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“Yes. Anything. Everything.”
A soft sigh escapes her when she faces me again, her violin tucked to her chin and the bow at the ready.
“Except what they told me to play.”
My chest fists tightly around my insides at the whisper of the words I told her the last time she played for me. I don’t know what it means, but I do know that I need to guard myself against this feeling. Nothing good will come of it. Nothing but death.
* * *
The sudden pounding on wood jolts me out of my sleep. Before I’ve opened my eyes, something feels unusual. It’s not just the jarring sound that gets louder as I rouse myself from the clutches of the deep slumber I was in; it’s the musk in the air and the feel of the bedding.
“Henry?” Percival calls. “Henry!”
Fuck, what time is it? I open my eyes to nothing but stark darkness. No barking. No claws clicking around me. Where the fuck am I?
It takes me another second for the last moments of last night to dawn on me. Eve.
Sitting up on the bed, I turn the lamp on to find all the curtains drawn. My empty glass is sitting beside my cufflinks and tie on the bedside table, along with my phone and wallet. Yesterday was one of our evenings together. Last thing I remember, she was playing for me. But there’s no sign of her now.
Eve’s chair is neatly tucked into its usual corner beside the fireplace, and her belongings that are usually by the wardrobe are gone. However, my jacket is neatly hanging on the wardrobe door by a padded coat hanger, with my shoes sitting on the floor below it.
The door crashes open into the chest of drawers as I’m getting to my feet.
“We found him,” Percival blusters directly at me. He’s out of breath, and his words are slurred with urgency, but I understand him well enough that my pulse is thrilled. “We found the driver.”
“About fucking time,” I snap back at him, grabbing my belongings from the bedside table and stuffing them into the pockets of my suit trousers before I put on my shoes. “Take me to him.” The order snaps from me as I throw on my jacket and check the inside pocket for the flick knife that took my father’s life.
Fuck, I’ve waited far too long for this. It’s been over a month since we laid my father to rest. Weeks and weeks of looking for the man that betrayed him. He didn’t trust easily or keep many around him, aside from his footman and his driver. He used to call them his cogs because they kept his day to day ticking.
“He’s dead, Henry.”
“I told you I would deal with—”
“We found him swinging,” he states from behind me as I charge out of the suite. “And he was marked.”
“Marked.” Turning, I focus on the iPad he’s holding out to me with a black-and-white photograph glaring on the screen.
“Eyes, mouth, and heart.” The grim tenor of his voice matches the image he’s showing me of the driver.
His eyes are slashed. His tongue has been cut out. And there’s an R half encircled by a U gouged over his heart.
United Republic.
“This was in his mouth.” Percival holds out his open hand, showing me the bloody button resting in his palm.
“A button?”
“A mother-of-pearl button.” He stresses his statement like it’s got some kind of importance to us. “The calling card of the East End Coster Kings.”
“Why would the United Republic be working with gangsters? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m looking into it, but this complicates things,” he tells me, worry clouding his voice as I take the button from him and pocket it.
I ignore his questioning glance as I ask, “And the driver? Where did you find him?”
“Swinging from the tree.” His eyes flit to the window on the far side of the room, overlooking the wolf tree outside the club’s door.
That oak tree was planted when the Wolfsden Society was first created by King George IV in 1821, a year into his reign—a group of his closest allies that would swear to protect the throne from those that sought to destroy it for a united republic. That tree is over two hundred years old—a wolf tree, symbolising strength, honour, and protection.
