Fern's Viewpoint

Fern Wachowski walked the giant, ostentatious hallway with slow, short steps, her sandals scuffing the marble floor, her legs and lips trembling at the thought of the news she had to deliver. She was dressed in multiple layers of clothing, all covered in thick, black sweatpants and a giant, black hoodie, but it felt like no protection at all.

She was carrying a folder filled with paper, a manila envelope with postage on it that had been hand-delivered mere minutes ago, and a small thumb drive.

She placed her hand over her chest, feeling the comfortable power of her deck—a deck whose contents she didn’t know, as she hadn’t pulled it once in the nine months since she’d received it. The deck felt of trickery with a mechanical, cold edge, and she had pulled her status sheet up, so she knew she had Psychic and Golem, but as to the specific cards, she was still ignorant.

It was far too dangerous to risk telling people she had a deck by pulling it, since she had nowhere to go. But the sensation of the cards, a tiny weapon that she could theoretically use to fight against her captor, soothed her.

Her time of escape would come, when she was ready. Prepared.

She walked the rest of the hall as if she were heading to the gallows, but the trembling had stopped. She passed underneath crystal chandeliers, and next to plinths carrying cards inside glass cases—famous cards that Adam couldn’t use, a few even legendary, from the many deckbearers whom Adam had defeated over his years. Indigenous chieftains, Nazi generals, and Prohibition mobsters were merely a small sampling of the people Adam had defeated, and the cards he couldn’t use were displayed here.

He valued his legacy and vanity more than another paltry hundred million, Fern knew.

The door at the end of the hallway was just as tastefully gaudy as everything else, but its motif was even darker. The entire thing was a bas-relief of the Archangel Gabriel, the Divine Lord of Death, striking down an evildoer with a single blade to the neck.

Fern rapped lightly on the door.

“Enter.”

The voice was familiar but never ceased to scare her. It was competent, confident, and filled with power.

She pulled back on the door, hard, and it slowly opened, the crease in the giant double door separating right where the neck of Gabriel’s conquest was, so it appeared as if the head were separating from the neck.

Fern shuddered.

When the door was opened enough, she turned sideways and slipped into Adam’s office.

It was even more ostentatious than the outside. Adam had a massive oil painting of himself dominating the back wall, behind the massive mahogany desk he sat at, which was more than six feet deep, and nearly ten wide, inlaid with gold to show Gabriel’s sign again and covered in glass.

Around the room were multiple large, leather couches, and Fern was relieved to see that they were occupied. With witnesses, Adam would never lower himself to hurt her. Not even these witnesses, who would likely want to see her suffer.

Because three of the couches were occupied by her once victims, the heads of the remaining Noimoire crime families.

To Adam’s left was Benjamin Renfeldt, who was nearly a hundred and looked it. He was an old man, with wrinkled skin; wispy, white hair; spotted skin; and trembling hands. But his brown eyes were quick and sharp, and his grandson and successor, Benjamin Renfeldt III, sat next to him, younger, larger, and more vital, but with eyes no less sharp.

Across from him was Gurjit Singh, a swarthy man in his mid-forties with black hair; a giant, black beard; and eyes so dark, they were also almost black. He wore a traditional red turban with a black gem—an actual onyx, not glass, in his case—representing his allegiance to Asmodeus, Infernal Lord of Lust. His arms were completely free, and corded with muscles despite his advancing age—muscles and scars, proof of victories he had won by the skin of his teeth.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Between them, on the opposite side from Adam, sat Chester Ambroise, the nearly-sixty-year-old head of the ‘Weeds,’ the vague last gang in Noimoire. He smelled slightly of weed—and weeds too, an odd earthen and medicinal smell. His long hair, kept in a graying ponytail, nearly reached his waist in the back.

Behind Adam and to his right stood his eldest remaining son, Abel Delacruz. He had his father’s height and strength and was dressed in a power suit of deep blue with a crimson tie, his black hair cut to military perfection. A bulge under his jacket showed that he was probably the only armed person here—if you didn’t count the decks, of course.

Behind him to his left was Nathan Leopold, a tall, black-haired and green-eyed man with the gaze of a killer. Once a Navy Seal, he owed his current wealth and his deck to Adam. But much like Adam, the wealth was a mere perk—Nathan fanatically believed in Adam’s goals and supported him wholeheartedly.

But Fern took all the others in quickly, before focusing on the person at the desk: Adam himself. He was nearly six-foot-three, with the frame of a defensive lineman. He was older now, with sun-touched skin and white hair. He wore a stylish if slightly old fashioned suit and carried a cane with a mythic card in a forged diamond on the top next to him—a cane he utterly didn’t need.

He appeared to be a vibrant sixty-year-old man, still hale and healthy. But Fern knew he had fought in the Confederate army.

She gave the shallowest bows. “I have the information you requested, Champion, and two more things besides. I’m sorry, there’s bad news—personal news.”

“You can tell me in front of these men,” Adam said. “I have no secrets from them.”

Fern knew that was a lie, and a massive one. Adam had nothing but utter contempt for the men of Noimoire’s underworld. But Adam liked to keep up appearances, put people at ease. He wouldn’t have allowed any information he didn’t want shared to be presented in this manner regardless.

“You should have gotten rid of the little thief,” Gurjit muttered.

“You got your money back,” Adam said, his voice hard. Then, “Give me the files.”

Fern handed them over—they were logs of all the dirty business these men had together, the transactions and whom they had been with.

The money was a mere drop in the bucket for Adam, for whom wealth was a very secondary goal, Fern knew. But it gave him contacts he needed. It was more than half of everything the crime families made these days, however.

Adam didn’t open the files. Instead, he glanced with raised eyebrow at the remaining two items.

She passed the manila envelope over with a muttered, “From Gavin’s, Champion.”

He opened it, turning it sideways until the contents fell out—a single card.

A companion card named Aliel fell onto the deck, a near-match for Artenia, which Adam had bought for his third son, Caine.

“We have the second one. Has the cop become less obstinate about selling?”

“It… won’t be an issue, not in that sense. The card is with someone new, a rookie police officer named Rachel Lyons.”

“Will she sell? Caine’s deck must be perfect.”

“I…” Fern trailed off, and the trembling started again.

“Speak, wench,” Adam commanded.

“Your son is dead,” Fern whispered. “His killers, Rachel Lyons and her boyfriend, William Madison, have the card. Caine was caught with Damian Grimm after kidnapping the rookie officer’s little sister.”

Adam was still for a long time, staring down at the card on the table and moving it back and forth with his finger. No one dared to speak.

“And the connection to Worldwide Decurion?” Adam asked.

“Their offices are being raided by members of the Noimoire Police Department as we speak. I expect that nearly the entire operation will be wrapped up in days, based on the chatter I intercepted.”

“Is this going to be a problem, Mr. Delacruz?” Benjamin Renfeldt asked, his voice soft.

“Don’t be ridiculous. There will be very, very little, other than my disappointing and dead son, to link them to me. It may cost me my seat come next November, but it might not. Beyond that, it simply won’t matter to what we’re doing.”

Benjamin Renfeldt inclined his head ever-so-slightly.

“So your pet thief has her uses after all,” Gurjit murmured.

“That she does. As I explained to you all, repetitively.”

There was another pause.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Chester said. “It’s hard, losing a child.”

For a moment, Adam didn’t speak, but then his face firmed. “He was weak, and undeserving of any portion of my empire.”

“Shall we do something about this Rachel and her boyfriend?” Gurjit asked.

“Of course,” Adam replied. “But not yet. Immediate retaliation might lead people to suspect me, even with tenuous connections to Worldwide Decurion. But in a few months, perhaps a year at most… we’ll remove them.”

Adam turned to Fern. “You’re dismissed.”

Fern nodded and slowly fled the room, trying not to give in to the urge to run. Once she was outside, and the door closed, she sagged with relief.

She hadn’t revealed everything she knew… She thought that even if Adam found out, she would have plausible deniability. She had her own plans, however nebulous they might be. And she certainly wasn’t going to fight Adam.

I hope you survive… Wolfe.