Page 11

That’s true. The wolves have been swallowing real estate in Midnight City piece by piece. Every new development, every luxury tower, every renovation project with dirty permits and clean marble floors, the Carusos have their claws in it.

I start dividing lines across the table. Piro has paid enough for everyone to have fun.

“Marcus thought that young Von Batten would get him into our business,” Piro says, voice loud enough for the whole section to hear. “But he couldn’t even keep track of his own little prince. Now the leeches are running all over the city looking for him. Pathetic.”

One of the girls I don’t know leans forward. “I heard someone saw him at a coven party.”

My hand stills for half a second. The masquerade party? I didn’t see him there.

An older wolf thug sitting near the vodka bottle snorts between shots. “Bullshit. He was at his hotel. I saw him that evening with his bodyguards.” His gaze lands on me, drunk but curious. “Didn’t I see you there too, stardust girl?”

My fingers stop moving completely. The guy must’ve been in the hotel bar. But what was the werewolf soldier doing there anyway?

“I have clients everywhere,” I say lightly, going back to the powder. But in my mind I am calculating if wolves know about the Marcus bounty. Or whether they had anything to do with Julian’s disappearance. What was a wolf thug doing at the Crown anyway.

I feel the stranger’s stare sharpen.

Piro waves the whole subject away. “Fuck them. A little more time and vampires won’t mean shit in this city.”

The conversation drifts on after that, louder and uglier, full of jokes, business bragging, and wolves pretending they don’t care about vampire politics. My drunk witch friends get raunchier. One sits astride a Caruso soldier while his hands disappear under her dress. Another practically jerks a guy off through his trousers while whispering something into his ear that makes his eyes flash gold.

Piro bends over the table and snorts another line of nightrush. When he lifts his head, I can tell he’s gone. The man I know has left the building and something reckless is wearing his skin now.

“Nero,” he calls to the stranger. “Want some?”

The man with the blue eyes shakes his head without speaking.

“Maybe better,” Piro says with a laugh. “You’d probably kill us all.”

Then he slaps one of the girls on the ass and drags her toward the back rooms.

I keep my eyes on the table.

“What about stardust?” I ask, and that’s my first mistake. I look up.

“Do I look like someone who needs stardust?” His tone drips with contempt.

“I’m not judging.” I go back to the powder.

One of the witches bends over the table to take her line, pushing her ass toward him like an invitation, but he doesn’t even glance at her.

“What did the vampires want from you that night?” he asks.

My fingers pause over the card. So it had been him on the bike in the alley the other night. Watching me. And now he sits there, cutting me into pieces with his eyes. Everyone else in the room is either drunk or high, but his entire focus is on me right now.

I don’t like that.

Wasted people are easy to control. Easy to distract. Easy to read. Him... He doesn’t look like any of that.

“None of your business.”

“You sell on our territory,” he says. “That makes you my business.”

“Client confidentiality.”

His gaze drags down my body and back up again, slow enough to make it intentional. “Do you offer anything more besides stardust?”

“Nothing that would interest you.”