telling Sol about my brief nothing with Bran was worthy of catching her up on when he was filling in the gaps in her memory, I didn’t know.

“Nothing to tell.”

“In that case, you have no excuse not to come out tonight. If not, maybe Irish will think you’ve been mooning over him, at home, lovestruck and⁠—”

“Don’t care,” I replied breezily.

“Okay, how about I go out by myself and get in trouble⁠—”

“Fine! You’re so annoying. I’ll come out,” I snapped.

“Yes! It’s going to be amazing.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“It’s a surprise, but dress fancy. Tonight, we are hanging in high society.”

We went to an art gallery opening on Fifth. The entire way there, I felt silent eyes on my back. Bran’s men. I’d put money on Declan.

It was cute that he thought I wouldn’t pick up on his tail. I ignored him until we got to the gallery entrance.

“Excuse me, there’s a well-known fine art vandal behind me. He posted online that he’s here tonight to make a statement, film it, and shame the artist. He’s the Irish guy in the leather jacket. Shamrock tattoo on his neck.”

The security guard pulled a face.

I nodded understandingly. “I know, cliché as hell. I wouldn’t let him in if I were you, big guy.”

The security guy puffed himself up and nodded, turning an ironlike look at Declan loitering on the street corner.

“You know, this is a well-timed visit. I’ve been reading up about how easy it is to launder money through the sale of fine art,” I murmured to Sol. “It’s pretty clean and untraceable, however, you need access to the right kind of pretentious criminals. The ones who think they’re too good for tanning salons and laundromats, you know?”

Researching Aldo Sepriano had clued me in to the fact that he was a big art collector, apparently. Of course, the movement of fine art was a front for whatever shady business transactions he conducted with the help of his investment group, The Enclave. I’d had a fruitful afternoon. Bran’s IT guy didn’t cover his tracks well, and his search terms were basic as hell.

Secret societies were all well and good as long as they were only making their asshole members rich. But a secret society that was pumping the city full of horrifying experimental drugs and branding girls? Not cool. They needed to be stopped.

“What’s wrong with a good tanning salon?” Sol asked indignantly. “Aside from skin cancer.”

“Yeah, exactly, so who’s the artist tonight, and why are we here?”

“His name is S, and he paints these hauntingly Gothic, creepy paintings. They make me shiver.” Sol sighed, walking up the red carpet and flashing an invitation to the doorman.

The little gallery was already packed to the brim with the art crowd. We pushed inside the main room, enveloped by the heat of many bodies packed in a small space.

“Their name is S? Just S?” I wondered.

“Just S. Apparently his dad is a big shot of some kind, but he never wanted to make it through connections, so he only goes by S.”

“Interesting,” I muttered, feeling it was anything but. These days, rich kids trying to escape obvious nepotism was pretty much the standard. It wasn’t a good look, but that didn’t mean that their parents’ money hadn’t paved their way, from private school, to supplies, to time, to even breaking into an industry.

I grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray and toasted Sol. “Thanks for forcing me out of the house. I was beginning to see the world in code.”

Sol laughed. “Let’s go and see the paintings. I need to be well-informed when our host sees us.” She took off toward a huge painting to the left.

“Our host?” I repeated and followed her.

“This event is invite-only, so yeah, we were invited.”

“By whom?” I asked.

We arrived in front of the painting. I looked up at the canvas and blinked. It was darkly colored, rich with earthen tones and gloom. It was set in the woods, and there appeared to be a stone altar of some kind. Animals of various kinds sat around the altar. No, not animals, I realized after a moment.

They were people with animal masks on.

I shivered.

“Aldo Sepriano.”

The name slowly sank through my mind as I stood, mesmerized by the painting.

“Wait. Who?”

I turned to Sol, stunned by the coincidence that the very man I’d been digging into all day was the same one who’d invited us to the gallery tonight.

“Aldo. He reached out earlier to apologize for all the fuss that happened with Enrico. He offered both of us tickets to this event to make up for the public rejection at the wedding, not that I remember that. Isn’t that sweet?”

“It’s weird,” I remarked instead. So, not a coincidence at all. We were here by design. Tension notched down my spine immediately. My gut told me being here was a bad idea.

“Ouch. Weird isn’t what I was going for,” a deep voice said behind us.

I spun around and nearly collided with the man.

Aldo Sepriano. Enrico’s older, much more influential brother. He was the sort of man you’d pass on the street without a second glance: nondescript, plain, his face an unremarkable blend of features that bore neither beauty nor ugliness. His hair was an indeterminate shade between brown and gray, thin and combed with a precision that spoke of a meticulous nature rather than vanity. His eyes, mud brown and oddly flat.

“Solaria, thank you so much for coming. You, too, Giada.” He leaned in to kiss Sol on both cheeks, while his security looked on, standing at his shoulder. Aldo was a state assembly member and didn’t go anywhere without his own team.

He turned to me, and I folded my arms over my chest and nodded tightly. I wasn’t kissing up to Enrico’s brother. I didn’t trust either of those motherfuckers, especially after digging deeper into Aldo’s connection to The Enclave.

“Is Enrico here tonight?” I asked, already mentally preparing to leave.

Did Aldo know what had happened with his brother? Did he know that the O’Connors had Enrico, and that and Sol and me were involved?

Aldo stared at me, a muscle leaping madly in his jaw, before he forced a smile. “No, I’m afraid he’s out of town. Family business.”

There was no mistaking the dark tinge in his emotionless eyes. He knew.

“So, do you know the artist?” Sol jumped in to change the subject. She had no memory of what had happened with Enrico, apart from what I’d told her, so it wasn’t that surprising that she was open to Aldo making amends. This was exactly what happened when you tried to protect people “for their own good.” It always backfired.

Aldo nodded. “I do, actually. She’s a close friend of mine. We met in our investment club, strangely, but she was harboring a deep creative well that no one knew about, not even her husband. She’s made quite the splash in the art community.”

“It’s a woman! I’d never have guessed,” Sol continued.

I drifted away from the conversation to study another painting.

This one was of a hotel. It seemed to be raining in the painting, and only the lights of the hotel lit up the dark streets around it. The strange thing about it were the faces at the windows. Hundreds of faces, one at each window, staring out.

There was something haunting about the painting.

“That hotel looks familiar,” Sol said, appearing at my shoulder.

Aldo nodded. “Does it? It’s a rather well-kept secret. It belongs to one of the investors in my club. He likes to invite all sorts of interesting guests. S, the artist, always attends. It’s a meeting place of like-minded intellectuals.”

“Sounds like a cult… or, I don’t know, a secret society,” I teased.

The shadow of a smirk passed across Aldo’s lips. Was it smart to be goading this fucker in plain sight? Probably not, but men like Aldo were the worst. Smug men who were so convinced of their own superiority, they thought they were bulletproof. It figured that a man like that would be involved with Z Juice and human branding. Why not? The rest of us were just animals to people like him.

“Hardly anything so exciting as all that,” Aldo said, a beat too late. “They’re having one of their events tonight, actually, to celebrate the artist.”

“That sounds amazing,” Sol enthused. She was a sucker for exclusive things.

“It gets a little wild, I can’t lie.” Aldo smirked mysteriously.

Sol was caught like a fish on a hook. “Wild in what way?”

“In every way.”

“A wild after-party for someone like you sounds like bad PR,” I pointed out. “Aren’t you scared of making the tabloids?”

“Guests are mostly part of the investment club and know how to be discreet. We’re talking about some of the richest people in the city. Privacy is taken very seriously.”

“How fun. It sounds about as wild as doing my tax return early.”

Aldo turned his dark eyes to me. There was something off about his smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. It was as fake as his smooth political persona.

“Not at all. You should both come, if you’d like to see firsthand.”

“Really! But we can’t invest… I mean, my papa handles all that stuff,” Sol said.

I watched Aldo, and he watched me right back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two stiff invitation cards.

“That’s not a problem. You can be my plus-ones. Full membership is a complicated process. But the party really is my highlight of the year. You should both consider coming.”

“I’m busy,” I blurted at the same time as Sol spoke.

“We will!” She elbowed me hard in the side. “We’ll talk it over.”

Aldo nodded and flashed one last brief glare of annoyance at me, only just hidden beneath his smooth veneer. I had the feeling that if I pushed a little harder at his nice-guy act, it would shatter.

“Hey, what happened with the girl you took to Ren’s wedding as a date? The escort?” I asked Aldo out of nowhere.

Sol gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked at my rudeness.

Aldo paused and narrowed his eyes at me, and then chuckled.

“Nothing happened. We had a nice evening together, and she went home.”

“She was all bruised up,” I went on.

“Giada…” Sol pulled at my arm, clearly dying of mortification.

“An unfortunate side effect of her profession, I’m afraid. I never laid a hand on her.”

His placating words were at odds with the hard look in his eyes. He was pissed off. Good. I was, too. I didn’t know what his game was, but I wasn’t playing it.

“And how come a guy like you needs to pay for company? Can’t get a date?”

Aldo raised an eyebrow. “If you’re asking if I can bring someone from my social circle at short notice to a mob wedding in New Jersey, the answer is no.”

Silence fell between us. Aldo and I glared at each other. Sol grabbed the invitations from his hand and waved them in my face.

“Look how pretty they are! We will definitely think about it.”

“No, we won’t,” I maintained, breaking eye contact to stare meaningfully at Sol.

She shoved the invites at me and took my hand.

“We should go. Giada needs a drink, and I’m sure you have lots of other people to see.” She tugged me away.

Aldo nodded, watching us until we were swallowed by the crowd.

“What the hell are you doing? That was super embarrassing!” Sol lamented.

We reached the bar at the other end of the gallery.

“So what? That fucker is dodgy.” I threw down the invitations on the sticky bar top. “You’re not going to that party.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Sol replied tartly and grabbed an invitation, reading the text aloud. “‘You are invited as a plus-one to the party of the year. Leave your inhibitions at home to experience a night of illicit rapture and adventure, right here in the heart of the city. Only the fearless may attend.’ Oh my God, is this a swinger party? It sounds like an Eyes Wide Shut scenario!” Sol gasped, clearly amused by the idea.

I picked up the other invitation and stared at it. Something in particular had caught my attention. Cold slid down my spine. I took in the intricate detailing on the expensive card.

The words were in spidery calligraphy, and underneath, an embossed seal was pressed into the creamy card stock.

A round emblem that I recognized immediately.

The brand.