Chapter 47: Among Devils
Las Vegas is a city built on lies. The biggest lie is that you can win. Lynn Crane's penthouse suite at the top of the Onyx Tower was the embodiment of that lie. It was a palace in the sky, all black marble and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked down on the glittering mirage of the Strip. It was beautiful, and it was a cage.
Lynn Crane sat on a white leather sofa like a queen on her throne. She was stunning, with hair the color of midnight and eyes that saw right through you to the ugly little truths you kept hidden. But it was the four men standing around her that really set your teeth on edge. Her husbands. They were like four points on a compass of violence. Bastian, the mountain in a suit; Damon, the coiled snake with a killer's smile; Ardin, the silent, watchful shadow; and Serge, who looked at you like he was already calculating the cost of your funeral.
"Jack," Lynn said, her voice a silken purr. "It's been too long. You look terrible. I love it." She gestured to Maddie. "And you've brought a friend. How lovely."
I introduced Maddie. Lynn’s eyes swept over her, a quick, predatory assessment. "Maddie," she mused. "Your father was a Dark King. A good one. A shame what happened to him."
The casual way she said it, the easy access to a secret that deep, sent a fresh chill down my spine. Her web was everywhere.
I didn't waste time. I laid it all out. Calico. Chiron. Finch. My wife. And finally, the name that had brought us here.
"The Stones," I said, and the word dropped into the opulent silence like a dead body.
The change was instantaneous and terrifying. The playful, purring queen vanished. The thing that replaced her was older, colder, and infinitely more dangerous. Her smile didn't fade, but it changed, twisting into something sharp and hungry. Her eyes, which had been amused, now burned with a black, ancient fire.
"The Stones," she hissed, and the name was a venomous curse on her tongue. Her husbands shifted, the temperature in the room dropping twenty degrees.
She leaned forward, her gaze locked on mine. "You come into my home and you speak that name. You have no idea what you've just done, do you?" She laughed, a sound with no humor in it, a sound like tearing silk. "Kismet, Jack. That's what this is. Fucking kismet."
She stood and walked to the window, looking down at the city of lies below. "The Kingsleys were a rival family decades ago. Ambitious, ruthless bastards. They came for my family. They murdered my mother and father in our home. Wiped out most of my organization." She turned back to us, her face a mask of cold, beautiful rage. "And after they were done, the cowards who were left merged with a bigger, older power. They merged with The Stones."
My blood ran cold. This wasn't just business for her. This was biblical.
"Their ambition," she said, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper, "is to eradicate the entire Underworld. To finish the job they started with my parents. They want to wipe me, and everything I've built, from the face of the earth."
She walked back and stood in front of me, her eyes boring into mine. The air crackled. This was it. The devil's bargain.
"Your wife's blood, my parents' blood… all on the hands of the same bastards." Her lips curved into that terrible smile again. "You want my help, Jack? You have it. You want my resources, my soldiers, my reach? It's all yours." She leaned in close, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. "But my price is not negotiable. You bring me the heads of the Stones. All of them. You help me burn their entire organization to the goddamn ground. You be the weapon I point at the heart of my oldest enemy."
I looked at Maddie, who gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. We were already in the abyss. Might as well learn to swim.
"Done," I said.
Lynn Crane's smile finally reached her eyes. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. I had come to Vegas looking for an ally. I’d found a queen, all right. A queen of spiders, sitting in the center of a very old, very patient web. And I had just agreed to help her fill it.