Curtis My mother liked to tell stories of what a naughty boy I was growing up—at least the ones she could remember. While most of them sounded exaggerated, I believed her. I got into a lot of trouble until I learned how to make her smile so hard she would forget to punish me, then I would always get away with a slap on my wrist. I was using the same skill on Angelica’s Nana. Even I was surprised how well it was working out. After giving her an indirect compliment, she glared at me but her new version of a glare was mild compared to that blazing look she had given me when I walked in with her granddaughter. Since I had a headstart, I decided to throw in one of the old-fashioned ones. “So, Nana, how would you like to take a walk outside? It must be boring staying all cooped up in here all day, staring at the same things.” “The doctor won’t let me. I keep telling him I’m fine!” She grumbled. This was my chance. “I’ll have a talk with him.” I said, then I added, “but you may want to

I was freaking out. Time was moving way too slow for my liking and every second that ticked started another battle of wits in my mind. Spider and I had concluded Miles was lying about the time his plan would be set into motion. Why would he tell us? Before I showed up in that basement with extortion in mind, there was a slight chance that he would tell me everything. Spider blamed me for that. If I let Miles think he would get what he wanted by setting Inferno ablaze, he would be more willing to tell the truth. I didn’t regret my approach. Anything was better than letting Miles think he was getting my body in return for anything. With our luck, that just happened to be what he wanted in exchange of calling off his plan. He was delusional enough to think he deserved to get one of the things that belonged to Curtis now that he couldn’t destroy the latter’s nightclub. That was the problem. I was not a thing and I didn’t belong to anyone. I had almost sliced his head off for implying t

Curtis I have always had accurate instincts. I rarely made wrong decisions, but this was one of those times I wished I was wrong about something.Once I heard that fire alarm—or rather, once it stopped—my senses were heightened. The smell of smoke wafted into my office, so mild that I couldn’t be sure whether it was real or an olfactory hallucination. I didn’t want to take chances. If anything were to go wrong, hundreds of lives would be in danger. So I dashed out of my office and stopped Beanie when I saw him by the staircase. “Is everything—”“Don’t admit anyone into the club,” I instructed before his sentence was completely out. He looked confused. “But sir, the queue is practically a mile long. What should I tell them?” I left without answering. He would figure it out. If my instinct was right, he wouldn’t have to tell anyone anything—because he would be too busy running for his life. I didn’t want to cause unnecessary chaos so I didn’t tell him about my suspicion. Not until

The Viper My Angel of Death spooked easily. I couldn’t help smiling with every meaningless thing she threw into her cart to secretly find me. The problem was, she couldn’t. Not unless I wanted her to. When she headed straight for the parking lot, I had to hold back a snicker. She was a daring little devil, yet so predictable. I would have to take her back with me sometime and remind her what predictability did to her dear Mama and Papa. While it would be fun to play this game for a while, I had bigger fish to fry so I took off the mask I had slipped on when I got to the parking lot. Her sharp intake of breath was something I could live for. If I was anyone else, she would have fought—even knowing she would lose spectacularly. But although she was so scared of me, she knew I couldn’t hurt her. At least not until she was done with those pesky Arcieros. Their destruction was the only thing I ever looked forward to and she was the only one who hated them as much as I did. Maybe even m

Angelica Curtis could have chosen a million other ways to die but he chose the worst of them all. He lied to me. He actually dared to bring up my dead sister and disrespect her memory. "I'm gonna kill him." I hissed. I didn't realize I was crumbling the blueprint until Spider pried it out of my hand. "Take deep breaths," he urged, taking deep breaths himself so I would mimic him. I was in no mood to calm down. "What's The Viper doing in Silverwood?" I asked in an attempt to change the topic, but it only reminded me of the rush of fear I had felt when The Viper implied he wanted to kill Curtis.. The man had played me for a fool and like an idiot, I fell for it. I even tried to save his nightclub. I wasn't able to, but that was my precious time and effort wasted and that made me fucking furious. Spider stammered, probably sensing my fury. "The Viper is here?" "He cornered me in the grocery store." Before I could ask him to find out, he went off on tangents. "Grocery? Please tell