The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

Jack waited, keeping his expression even as the men around him began looking over one another, counting among their ranks. He waited long enough to be sure that the room was already buzzing with confusion, and then he called out. “Barclay’s missing! He was right here… but now he’s gone.”

It didn’t matter that Barclay had never been there to begin with. The men around him reacted exactly as Jack had predicted they would. With confusion and then suspicion… and then, predictably, with anger.

Smiling to himself as the mood of the room shifted, Jack ducked behind a tapestry, depressed a lever hidden there, and let himself out into the hallway. The rest of the members would whip themselves into a fit while Jack retrieved the ring. In a matter of minutes, he would return to the sanctuary below, undetected, and when the Order discovered that the artifact was missing, Barclay would look like the culprit. The poor, desperate, dead culprit.

TIMES CHANGE

1920—Chicago

Jericho Northwood and his crew had only come to the Green Mill that night for the Nitewein that John Torrio and his lot sold to lure Mageus into the establishment. He hadn’t expected to find a couple of familiar faces in addition. Now he had to figure out what he was going to do with them.

In truth, North had never expected to see hide nor hair of Esta Filosik, much less Harte Darrigan, again. He’d only expected that one day, when he was least expecting it, the life he had would simply disappear. He’d turned in each night thanking his lucky stars for the gift of one more day to be the man he was, living the life he had, and each morning he’d wake up with the grateful wonder that it was all still there, his life still intact and his family still whole and real in his arms. But now Esta was back, and with her, the threat she posed to him—to his life and to everything he’d built and everyone he loved.

He knew what Maggie would say. Some things are destined, his wife would tell him with that soft smile she always wore when she was somewhere between amused and exasperated. There’s no way around the two of us, she’d say as she braided their youngest girl’s hair. His Maggie had an absolute faith in the inevitability of the two of them and the little family they’d built for themselves, a belief that nothing—not time, nor magic—could shake. Some things are meant to be.

North didn’t know that he quite agreed. He knew exactly how possible it was to change the course of things. Maggie could keep her faith, but North wasn’t willing to chance everything he was and everything they’d built to the whimsy of fate. Not that he had any clue how to fight against something as slippery as destiny or as unyielding as time.

It didn’t help any that the fear of what Esta could do to his life had only grown with each addition to his family. Their children were a spot of light in North’s life, and he didn’t trust fate to keep their lights aglow. But then, he had to admit that fate—fickle though she might be—had somehow seemed to smile on him far more than he’d ever deserved. He’d lost everything and then found Maggie. They’d made terrible mistakes with the Antistasi, and somehow still managed to make it through to the other side. Their life together, their children—if those were all gifts of fate, Jericho Northwood was damn lucky. Now, it seemed, fate had delivered Esta Filosik to him once more, but he wasn’t sure what that meant.

“This way,” North directed, leading the way through the eerie fog that filled the tunnel. “It’d be an awful big help if the two of you would each grab a case.” He pointed to the stack of wooden crates that his guys were already carting out of the tunnels. “We don’t have much time before the real agents show up.”

Thankfully, Esta and Harte didn’t argue or give him any trouble. Even dressed in some kind of slippery-looking scrap of a thing, Esta grabbed a crate and followed the line of men to the truck they’d parked out back. Once the crates of Nitewein were loaded up, North noticed Esta and Harte trading meaningful glances. Sirens were already singing in the distance.

North knew exactly what they were thinking, but he wasn’t about to let them go so fast, not when he was still considering what he should do about them. “Why don’t you hop on in? We can give you a lift.”

“Oh, I think we can find our own way back,” Harte said, and then offered his hand along with his thanks.

North didn’t take the outstretched hand. “I wasn’t really asking.” He narrowed his eyes a bit, still considering his options if they didn’t comply. There wasn’t any way he was letting these two get away from him, not without figuring out what they were up to. “I think we ought to catch up a bit, don’t you?” He let his gaze linger on Esta, a clear, if unspoken, challenge.

After a couple of seconds, she relented. “We are old friends, after all,” she told Harte without even so much as blinking.

Old friends… North couldn’t help but laugh, especially since they both looked like a couple of kids. Hell, it was hard to believe he’d ever been that young himself, even if he hadn’t been all that much older the last time he’d seen the two of them. But their appearance—the smooth skin of their faces, devoid of the lines that already mapped his own life’s joys and frustrations—was confirmation that Esta could do exactly what she’d threatened years ago in Denver. The question was whether North would give her that chance.

Reluctantly, Harte helped Esta up into the back of the truck, and then he hopped up himself. North followed, closing the rolling door behind them, then made his