New Year’s Eve, 2018
Calvin Gardner sat at a rusted card table in the basement of an old building in Harlem, drumming his thick fingers on the torn plastic surface. He was starting to feel like he might be running out of air. The room had no windows, only cinderblock walls, and every few feet large green pipes curled in and out of the concrete like the coils of a great snake.
Gardner shuddered. He hated snakes. He hated most animals, but snakes in particular made him feel queasy.
There was also a leak somewhere in the building. He had been listening to the drip since he’d arrived an hour ago, and by now it was practically a jackhammer.
Drip. Drop.
“You know what?” he said suddenly to the empty room in the slightly roughened English that hadn’t born any trace of Hungarian since he was twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. “Fuck this. And fuck them.”
He stood with a screech of his chair, his belly pressing uncomfortably against the metal edge of the table. Yeah, he would leave. And who was going to stop him? What the fuck was this, the Skull and Bones? Janus was a joke now, and everyone knew it.
He ignored the way his palms grew sweaty at just the thought of challenging the most prominent—and deadly—secret organization in America. No, he was going to do this. He wasn’t going to sit around to be made a fool of. Not now, not ever.
But just as he turned toward the door, it opened.
Immediately, Gardner collapsed into his folding chair, which creaked from the force. A dead giveaway.
Two men entered the room. Michael Faber, sometimes known as Finn, was heir to a wine conglomerate that owned half of Napa. He was tall and thin and dressed in the kind of suit Gardner had commissioned at least five times over the years but which had never looked that classy on his short, squat frame.
The other was much more casual, a muscular man in a black t-shirt and jeans. He took a military stance against the wall next to the door, hands folded at his belt, legs a shoulder-length stance apart. Security, obviously.
Gardner gritted his teeth. He would have brought security too, but he couldn’t afford them anymore. To complete his humiliation, he’d had to fire the entire staff at the penthouse, where he now squatted free of charge but completely alone, thanks to the freezing of the accounts. So for now, his security was gone, his driver, his secretary, even the investigator he’d hired for a bit to follow Nina on her infernally boring walks to and from the gym.
He knew they should have fought the freeze, though his lawyers initially thought it was a good idea. Nina’s cousin Eric would have never let her go hungry—the fucking de Vrieses might have been cold as ice, but their family loyalty ran deeper than anyone knew. Gardner knew, though. Oh, did he know. He’d been trying to chip that fucking block for almost eleven years now. And for what? An empty penthouse?
A fucking pittance. The memories of all his humiliations at the hands of the family made his blood boil all over again. They’d pay. One day, they’d all pay.
In the meantime, there was still the Pantheon money, sitting pretty in the Caymans. But if he put a toe over there, the fucking IRS would be breathing down his neck in a second. Which is why he needed Faber’s help. Why he was crawling back to Janus one last time.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Gardner’s head snapped up at the sound of Faber’s voice, and he realized he’d been daydreaming again. He started to sweat—he couldn’t help it around these people.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine. Nice of you to show up. Thank you.”
He had to pay homage. He couldn’t afford to piss off this guy. Even if he was looking at him like he was a bug on the bottom of his shoe.
Gardner didn’t like Michael Faber, but he was one of the only four men he knew were a part of the Janus society. He wasn’t supposed to know—no one was. And the fact that he did know would either be what protected him or killed him.
“Let’s not beat around the bush,” Faber said. “Letour is going down. His trial is next week, and the society is letting him hang. I’m sorry, but we’re out.”
Which meant only one thing. They were going to let Pantheon and the whole fucking operation land on him. And keep all the money to themselves.
“No!” Gardner sputtered. “You can’t! After everything—I demand an explanation. I’ve been a loyal assistant to this organization for a decade. Did everything you asked of me. Everything.”
“And it was appreciated,” Faber said coolly. “By the old order, for sure. But probably not the new.”
Gardner frowned. “What do you mean…the new? Is someone replacing Carson?”
The taller man just looked down his very long nose. “You didn’t know?”
It was a joke, of course. Gardner wouldn’t have known. He wasn’t a member, despite the fact that he had tried for years to become an exception to the rule of Ivy League initiation. He was so close, before de Vries showed up.
He hated being made to look like a fool. These people always looked at him like he was clueless, and it fucking infuriated him.
Faber chuckled toward his guard, who grinned back.
“Jesus Christ.” He shook his head. “Once, you almost had me, you know. You were almost like one of us. But Jude really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
“Tell me what?” Gardner gritted through his teeth. It hurt. He probably had a cavity in one of his molars.
“Eric de Vries is going to be voted in as caesar,” Faber stated plainly. “It’ll take place after the new year. And if
