Page 39 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

Carr consolidated the scattered papers on my desk into a neat pile, straightening them against his lap as he said, “It’s in the name, man. Nobody’s gonna find shit. Not until they make another move.”

“Still not convinced she’s female?”

“Fuck no. Did you see how decimated that place was? You’re telling me a solo woman tore up Uptown like a damn tornado?”

“Just because we only saw one person doesn’t mean that’s the truth of it.”

His shrug convinced no one. “Trackers still out there?”

“Yep.”

“Welp,” he declared, tapping the stack once on my desk before setting it down. “Not jack shit you can do here tonight. Come grab a drink.”

“I’m alright.”

“Come on, get your mind off this shit. Grab a drink, get some pussy. Do something. You’re too pretty to rot in this office all weekend.”

“One,” I decided, rising and ignoring the pained protest of joints I’d kept too still for too many hours. I snatched my jacket off the chair and followed him out of my office, through the marble-drenched lobby of my family’s hotel, La Lune Noire, and into the bustling Friday night. Jamming my arms into the sleeves, I exhaled a harsh breath before pulling a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and selecting my lone smoke of the day.

Fuck addiction.

One a day was a ritual, not a lapse in control.

The bite of late winter still clung to the air, the damp cold stinging my skin. A lifetime in the South, and I still hated how the evening chill settled in on the rare occasion it rolled through. Not freezing, but not comfortable—the air more fog than breathable substance. Cold and humidity didn’t play well together.

Carr snapped his fingers to light his cigarette before extending the flame to me. Inconsequential magic, but convenient enough, especially for a couple of first-lives. “Any progress on Weston?”

Karl Weston. Sick motherfucker. My current mark took the form of an insurance titan whose existence I was days away from dismantling. We didn’t make a habit of interfering in human business, but when that business crossed the lines of morality, tipping society into imbalance, we made moves. And we did so quickly.

Balance was sacred.

A concept so few mortals ever bothered to consider as they filled their minds with garbage news and biased media, spinning a flat paper into a threat. The great age of technology—where every motherfucker screamed their vitriol into the void with megaphones nobody should’ve signed up to hear. If they’d all shut the fuck up for two damn minutes, they’d hear that the melody of their differences was a symphony called balance.

Too far to either side—control versus anarchy—and society collapsed into a dystopia colored in various shades of ‘fucked up,’ the hue determined by which side had overextended their power before the fall.

At the root of it all, human greed was the bleeding heart of this world’s eternal imbalance.

And I fucking loathed it.

Born and bred within Paladin walls, I was nothing but an instrument to maintain the world’s equilibrium. Some days, that meant walking a granny across the street. Others, it meant putting some sick fuck in the ground or dismantling the corrupt empire of a narcissist parading as a champion of the little guy.

A narcissist like Weston, whose life was about to turn on its head when we drained his accounts and put that money back where it belonged—with the people he’d burned alive to get it.

With the children whose dead parents weren’t covered by their ‘accidental death’ policies because their car rolled once instead of twice.

With the elderly spouses whose ‘whole life policy’ conveniently devoured itself before they could touch a cent.

With the countless families swallowed by hurricane season, who wouldn’t see a penny because that blowhard was a crook spinning sales to those naïve enough to trust the system.

Yeah. I’d enjoy this takedown as much as any other. The bankers, the brokers, the swindlers—those motherfuckers were the lifeblood of my coven. And we drank their pain like fine wine after every sting.

Karma was a bitch.

And I had the pleasure of being her executioner.

“You look like you need to fight or fuck.”

“Hmm?” I grunted when Carr’s voice dragged me back to the sidewalk, bumping into my shoulder when I clearly wasn’t listening.