Page 12 of Dark & Darker Still (Vane and Roc: Origin)

Eleven

Roc

Vane finds me enjoying my second espresso in the backroom of the Joker’s Den.

“She didn’t come home last night.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Roc, for fuck’s sake. Alice didn’t come home.”

“So?”

“So?” He drops into the matching leather club chair across from me. “Where the fuck did she go?”

“Is it really any of our business?”

He scowls at me, violet eyes glinting. The answer is no, it isn’t any of our business, but the look on his face clearly says he thinks it is.

“You’re soon to be married,” I say.

He grumbles in the base of his throat and yanks out a pack of cigarettes. He lights one as I continue.

“And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you tell Alice she and you were done?”

The end of the cigarette flares as he inhales on it, the smoke curling around his face. When he exhales, the room grows hazy with smoke.

“All of that is beside the point.”

“Is it?”

I overheard Lainey schooling Alice on all the ways to deal with Vane.

I know that she’s likely disappeared as a way to teach him a lesson and while I don’t necessarily agree with her tactics, it’s clearly working.

My brother and Alice have always had a toxic relationship.

Like oil and water but the oil is on fire and the water is boiling.

I don’t like to tell him what to do—I doubt he’d listen to me anyway—but part of me had hoped this betrothal would end some of the drama.

Apparently, I’m a fucking fool.

Truly I should have known better. My little brother has fucked around with a lot of women in our days, but none he’s latched on to like Alice.

None he’s claimed in any proprietorial way.

I think on a subconscious level, he sees the abyss in Alice, and the only place Vane has ever allowed himself to be real is in the dark, a place where no one can see him for what he truly is.

Maybe they aren’t so much oil and water as they are a yawning black hole trying to devour one another.

“You have more important things to attend to,” I remind him. “We’re due to announce your engagement in…” I take out my pocket watch. “…four hours. You should be getting ready instead of harassing me.”

He sits forward, elbows on his knees. “You don’t know where she is?”

“No. She didn’t tell me and I wouldn’t have asked anyway.”

He takes another long pull on the cigarette while staring at me.

I tsk at him.

He exhales another puff of smoke.

“What? Is there more?” I ask.

“I heard Nix was in town.”

Well now he has my attention. And clearly this was where we were headed.

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

“He got a job?”

“Don’t know.”

I snap my pocket watch shut. “Let me deal with this. You stay here and behave.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Pull a wild card.”

South Sea Conveyance is on the east end of Needles Harbor.

Warren owns a quarter of the docks, the warehouse on the harbor, and an office building directly across from it.

He built his business from nothing, arriving on Darkland when he was just a teenager.

He started as a dockhand and worked his way up.

But his holdings truly took off once he hired Jade to manage the financials.

I’ve tried to steal her from him multiple times, but she’s loyal to a fault, a quality I admire when it’s someone on my side.

I find Jade and Warren in Warren’s office in the back.

The building is a converted candle factory that still smells faintly of tallow and beeswax.

The entire first floor is open, with a loft-style second floor accessible by an open steel staircase.

Beneath the loft, Warren’s office runs the entire width of the building, with the front-facing walls constructed entirely of grid windows.

“Is this business or pleasure?” Warren asks, rising from his desk to clasp my hand and yank me into a half-hug.

Warren is a foot taller than I am, corded in muscle, shoulders broad.

His back is always straight, his head always held high.

And yet there is an ease about him that makes one feel like they’ve come home to an old friend.

Despite all that, he is ruthless in business when the situation calls for it. Somehow, he managed to scoop up his quarter of Needle Harbor before I even knew it had come on the market.

“A little of both, I suppose. Though I didn’t come here for you.”

“Oh?” He lifts a brow and eyes Jade behind me.

I turn to look at her. She’s leaned back in her desk chair, arms crossed over her chest.

“Jade, you look lovely today.”

She knows me better than that.

“What do you want?”

“Have you seen Alice?”

Her eyes narrow.

“I don’t need to know where she is, but if you could get a message to her and please ask her to come home, I would forever be in your debt.”

Jade stands up. She shoves several long braids off her shoulder as she comes around the desk and crosses the room to me.

She’s petite, the top of her head barely reaching the line of my shoulders, but her presence has always been larger than her frame.

She doesn’t need size to stand toe-to-toe with the men of the Umbrage because she’s smarter than 99% of them. Probably me included.

“Is it still her home?” she asks, her gaze carefully scanning my reaction, logging it, analyzing it.

“Yes.”

Several lines appear between her brows. “Hmmm.”

“Please, Jade.”

“Why?”

“Because Vane has Very Important Business to attend to tonight and I don’t need him distracted.”

“You mean he wants to have his cake and eat it too.”

She isn’t wrong. See? Smart.

“I will concede the fact that Vane is being an asshole. And I will concede the fact that Alice is technically not gaining anything by returning home. But it will buy me time.”

“Until?”

“Until…until…well I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.”

“You didn’t come very prepared.”

Behind me, Warren snickers. I shoot him a look and he buries his grin behind his hand.

I inhale. “Even you must know that eventually, Alice needs to go her own way. But tonight isn’t the night for it.”

“No, Vane just needs a few more nights to fuck her over, leave her a little more broken.”

“You know we’re all a little broken in the Umbrage.”

She considers me for several long beats, and then, “Fine. I’ll ask her. But I’m not making any promises.”

“No promises needed. Thank you.” I turn to leave.

“Roc?” Warren says.

I glance at him from the doorway.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I smile. The answer is on the tip of my tongue. Of course I do. But the words don’t want to come out, almost like my tongue knows it’s a lie.