Page 3 of Carved Obsession (The Sanctum Syndicate #4)

Carter

One hundred ninety-eight days and nine hours.

One hundred and ninety-eight more than it should have taken me to find a simple woman.

One who caught me killing a man.

Caught isn’t quite the right word, is it?

She stood and waited. Urged me on, with wickedness shining in her dark eyes.

It’s imprinted on my retinas. Just like the recklessness pulling at the corner of her lips and that slight fear I could clearly see in her tensed body, not strong enough to hold her back.

Death was not new to her. Murder wasn’t either.

Yet I wish it was. Her expression was bright, enthusiastic, pure in an unhinged kind of way, and I really want to know how it looked the first time she witnessed it.

I shake the thought away before it grows roots. It’s not the only peculiar one to have sneaked through since I lost her that night. Since she escaped me.

It makes no sense. With my research and hacking skills that make criminal organizations fucking shake, I should have been able to find her by now.

It’s unacceptable.

“You’re lost in thought.”

My vision refocuses on my surroundings, the quiet barroom of Midnight puzzling back together.

Maddox stands next to me, his imposing, brutal stature shadowing me. He’s only a few inches taller than my six-foot-three frame, but he’s definitely bulkier than my toned, lean-muscled body.

The rest of our speakeasy is empty right now, the lights a bit too bright. The two employees on shift are doing inventory prior to opening tonight, but they’re in the back, and The Sanctum’s fighter and I are alone.

He doesn’t press for a response to his statement.

I don’t feel the need to give him one.

He and I are a little different from the others. I’m quiet because it’s just the way I am. I prefer to observe. Listen. Maddox uses the quietness as a shield. I don’t blame him. Four of us lead our syndicate, yet I think I may be the only one who truly knows what happened in his life.

At least the bare bones of it, not his version of events. I’m not sure he ever shared that with anyone. Maybe Vincent, since they’ve always been brotherly close. The story would probably be too emotional for me, anyway.

On the other side, Vincent Sinclair and Finnigan Hennessey are more than comfortable talking.

A lot. Too much, sometimes. Though Vincent, our resident Serpent, has such a talent with words, he can make a mute man talk.

He doesn’t need the pain I like to inflict to pull information out of people.

But I’ve seen him enjoy it on several occasions, regardless.

Finnigan used to be our very own careless playboy.

It all stopped with Evelyn Shaw. Little Maya too.

He still talks and jokes too much, but he no longer uses that humor as armor.

He was so transparent in his suffering, I’m surprised none of the others noticed just how much he hurt all alone, with nothing but one-night stands warming his bed.

Vincent, though, hid his longing very well over the years.

All directed at one specific woman—Morrigan O’Rourke.

Now she shares his last name. He’s loved her for so many years, kept her there in his heart until the time finally came and he got her back.

I have to admire her, because she hasn’t changed him.

Never demanded he tone down his ruthlessness. I appreciate that.

Though, I have trouble wrapping my head around this love that has taken over them. Finnigan and Evelyn too. Such a strange phenomenon, devoid of logic or reason.

“Things have been quiet.” Maddox speaks again.

Have they?

Maybe I was wrong. He sounds like he wants to press without prying.

“Things are rarely quiet,” I say.

“There hasn’t been any stirring. Anything . . . revealed.”

I turn to him, and he gives it one more second before he faces me too.

“None,” I say.

He’s fishing, and I know exactly what for.

He sighs, the sound too soft to come from exasperation. “Are you worried?”

“She has no proof. Only her word against ours. We both know which weighs heavier.”

I catch him nod as I turn my attention back to the crystal glass I’m slowly swirling on the bar. He’s slightly unsure of my words.

“Any leads?” Maddox asks.

I shake my head. I’ve kept them updated since I first told them about her, one month after it happened. I waited, thinking I would find her by then. Little did I know.

“Maybe she was a tourist, and she left shortly after.”

Clutching the glass, I empty the contents down my throat before rising.

“Maybe.”

“Carter.”

I turn at the greeting. One of our security guys walks in from the short entrance corridor.

“James is coming through the back,” he says.

I nod. “Otto is in the office, and there are two employees in the back doing inventory. We’ll be back before opening tonight.”

He nods and waves goodbye as Maddox and I head toward the exit.

Midnight, our speakeasy, is our only truly legitimate business—if you ignore The Fightclub, which Maddox manages in the expansive basement.

Mainly because we use it for both legal fights, where he is the reigning champion, and the money laundering business Finnigan has become an expert at. So, we can’t exactly call it legal.

This is the joy of ruling The Sanctum together—we’re all specialized and focused on specific areas. The tech team and the speakeasy are my babies, as Finnigan calls them.

Vincent’s specialty, on the other hand, is not all that palpable.

He understands and sees how everything moves in this society, obtaining information out of thin air, weaving connections, and moving through the shadows that seem to speak to him.

And he’s the master of interrogation without violence. Not my personal preference, but still.

Midnight, though? It’s my sanctuary away from home.

Our unofficial headquarters too. Comfortable.

Moody. The entrance is concealed in a back alley, a secret we’ve tried to keep, though people in Queenscove talk.

Rumors fly. But admission is by both membership and password, so rumors alone wouldn’t gain them access.

Realistically, we have a year—at a stretch, two—before we have to close this location and re-open somewhere else. A speakeasy only works if kept secret. Private.

And considering our clientele, privacy is paramount.

Politicians, criminals, good and bad, come here for neutral territory.

They fear us—The Sanctum—but keeping us close is better than risking being on our bad side.

And sometimes, we use them. Much less than we used to since we figured out we shouldn’t break the hand that feeds us, but we still listen in, extracting relevant information when they’re enjoying our complex cocktails.

We just avoid using the gained knowledge on the person we got it from.

And that is our core business—information.

Our power lies in our knowledge. Our fortune is built on it.

Information may not be tangible, but it sure as hell generates a lot of income when traded or held against someone.

Blackmail, exchanges, money, secrets, rights, swaying, trades, and deals.

..so much can be done with the right information.

When they try to keep secrets from us, if Vincent can’t make them talk, they rarely escape me.

With network access, I can find any information about a person who has ever touched technology.

Even the corners of the dark web aren’t dark enough to blind me.

I’m good. And it’s not ego talking, just pure fact.

Yet, not good enough to find her.

Maybe Maddox is right. Maybe she was just a tourist.

That knowledge pleases and disappoints me all at once. Because the intrigued look in her eyes is still here, looming in the back of my mind.

We step into the shaded alley, the backs of the gray-stoned period buildings shielding it from the midday sun.

They do nothing for the subtropical humidity of our coastline, though.

We walk under the old stone archways on the winding alley toward one of Queenscove’s main streets that should be bustling with both locals and tourists right about now.

“Is Finn coming, or is he hiding with Evie in their new beach house?” Maddox breaks the silence.

“You sound a little salty about that.”

He grunts in response. Maybe he’s feeling left out.

Finnigan is the third one of us to have found who is likely to be his wife in a few years.

Ronan, his brother, was the first, though he hasn’t been officially part of the syndicate in many years.

Even some of our employees seem to have found love within our organization.

Maybe Maddox craves the same connection.

I sure don’t. I don’t quite understand the appeal.

Sure, I meet with women, we play —mostly in Morrigan and Loreley’s club—but I’ve never felt the need to expand on it.

We walk onto the main street, the sun burning hot over the people filtering onto the shaded terraces of the restaurants and cafés lining the sidewalks.

I’ve traveled extensively due to our work.

I even went to university up north from our southern coast, yet I never found a place I enjoyed more than Queenscove, with its stone-or-brick period buildings steeped in character, the green borders lining the streets filled with birches, palm trees, and colorful flowers, and the old wrought iron streetlamps that were restored years ago.

There’s something about our city that appeals to me.

Maybe it’s the lack of skyscrapers, making it look so much less like a city than it should.

Or maybe it’s the fact that we actually had an influence on the way this city looks and operates.

In the past, we used our influence to sway a couple of ordinances.

One was about raising the allowed height of new structures, and the other was about limiting short-term rental permits and new hotels.

We had our own personal interests in this, since Queenscove is already a tourist spot and we didn’t need it to become even more popular.

More people mean more chances for people to discover just how rooted in the underworld this place is.

Our port and rail connections make it very desirable for all sorts of illegal activities.

My phone vibrates in my pocket as we walk toward the restaurant, and I stop to pull it out.

“Finnigan’s already at The Anchor with Vincent and Cillian,” I say as I read the text.

“Cillian?” Maddox mirrors my thoughts.

I read the text again, but there’s no explanation as to why Vincent’s brother-in-law is joining us for lunch.

The redhead got thrown into the deep end of heading his old man’s family business, and even if it’s been just over a year, he sometimes comes to us for advice.

He may be family to Vincent now, but the man seems to know how to keep The Sanctum close.

The right way. Even if his businesses are mostly legal.

The tips of my fingers fly over the touchscreen as I send a response to Vincent, though I glance before me as I begin walking again.

The restaurant is barely five minutes away from here and I could find out the answer soon enough, but I have an inherent distaste about walking into a situation unprepared.

A familiar ghost of a current coils in my stomach.

“One of these days, you’re going to trip and fall on your face.”

I cock an eyebrow, throwing a glance his way in response, before going to check for a reply.

Minutes pass without one, and the restaurant is only a few steps away now.

The current sizzles in my abdomen as my fingers tighten around the phone. Almost three decades of this and I haven’t gotten used to the ridiculous sensation.

I stop a few feet in front of the door but turn my back to it. As if on cue, the phone vibrates with a new text. Just like that, the current dissipates.

“Cillian’s there to chat about the docks,” I say.

“Yeah, I kind of assumed.”

Well, I needed to be sure.

I slide the phone into my front pocket and look up, seeking Maddox, but what slams into my line of sight instead, doused in lively pastel clothes that make everyone else look monochrome, is... her.

The current is back. Goosebumps nettle over my skin, and the noise of the street traffic separating us fades away.

One hundred and ninety-eight days and there she is.

Across the street, carrying two cups of coffee, a brown paper bag hanging on her wrist, she opens the door to her shiny, dark-green sports car.

As if she feels the touch of my gaze, she looks up. Straight into my goddamn eyes. And I curse every single car passing by, interrupting my line of sight, because she looks gloriously surprised. A slight tinge of shock, or maybe fear, rounds her eyes.

My feet move before I can stop them, but a hand pulls me back just as a car honks as it speeds past me.

“What the hell are you doing, Carter?” Maddox growls.

The woman I’ve failed to find is now smirking at me. She’s fucking smirking. It’s both condescending and innocent, and embers catch fire deep inside me in response. My fists clench as she raises the coffee cups to me in salute, then dips down to climb into her car.

No!

She’s not getting away this time.

I won’t allow it.

I look left, ready to step onto the busy street and rush to her, but two tourist buses drive by, blocking both my sight and my way. A deep groan vibrates through my throat.

“Goddamn it, come on,” I whisper to myself, urging the damn buses to move faster.

But when they clear, the parking spot is empty and the dark-green car is nowhere in sight. A heated tightness clutches my lungs, holding my breath hostage within them.

She’s gone.