Page 5 of Dance With A Devil

He flicks a match. Drops it.

Woosh.

Black smoke erupts into the open air. The stench of burning flesh and charred sin hits the back of my throat, and I welcome it.

There’s nothing quite like the smell of death and destruction to stir the Devil in me. Hell, it practicallygets me off.

This place? This scene? It’s all because of a hunch.

Dash’s hunch, to be exact.

He may have a mouth that never shuts and a temper that could start a war, but Dash is a fuckingsavantwhen it comes to tech.

Firewalls? He eats those for breakfast.

He once built a keylogger in under ten minutes just to catch a professor skimming university funds. The man disappeared the next day.

Dash made sure the only backup of the evidence lived inside a drive wired to a bomb.

That’s his flavor of genius.

We all have our trade. Our role. Our edge.

Me?

I’m the manipulator. The puppeteer. The Devil who smiles while pulling your strings, then hangs you with them when you twitch too much.

Dash is our tech god. The one who sees through the code and finds the rot beneath.

Then there’s Karter, our charming sociopath. The seducer.

He gets in where others can't, through whispers and wicked smiles. He can talk anyone into bed, and slit their throat before the climax.

He’s got blood on his cuffs and perfume on his neck, always. That’s just Karter.

Onyx?

He’s the enforcer.

Quiet. Controlled. Pure violence in a tailored suit.

When he moves, people disappear. He once dislocated a man’s jaw just fortalking over him. Didn’t even blink.

And Wells?

He’s the tactician. Strategic. Ruthless.

Wells is the Devil who sees ten steps ahead, always three plans deep. The kind who can start a war with a whisper, and win it before the first shot is fired. He's all cold logic, sharp, and thekind of eyes that make you confess sins you didn’t even know you committed.

We don’t justattendFraysier University of Cliffside Knights.

Weownit.

Every hallway. Every locked door. Every dirty secret.

Sliding across my peanut butter leather seat, I open the truck door and step out. One hand in my pocket, the other casually adjusting my jacket, I stroll toward the warehouse like I’m walking into brunch, except brunch doesn’t usually smell like burning bones.

And I don’t come here to eat.