LITMIR.BIZ

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      Levi clenched his fist beneath the table. He thought about it every night, during the hours when he should’ve been sleeping but couldn’t. He didn’t choose to start this scam. He didn’t choose to involve the most dangerous people in the city. Ever since he started working for Vianca, he hadn’t had many choices at all.

      “Who else knows?” Levi murmured, the quietness of his voice betraying his fear.

      The captain rubbed the scruff on his scarred chin. “I’m not the smartest man. So tell me, if I figured it out, who else might’ve, too?”

      Levi caught his breath. He was referring to Sedric Torren, the twisted, perverted don of the Torren casino Family. The kind of man who could clear a room with the snap of a finger. The kind of man who could ensnare his prey with only a smile. The kind of man Levi didn’t want as an enemy.

      Sedric Torren was Levi’s final investor. Once Levi paid Sedric back, he’d be done. Clean. Safe. But it’d taken Levi weeks to scrape up the nine hundred volts for the captain, and he owed Sedric ten thousand.

      If Sedric did figure out the scam, would he wait for Levi to pay him back, or would he kill him to make a point? Conning a Torren was flirting with destruction.

      The captain stood. “I’d prefer not to keep hearing your name.” Then he nodded at Levi and left the tavern. No blackmail, no coercion. Just a warning.

      Levi let out a breath of relief. He supposed he was lucky—he could’ve been arrested, or worse. But he didn’t feel lucky. The whiteboot captain didn’t bother arresting criminals he considered dead men walking.

      I’m almost done. I’m almost safe, he reminded himself. The only person I have left to pay is Sedric, then I can finally focus on the Irons.

      With all the time he’d been spending on Vianca’s scam, his gang was slowly crumbling. Their income was tight, their clients were irritated and Levi hardly recognized some of his own kids. But Levi refused to fall with this scheme. He had a destiny to forge and an empire to build.

      Levi stood to leave. As he made his way out the door, he tried not to notice Grady’s face fall at the full drink he’d left behind on the table.

      Levi headed to the newest abandoned house Chez and some of the other Irons had made their own. As he put more distance between himself and Grady’s tavern, his shoulders relaxed, and the tightness in his chest loosened. Walking always cleared his head.

      Around him, the white stone shopfronts and gambling dens gave way to the signature black scenery of Olde Town, the most historic neighborhood of New Reynes. With the buildings so tall and the alleys so narrow, there was little light here, which was why Levi had claimed it when he founded the Irons five years ago. It was nearly abandoned—nicknamed the “stain of the city,” it was the sort of place you didn’t want to find yourself, no matter the time of day. There was an art to navigating its maze of alleys, of slipping oneself into its endless shadows. Here, it was always night. And sleights of hand were easiest in the dark.

      When he reached the Irons’ hideout, Levi paused, running his hand across the wrought iron bars bolted over the windows. He knew every inch of Olde Town. Because you own it, he told himself, convinced himself. But did he really own it anymore?

      Levi cracked his neck, mustered up some bravado and knocked on the door. Chez unlocked it.

      “There’s a missy here to see you,” Chez said, crossing his heart, as gangsters always did for their lord. As Chez usually did for him, though his sign of respect was often forgotten lately.

      “What? Who?” Levi hadn’t scheduled any meetings today.

      “A real prissy one. From one of the territories.”

      Before Levi could ask if he was joking, Chez skulked off to the living room. Levi followed, ripping his arms out of his jacket. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to figure out how to deliver ten thousand volts to Sedric Torren before Sedric Torren delivered him.

      In the living room, Levi found Jac leaning against a quilted armchair, his aura drifting lightly in the stale air. Levi had inherited his split talent of sensing auras from the Canes, his mother’s family. He couldn’t sense everyone’s auras—his split talent wasn’t strong enough for that—but those of the people he knew well were often discernable to him.

      His best friend’s aura flowed toward him in waves and smelled like linen and the color gray.

      Mansi perched at the end table, practicing a card trick Levi had taught her yesterday. She crossed her heart and beamed at him, just as she always did. Mansi was one of the best up-and-coming dealers in the Irons. Some called her Levi’s protégée, though Levi hadn’t made that decision yet. Still, her unwavering loyalty held appeal—there wasn’t enough of that to go around, these days.

      The missy in question sat on the couch, her back straight as a billiard rod, her legs resting to the side with one ankle tucked delicately behind the other. She was tiny, only about five feet tall, with fair skin and brown hair falling out of a tight ballerina bun. She was real pretty in a second-glance kind of way, though she looked like she was on the wrong side of the city—a strand of rose pearls caught on one of Olde Town’s serrated spires.

      She stood when Levi entered, like he was some dinner guest. “You must be Mr. Glaisyer.” He cringed at the sound of his father’s name. The others snickered.

      “What’s going on here, Jac?” he asked, keeping his gaze fixed on her. It wasn’t every day such pretty or strange girls showed up asking for him.

      “She said you could help her contact someone. And before you say no—” Levi snapped his mouth shut, and Jac continued “—she outran two whiteboots this morning after just arriving. Not bad, eh?”

      Not bad? By the looks of her, Levi would say unbelievable. What could she have done to anger the whiteboots? Curtsy the wrong way?

      “Who is she?” he asked.

      “I’m right here,” she said haughtily. “You might as well ask me.”

      “Exactly,” Levi snapped. “But I didn’t. Which means I didn’t want to.”

      That shut her up.

      “She’s from Bellamy,” Jac explained. Bellamy was one of the Republic’s territories, a mostly self-regulated island that paid taxes to the wigheads. It had a reputation for being twenty years backward, which explained her conservative clothes. “Bit of a snob, really.”

      She cleared her throat with a sharp ahem.

      The only person Levi knew from Bellamy was Lourdes Alfero, but he hadn’t thought about her in years. She was one of those “anonymous” journalists who wrote for the monarchist papers. Though the Mizers were all dead, the monarchists kept lobbying for a reinstatement of the old kingdoms and the crowning of new families to rule them. The monarchists were the only ones in opposition to the First Party, the core political party of the Republic.

      Levi owed Lourdes Alfero a big favor, but that was from four years ago. He’d always assumed she’d gotten herself killed—all the monarchists did eventually.

      “Are you quite certain this is Mr. Glaisyer?” the missy asked Jac.

      “Think carefully,” Levi said, winking at him. “Better be sure.”

      Jac plopped on the couch, and the girl tried to subtly scoot away from him. He made a show of throwing his hands up in the air. “You meant the other Levi Glaisyer. Terribly sorry, missy. But dont’cha worry, the other Levi Glaisyer is a real nice fellow. Nothing like this guy.”

      Levi tossed his jacket and hat on the coffee table. “He’s a bank teller. Three kids. Nice house on the South Side. Not even a splotch on his criminal record. Instead, you’ve got me. Best card dealer in the city. The Iron Lord.” Chez rolled his eyes. “Though I like to call myself a businessman more than, well, a con man.”

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