Page 14 of Carved Obsession (The Sanctum Syndicate #4)

Carter

All afternoon and most of the evening, I tried and failed to get Scarlet’s breathy, annoyingly sexy voice out of my head. Her whisper haunts me now. An ethereal chant playing on repeat.

I was a good girl for you . . .

Did she have any fucking clue what those words would do to me? How they would stroke that cold part of me that wants to spread her open, tie her up, and make her beg to become the exact opposite—a very, very bad girl? Just. For. Me.

I must be going mad.

Because even now, as I stare into the distance, unfocused on my surroundings, I’m utterly distracted by her scent. I can’t pry it out of my mind or my senses—roses and lemon. Sweet and aromatically sour.

The soft, fair-skinned woman with eyes the color of dark chocolate isn’t just getting under my skin. She’s tearing her way through. And I’m not putting up enough resistance.

Even when I force my thoughts in a different direction, my mind reels back to the way she looked in that restaurant.

Fresh out of the ocean, salty hair falling in beach waves around her shoulders, sun-kissed cheeks with a soft dusting of freckles, not an ounce of makeup covering the soft lines around her eyes.

And that dress . . .

That damn dress that allowed everyone to see her slight curves beneath it, her toned legs that kept fucking going for miles, and lean arms that would look perfect when stretched high above her head, tied at the wrists.

“Boss? Boss?”

Fuck. I return my focus to the room, the sound of the evening clientele at Midnight assaulting my ears all at once.

“Yes, Tina,” I say as she stands by my table, waiting.

“It’s all done. All cars have been checked, history cleaned, and a program was written to never record any similar data in the future.”

“Yours too?”

“Every single person associated with The Sanctum, Midnight, The Fightclub, our army, security, everyone. That includes personal cars,” Tina confirms.

“You’ve done great work on it. That was really fast.”

“With all due respect, your whole team was afraid you were gonna cut us open if we didn’t get this done asap. It was incentive for them all.” She snickers.

“Not you?” I cock my head, observing her as she responds.

“I know better.”

She does. Tina is the best out of my entire tech team. She knows that betrayal is the only thing that would make me take out anyone from my team. Otherwise, I wouldn’t sacrifice any of the nine, considering their skills and vows of silence.

“Nothing has changed? No other cars broken into?”

“No. We’re all good,” she answers. “Is there anything else?”

“No, Tina, thank you. Feel free to go home. You’ve been working overtime.”

“None of us were going to stop until all checks were done. Regardless of whether you gave the order or not.”

This is what taking care of one’s employees gets you—loyalty.

I may not be an emotional man, but I understand the effects of nurture. And we—The Sanctum—have been feeding these relationships for a decade now, carefully crafting the right entourage for our business.

“Some sleep will be welcome for sure. Have a good night, boss.”

I nod my goodbye, then rise, swiping my gaze over the strategically placed tables, attempting to recognize faces through the dim light. But I can’t fucking focus, and I’m damn thirsty.

Grabbing my empty glass, I head behind the bar. Encased in a metallic-gold, stylized eyelid, the realistic eyeball above the bar follows me around the room. Beneath the art-deco starburst of gold slats that surrounds it sits the only drink that can handle the job of distracting my brain—absinthe.

I prepare my gold-filigree-encrusted glass, pour the inviting green liquid inside, then set the perforated spoon above it with a sugar cube on top.

“Bring the water drip to my table, please,” I tell the bartender.

“Of course, Mr. Pierce.”

As I walk back to my table, a familiar face heads my way.

“Carter, my boy. I missed you!” Jonathan exclaims, those first three words pulling me back into memories that rarely make their way into my consciousness nowadays.

My father—his best friend—used to call me that as he looked at me with hidden emotions I couldn’t quite place.

There was warmth in those words, though—a staggering contrast from my mother’s tone, the woman who I now know is the reason why Jonathan and my father’s friendship phased out.

Not that it surprised me. They stopped meeting for years.

Dad focused on me, and his friend on his business.

Then one day, when my father used those same endearing words as his last, I saw Jonathan for the first time in years.

We didn’t talk. Didn’t even interact. He kept his distance, sitting in the waiting room of the hospital wing until I was done. Almost a year later, just before I was about to leave for my second year of university, he made contact, and we’ve kept a relationship ever since.

I think he speaks those words— Carter, my boy —as much for him as he does for me.

He cared about my father, and somehow, I think they make him feel closer to him.

I’m not familiar with regrets, but he hasn’t shied away from telling me how many he has for his broken friendship.

I never needed a father figure after mine’s passing, but Jonathan Rees has naturally become one without me even noticing.

With a twinkle in his bright eyes, he waits for me to place my drink on the table so he can pull me into a full body hug.

Outside his husband, he only reserves this behavior for me. And he’s the only person I allow to act this way toward me.

He takes a seat in one of the armchairs, and I take the one right next to him.

“Jonathan, how are you?” I ask, noting a bit more salt than pepper in his hair these days.

Not that it deters from his exquisitely distinguished look in his three-piece, light-gray suit. A large oval ruby set on a gold brooch pinned to his chest adds a touch of extravagance to the whole ensemble.

“It’s been too long, my boy. But I’m good, keeping busy as always,” he says.

“Three weeks, yes. How was your first holiday in—”

“Five years. It was just as you would expect—stressful. Much to Anthony’s annoyance. It wasn’t easy, keeping my mind off the business. I’m not used to it.”

“But all is working well?”

“Minus some minor kinks. But you know how it is. Some things only you can do.”

I nod in acknowledgment. Takes a specific skill set to get some jobs done.

“All well with you?” He nods toward my drink. “I mostly see you drinking absinthe when you have a stubborn problem to solve.”

He has no fucking idea.

The bartender comes to the table with my water drip, and I set it up over the sugar cube as Jonathan orders his drink.

“Stubborn indeed. Nothing I can’t handle.” I lean back in my armchair, propping an ankle over my knee as I settle my hands onto the carved wooden ends of the armrests. “You might want to check your ranks, though.”

“Explain.”

“While you were gone, word got around that The Ghost wasn’t home. The Granges wanted to invade your territory and take over,” I say, relaying the rumor.

Only close friends and old allies know that Jonathan is The Ghost. There are plenty inside his business that have never seen his face.

He prefers running things from the shadows and doesn’t feed into any rumors.

The moniker was given by people utterly desperate to figure out who the mysterious, high-value smuggler running half the docks and all shipment train lines in Queenscove is. The nickname stuck.

“Excuse me? Why didn’t my men tell me about this?” He leans forward, a vein in his throat pulsing to the surface.

“Because we took them out before the intention reached your borders.”

“You did?” He cocks his head, relaxing back in his armchair.

I nod in response, noting the last of the sugar dissolving into my absinthe. The wait is worth it, though, when I take the first sip, assimilating the burn into my throat.

“Thank you, Carter. I appreciate that.”

“You know The Sanctum and I will always have your back,” I assure him.

He smiles, and a similar warmth to the one I once saw in my father’s eyes brims in his.

“I’m even more shocked that they thought it would be so easy to simply swoop in and claim my operation and my men as their own,” he says, shaking his head at the absurdity.

And I agree. Jonathan’s business was built well over two decades ago, with roots embedded deep enough in the underworld that even his death wouldn’t pry them out. There are men behind the helm, ready to take over and do him justice if that scenario ever happens.

Even if the Granges invaded his headquarters, even if they managed to kill some of his men, it wouldn’t be enough.

It’s irrelevant now, since their army is disjointed and dispersed and the two Grange brothers running it are ten feet deep underground.

What’s more important is how they knew the boss was out of town. That was internal information. The Granges didn’t mobilize themselves all of a sudden. No. That was an operation on standby.

“You know what it means,” I say before taking another healthy sip of my aromatic drink.

“That I have a mole to track and bury.” He nods as the bartender returns with his drink. “Now, tell me what it is you wanted to talk to me about.”

We spend the better part of the next couple of hours discussing business. Cillian O’Rourke arrives about halfway through since this meeting happened at his request.

The business in question is the one the Holt family left behind—the control of the other half of the docks.

Jonathan handles half, plus the very profitable train-line connections that spread like spiderwebs from Queenscove all over the continent, facilitating very profitable criminal operations for other people.