Chicagoland by Gail Martin (important books to read TXT) 📕

“Cleaning up Capone’s mess,” West answered with an honesty that surprised me. “Dark magic, and some creatures he’s controlling that go way beyond ‘muscle.’”

“Shoulda figured you’d get pulled in,” Davis said, signaling to a tux-clad waiter to bring over a crystal bottle of dark liquor and three more glasses. He poured for us and slid the drinks to their owners before taking a sip of his own. “You working for Ness?”

I felt the tension rise, despite Davis’s friendship with Sarah and his history with West.

“With him, not for him,” West replied. “And while he knows about a couple of the incidents, I’m not of a mind to tell him more than he needs to know.”

That seemed to appease Davis, whose shoulders loosened and jaw relaxed. “And you think I know something useful?” Those gold-brown eyes held a shrewd light in them.

“You always do,” West replied, and I wondered what the story was between them because they knew each other well enough to telegraph entire conversations with just a few words.

Davis sighed and leaned back, taking another sip of bourbon. “The Families survive because there are rules,” he said. “Limits. Boundaries. When the rules are broken, it’s bad for business, bad for everyone. Capone is a hotshot. Thinks the rules don’t apply to him. There’ve always been witches. But bringing in creatures beyond the vampires and the werewolves who are part of the Families…that’s been off-limits.”

“I heard the Delacroix family cooperated with the Feds to put Capone away.” West’s voice stayed neutral like he was discussing the weather.

Davis nodded. “They did. Because they believe Capone destroyed their patriarch. Their maker.”

Well, shit. Wars have started over less.

“Did he?” Sarah asked, leaning forward intently.

Davis shrugged. “That’s what a lot of people believe, which matters more than whether or not it’s true.”

A powerful vampire prisoner might explain the sealed room in the basement of the Landmark Hotel, but I wasn’t going to bring it up if West didn’t.

“I imagine you heard about what the papers are calling the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre,” Davis went on. “Even Ness’s people couldn’t mistake bites for bullet holes. Something ripped those men to shreds—and it wasn’t one of ours.”

“Werewolf?” West asked. I knew that in the supernatural community, shifters believed themselves to be better than weres because they could change at will and weren’t governed by the cycles of the moon. Shifters were born to their abilities, not turned by a bite, another thing they saw as a mark of superiority.

Davis shook his head. “Not anyone from the local Families. But Capone had connections with the Canadian bootleggers—and their wendigos and rougarou are a bit more…feral.”

“Why would the Canadians meddle?” Sarah asked. I was wondering the same thing myself.

“They had a lot of business dealings with his organization,” Davis said with a shrug. “If he’s out of the picture, they’ll want to protect their interests, and that usually begins by knocking off the competition.”

“Why are you telling us this?” West asked. We’d tried to keep a low profile, but just being seen with us put Davis at risk.

Our host leaned back against the upholstered seat, looking weary. “I’m tired of the fighting. It’s a drain on all our resources and energy that, frankly, we could be putting to better use. When the Families have equilibrium, the killing stops. We can all focus on business. Capone broke the rules, and he’s left a mess for the rest of us. I don’t trust Ness at all. I trust you more,” he said to West.

I noted the shades of gray in that statement. Davis trusted West more than Ness, which still fell short of real “trust.” At least he was being straightforward, and I could respect that in a man.

“How did Capone get involved with the occult?” I asked.

Davis looked at me for a moment before he answered, as if he were second guessing his assumption that I was just hired muscle. I get that a lot, and it doesn’t usually bother me. While they’re busy dismissing me, I’ve got my eyes and ears wide open.

“Capone’s grandmother was said to be a witch who could put the Evil Eye on someone,” Davis answered. “That sort of thing gets taken very seriously around here. But Capone got obsessed. I hear he read everything about magic and the paranormal that he could. Even went looking for ghosts, if you can believe that. He was a regular down at that occult bookstore, picking the owner’s brain about things long before he built his organization. Couple of authors wrote books on witchy stuff, and Capone was their new best friend. Even went looking for Pat Quinlan’s errand boy to learn all the secrets of the murder house.”

“Murder house?” I frowned, knowing that the phrase was familiar, something from long ago, something that made the headlines…

“H. H. Holmes. Built a rooming house for the World’s Fair that was really designed for him to be able to murder the guests in their rooms. Quinlan was his manager, got off scot-free claiming he didn’t know anything about all the people who checked in and never checked out,” Davis added with a derisive tone.

I wondered if the shifter was older than he looked. The Chicago World’s Fair was in 1893, the year after I died in the Homestead Strike. When the Holmes scandal broke, it made all the papers, too sensational to ignore. I remembered it, but of course, that was too long ago for Sarah and West to recall.

“The house is still standing?” West looked horrified and surprised. Then again, he was law enforcement, so he had probably studied the case.

Davis nodded. “It’s been burned, vandalized, and had more than its share of squatters and thrill-seekers, but it’s still there.”

“But why would Capone want all the occult stuff?” Sarah gave him that charming look that tended to make men forget their filters and tell her everything she wanted to know.

“Insurance?” Davis replied. “It’s another case of disturbing the balance. Every Family has a witch. Since