Page 214 of What We Bury

It isn’t obedience. I chose this fight, and the fastest way to Eli runs straight through this bar.

I sit on the stool and fold my hands on the bar like a kid waiting outside the principal’s office. The club is empty. Or I think it is, until I hear ice clink in a glass and realize I’m not alone.

There’s a man at the far end of the bar.

He’s sitting with the easy, loose-limbed posture of someone who owns every room he walks into. Mid-thirties, maybe. Blond hair, and a gorgeously tailored suit that whispers money. He’s drinking what looks like sparkling water with lime, which at this time of the morning is either admirably healthy or deeply suspicious.

He catches me staring.

“They always leave the interesting ones at the bar,” he says, and his smile is the kind that makes me feel like I’ve already told him my biggest secret and he found it charming. “You must be the squad’s little murderess.”

My hand tightens around the edge of the bar. The men call me things—wildcat, kitten, Fury—but hearing a stranger reduce me to the worst thing I’ve done makes the room tilt cold.

I stiffen. “And you are?”

“Good girl. You’re right to be suspicious.” He lifts his glass in a small salute. “Call me Loki.”

“Loki. Like the god of mischief?”

His eyes crinkle with amusement. “Mischief is certainly involved in my line of work.”

I study him. He doesn’t have the physicality of the Hangmen—no tattoos peeking from his collar, no sense that he could break you in half if the mood struck. But there’s something behind the polish that’s just as dangerous.

“And what do you do, Loki?” I ask, because even though Milo gave me the rundown of who’s who in the Hangmen’s orbit, I only know the basics. I’m also not sure if I should know anything at all. Best to play it close. Let him tell me what he wants me to know himself.

“I make problems disappear.” He takes a sip. “Not the kind your friends handle. The kind that live in headlines and group chats and leaked emails. The kind that can end a career, collapse a stock price, or destroy a reputation before breakfast.” He sets the glass down. “People pay me very well to make sure their worst moments never see daylight.”

“Crisis management?”

“Of a sort. What I actually do is keep secrets.” He tilts his head, studying me with an open curiosity that doesn’t feel invasive, just thorough. “Everyone has them. CEOs, politicians,hedge fund managers, social media darlings. They all come to me eventually, when the thing they’ve been hiding starts to grow teeth. And I bury it. Deep.”

“And when it can’t be buried?”

His smile shifts—still warm, but with an edge now, like a blade tucked inside silk. “Ah, to be so innocent. With enough time and money, anything can be buried, my dear. A better question would be what do I do when I don’twantto bury something.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. What do you do?”

“I call people like your friends in the back room.”

The pieces click into place.

“How long have you been doing this?” I ask.

“Long enough to know that the most dangerous people in any room are the ones who look like they belong there.” He glances at me with that knowing smile. “You, for instance. Early morning, sitting at a bar in a sex club, talking to a man using anom de plumewho just admitted to hiring a kill squad. Most people would be terrified.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No,” he says, and there’s genuine appreciation in his voice. “You’re clearly not, little murderess.”

We sit in silence for a moment. He sips his drink. I fidget with a cocktail napkin. The muffled sounds of voices drift from behind the stage door—indistinct but intense.

“Can I give you some unsolicited advice?” he asks.

“Can I stop you?”

He laughs. “Probably not. Here it is: be certain that this is the world you want to get involved in. Because once you start, it becomesveryhard to stop.”

Before I can respond, the door behind the stage opens. Loki drains his glass and sets it on the bar with a precise click.