Page 3 of To Heist and to Hold

As part owner of a gaming hell, one of those houses of vice that the general population decried as the embodiment of evil, one would think that Mr. Ethan Sinclaire wouldn’t give a damn what was being said about him.

After all, he was a peddler of sin, someone who went against what every decent member of society deemed proper, and he did it with a smile on his face.

And yet here he was.

Laying his quill down on the blotter, he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk and threading his fingers together, spearing the man seated before him with an intense stare, the better to observe every flicker of a reaction, every nuance of meaning.

“Tell me again,” he said. “And tell me slowly.”

Russell Keely, onetime pickpocket, now working solely—and in certain cases secretly—for Ethan, rubbed his knuckles on the leather arms of his chair.

“There are whispers, sir, about your tables. Nothing concrete, mind you,” he hastened to add, no doubt due to some darkness that had fallen over Ethan’s face—given how Ethan was feeling, he wouldn’t be surprised if he appeared like the devil incarnate.

“Just speculation that there may be something… unsavory afoot.”

“Unsavory.” Ethan tested the word on his tongue, rolling it around in his mouth.

He pulled his lips back from his teeth as the bitterness of it overwhelmed him.

Unsavory could be nothing at all in his line of business, of course.

Or it could be a death knell for everything he had worked for and built up.

Especially after what had happened three years before.

Gavin.

But he would not think of the time when the person who should have been the one he could trust most in this world had betrayed them so brazenly, when everything had nearly been lost because of his brother’s greed.

No, he would focus on the here and now, and he would make certain there was no repeat.

Although he might very well be too late for that, if what Keely was telling him was true.

Leaning heavily back in his seat, he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Perhaps it’s someone who wishes to bring us down,” he muttered, more to himself than to Keely.

“I’m not certain that’s it, sir,” Keely replied, picking at his dirty nails. “If that were the case, the rumblings would be loud. But they’re quiet, only found if someone knows where to look.”

Meaning whichever patron it originated from was not keen on making it public, due to fear of either scandal or retaliation. But with the rumblings already starting, it was only a matter of time before they transformed into actual rumors that would tear through London like wildfire.

“Damn and blast it all to ever-loving hell,” Ethan growled. He speared Keely with a sharp gaze. “Is there anything else? Any details about this unsavory reputation?”

“Aye. Something about unreliable tables. It seems someone has begun to have suspicions that the house is cheating, but they don’t have enough evidence to blab it about.” He smirked. “And your own formidable reputation is such that they don’t dare come right out and say it without proof.”

“Thank God for small favors, I suppose,” Ethan muttered to himself.

Keely, apparently done with what he had come for, rose. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“Not presently,” Ethan replied. Pulling a wad of bills from his desk, he thrust them at the young man, whose eyes widened at the bounty. “But keep your ear to the ground. Squash any further whispers and come to me with any additional intelligence, and there will be more where that came from.”

“Yes, sir,” Keely said with a toothy grin before, with a tug on his forelock, he fairly bolted from the room. No doubt to spend a good portion of it immediately on women and drink. The scamp truly did live in the moment.

Ethan pressed his lips tight. That was not something he himself could afford to do.

No, every ounce of his energy was focused on one thing and one thing only: seeing that the reputation of his club was flawless.

There could be no chinks in the armor, no vulnerabilities.

The walls he’d put up about him had to remain completely impenetrable.

Once more his brother’s face swam up before his mind’s eye, dark eyes laughing.

They, along with their youngest brother, Isaac, and their two closest friends, had dragged themselves from the gutters to become the youngest gaming hell owners in London, their rise painful and daunting but the burn of their success bright, like that of a shooting star across the heavens.

Ethan had believed nothing could touch them.

Until his brother, not satisfied with what they had accomplished, had become greedy and wanted more, and had cheated to get it. And in the process had become that shooting star, burning out into nothing more than ash and dust.

He closed his hand into a fist, reining in his swelling anger lest he swipe the whole damn desk clear and send everything crashing to the floor.

Damn and blast Gavin for all he had done.

Blessedly, word had never gotten out, Gavin’s tragic death smothering any rumors that might have come to light.

But though Dionysus’s reputation had remained spotless, though it drew powerful patrons who lauded his club as one of the premier establishments in London, he never felt he could completely wash away the invisible yet indelible stain of what his brother had done—or the sense of betrayal.

It stayed embedded in his skin, like the scars that crisscrossed his back.

He rolled one shoulder, wincing as the puckered skin pulled tight.

And like those scars, the pain would forever be part and parcel of him.

“That is the most hellishly frightening expression you’ve got there, Brother.”

Ethan glanced up at the sound of his younger brother’s voice.

Isaac looked as carefree and devilish as ever, with that lopsided smile that never failed to charm even the most irascible patron—not to mention a good number of the women of London.

He sauntered into the office, closely followed by their two partners, the combined mass of the three men enough to make the spacious office feel decidedly close.

“And that is saying something,” Hardwick Teagan continued, cocking a thumb at the man at his side, “considering how frightful Parsons here is.”

“You’re a bloody nuisance, did you know that?

” Parsons grumbled, his voice like crushed gravel, before pushing past Teagan and lowering himself into the chair Keely had vacated minutes before.

Known only by his surname—Ethan had never learned the man’s given name, though he had known him since boyhood, and he very much doubted anyone but the man’s mother and whatever God he chose to believe in knew it—Parsons was as far from his namesake as one could be.

Large and rough, with frightful scars that cut across his pale face and long nearly white hair he kept pulled back in a perpetual queue, he appeared more demon than man of the cloth.

Teagan chuckled as he followed Parsons into the room.

He was the opposite of Parsons in every way: graceful where Parsons was rough, lean where he was large, friendly where he was reserved.

Like now as he leaned a hip against Ethan’s desk, teeth flashing a grin in his dark face.

“I only grate on you because you’re such a surly beast. Ethan and Isaac, on the other hand, adore me. ”

“ Adore is a strong word for what we feel for you,” Ethan muttered. “More like tolerate .”

Teagan, however, wasn’t in the least offended. As usual. The man was blasted hard to insult.

“I will take being tolerated, and happily,” he quipped.

“But while Isaac is a forgiving fellow and cannot stay angry to save himself, we all know you’re an untrusting bastard, and you tolerating someone is as good as you saying you esteem them greatly.

And so I am honored.” He sketched a shallow bow, his lips kicking up in a smirk.

Isaac chuckled, dropping into the seat beside Parsons. But he had no sooner crossed his long legs and settled himself in the deep leather armchair than he turned a sober eye on Ethan. “But what was Keely doing here?”

Ethan’s momentary good—or at least neutral—mood vanished.

Though they knew Keely worked for him, they all believed he hired Keely for menial jobs, running letters and fetching purchases and the other hundred small tasks Ethan required done on any given day.

He had made certain that no one, not even his brother—perhaps especially his brother—guessed at the true nature of his business dealings with Keely, who ferreted out information for him regarding Dionysus.

He would not be caught unaware and defenseless again.

It was all to protect Dionysus. And as Dionysus was the living, breathing beast that had been their salvation, the creature that continued to save them even now, it was to all their benefit.

Had he been doing it in secret for the past three years since Gavin betrayed them?

Yes. Was Isaac, Teagan, or Parsons at all responsible for what Gavin had done?

No. They had been duped just as heinously as Ethan had.

But despite that, he could not confide in them.

It was his fault, after all, that he had let down his guard and been oblivious to what Gavin was doing.

And if his own brother, someone he had trusted so completely, could have done something so heinous, couldn’t anyone?

Against his will his gaze tripped over the three men, the past like a spill of ink on the present and the future, staining his vision.

No, he would not make the same mistake again, would keep the door shut tight on the lure of Midas, so that no hint of temptation ever led another of them astray again.

Even if that meant deceiving his last surviving brother.