1.4. Madam Verdugo

Seth shouldered the carved door open into the flickering office. Polecat was halfway out of his seat before he was a step inside; Rohan’s outstretched hand was all that kept him from lunging at Seth.

Rohan gave Seth one of his stop right there smiles, and pointed to the box beneath his arm. “Is that for me, il Gutierre?”

Seth stormed to the desk. “Was this a test, Rohan?”

“Why?” Rohan leaned back into the velvet comfort of his seat. “Did you fail?”

“If you didn’t want me to look in the box, you should have said don’t look in the box.” Seth clacked it onto the desk. “You never said that.”

Rohan’s smile emerged undamaged. “What do I care what’s in the box, il Gutierre?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I have a buyer.” Rohan folded his arms. “I am not nosy.”

“You have a buyer? Oh, okay.” Seth smiled big and phony against the acrid burn in the back of his throat. “Great. I guess it’s all right, then.”

“You didn’t remove anything from it, did you? It’s all still there?”

“It’s all still there,” Seth said. “All one of it.”

“All right.” Rohan’s smooth affect hit a bumpy patch and flaked its paintjob. “What’s in the box?”

Seth braced himself again. “You said you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t.” Rohan’s finger flicked upward. Behind Seth, Polecat stood. “But you talk too much, and now you’re unnerving me.”

Seth cleared his throat, flipped the latch, and raised the lid. “You have a buyer,” he said, “for this.”

And he lifted the head out of the box by its limp yellow hair.

“That’s uh,” Polecat said, and then stopped, like he’d forgotten the words for a dead woman’s severed head.

Seth helped: “That’s a dead woman’s severed head.”

Rohan’s tattooed lips hung open. His expression was remarkably like the head’s, in fact.

“Put it back,” he said.

“Patre—”

Rohan lunged forward, overtaxed belt buckle clacking against his desk. “Put it back in the box and close the fucking box.”

Seth dropped the head in the box and shut it.

The three men stared at the gruesome prize the thief brought back.

“But you have a buyer,” Seth said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Rohan murmured, monotone, “while I think.”

He folded his hands over his stomach.

“I do have a buyer,” he decided. “I do, indeed. And whatever my buyer wants with this is not my business. My business is acquisitions and transactions. So here’s what we’ll do. You, Polecat, will reconvene our gentlemen’s gentlemen, bring them back here, and send word to our client that plans have changed. He is to meet us here.”

“And what do I do?” Seth asked.

“You, Seth.” Rohan chewed his mustache. “You, Seth, can get the fuck out and go to bed.”

Seth stood, and then stayed, fidgeting. “I actually—so, beds.”

Rohan’s eyes lidded. “What does that mean?”

“I actually am somewhat lacking in that department at the moment.” Seth fought to keep the color out of his cheeks. “I was staying with the widow Nuncia, but that was contingent on removing myself from the life. And she took unkindly to my going back on that.”

“So why the red fuck did you rob me?”

“I, uh—” Seth rubbed his healed knuckle. “I was going to pay her back, and then leave town. That was to be my last score. Is how the theory went.”

Rohan exhaled through his nose. “You are such a fuckup, il Gutierre.”

“I’m off my stride for sure, patre.”

“Get out of here and find a spot in the Sidewinder stable. If they catch you, tell ‘em Rohan il Agante is paying for it.”

Seth stepped from the office and left Rohan and Polecat to their muttering machinations. He took one last look, as the door shut behind him, at the box on the table.

Who was that pale woman? Why did she have that, why did he take it, who’s buying it, who was Annalise?

Something in the dark pit of his mind told him that he was bound to find out. That voice was joined by another: the Fox, cackling its tattooed tail off.

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“Seth.”

Just one more minute. Please. Let him escape from this for one more minute. Hay tickling his nose. Hard slats under his spine.

“Wake the fuck up, Seth.”

The light slashed its unwelcome advance across Seth’s bleary eyes. The mouth of the stable, framed by its gate and Grigori’s silhouette.

“I’m waking.” Seth clambered onto his elbows. “I’m upping.”

“Verdugo’s here,” Grigori said.