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The leading families that run the underworld of this city—mine included—have limitations. They have the loyalty of their men and soldiers to think about when dealing with traitors or broken contracts. They have their business interests to consider.

As the Black Court, wedon’t.

Some call us vigilantes. I’m sure others have far more colorful and sneered names for us, and I truly could not give less of a fuck.

We are what we are—and what we are isnecessary. We keep order when order can’t otherwise reasonably be kept. We enforce the basic laws of our world—the underworld—because without those laws, it’s just chaos.

And as much as I love chaos, I would prefer not to live incompleteanarchy.

So even if The Stagdoescreep me out a little at times, and even if I haven’t the slightest fucking clue how he spends his nights when he’s not with me—at Court or otherwise—he’s still one of my best friends. Like a brother.

“That time?” I grunt.

He nods slowly, slipping his glass beneath his mask to knock back the last of the whiskey in it. “That time,” he murmurs back.

“You wanna tell Bull that?” I smirk under my mask as I turn and nod with my chin to where our large friend is sprawled on a couch with three half-naked women crawling all over him. “Thethree of them fighting over who gets to blow him first might impede the proceedingsslightly.”

The Stag grunts. “It’s not the pussy I’m worried about.”

I’d follow his blank look through the dark eyeholes of his stag mask, but I already know where he’s staring: at the large glass of whiskey in the Bull's hand.

“He’s fine. He's in control,” I say as I stand from my seat.

“For now,” Stag adds dryly.

That’s fair. And a conversation that needs to be had sooner rather than later. But right now, like he said, it’s time for The Black Court to be in session.

“Just ring the bell,” I toss back. “Let’s do this.”

The Stag nods, dropping the subject of The Bull’s fondness for alcohol as he heads toward the other side of the room, where the raised dais sits, five thrones on it.

What? Dramatics are fun.

At the sound of the bell tolling through the underground cathedral, dull and ancient, the entire scene changes. A few couples pick up the pace to finish what they were doing. But most of them know that when that bell sounds, it’s time to stop…well…fucking around, and pay attention to the real reason we’re here.

Adjudication.

All of us, even The Bull, leave whatever we were doing and move to the dais, sitting on our thrones as the crowd fills the chairs before us.

Between us and them there's a large stone circle set into the ground, and to one side ofthatsits a table laden with all sorts of menacing-looking instruments of pain: knives, bats, swords, hatchets, hammers…even an old pair of dueling pistols—fuckingduelingpistols—that have been used exactly once in all the years we’ve been doing this.

It wasn’t even me that got to use them, fuck you very much, Carmine.

As if sensing my glare, The Hound clears his throat and raps a gavel on the long table in front of us.

“The Black Court is now in session,” he growls. “Bring in the accused.”

Tonight’s a fun one, and not just because it’s my turn to carry out judgement. The Mori-kai yakuza family, primarily based in Tokyo and Kyoto, are moving more operations into New York. Tonight’s fuckwad is a captain who pledged loyalty—with a damn blood marker, no less—to Kenzo Mori, but instead of following Kenzo's orders and setting up Mori-kai operations here in the city, our star of the evening decided to try and sell his boss out to the fucking Triads.

This isimportant.And yet as Carmine recites his crimes out loud, all I can think about is her.

Milena Kalishnik, with her perfect little mouth, running like she wanted me to catch her.

I shift again in my seat uncomfortably.

Balls: still swollen and sore.

Dick: still fucking hard.