King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, 4)

Bad luck comes in threes.

I’d been exposed to that superstition since I was a child, but no one ever defined the time period for when those three bad things happened. It could be a day, a week, a month or, in my case, three months.

My father’s death and new inheritance clause in October. Perry exposing our outing with Pen in November.

That was two, but the relatively smooth period after the blog exposé lulled me into a false sense of complacency. The issue with Pen and Rhea still hung over our heads, but at least Pen was in the city for the foreseeable future and Rhea was taken care of until she found a new job.

After Perry’s social media takedowns and the unspoken but significant shift in my relationship with Sloane—namely, the realization that I loved her but couldn’t tell her lest I send her running for the hills—life resumed its normal pace. That was to say, it was batshit busy.

Despite the upcoming holidays, work on the club was in full swing. I’d hired a construction crew, plumbers, electricians, and everyone else I’d need to get it up to speed before Farrah could start on the actual design, and I was already knee-deep in grand opening plans by the time late December arrived.

We were making good progress on the club, but it wasn’t enough. The clock ticked down toward my thirtieth birthday, and every passing day amplified my anxiety. Whenever I thought about my endless to-do list, my breath ran short and a tidal wave of overwhelm crashed over me.

However, I kept all that to myself as I took Vuk and Willow on a tour of the vault.

“We’re preserving the original floors and windows, but we’re turning the teller enclosures into bottle displays,” I said. “The bathrooms will be where the private counting rooms are, and safe-deposit boxes will be painted over so they form an accent wall.”

Vuk listened, his face impassive. Instead of the designer suits favored by most CEOs, he wore a simple black shirt and pants. Beside him, his assistant took copious notes on a clipboard.

Willow was a fortysomething woman with bright coppery hair and a no-nonsense attitude. Either she could read minds or she’d worked for Vuk long enough to read his mind because she asked all the questions he would’ve asked had he, well, actually talked.

“When’s the construction going to be finished?” she asked.

Since it was an active construction site, all three of us wore personal protective equipment, but I could picture her eagle eyes drilling into every detail behind her safety glasses.

“End of the month,” I said. “Farrah’s already sourcing most of the furniture and materials we need so we can hit the ground running as soon as this is done.”

I swept my arm around the vault. Workers bustled back and forth, hammering nails, installing wiring, and shouting to one another over the whir of drills and saws.

Having so many contractors here at the same time wasn’t ideal. It increased the risk of accidents, but given the ticking clock, I had no choice. I needed the basics in place before the New Year so we could focus on the design. That took the most time, and I wasn’t even counting other things I had to do like hiring and marketing.

Vuk was a silent partner. His primary contributions were his name and money; the rest was up to me to figure out.

I tamped down a familiar swell of panic and answered the rest of Willow’s questions as best I could. I wasn’t an expert on the nuts and bolts of construction, but I knew enough to satisfy her curiosity for now.

“Hey, boss.” Ronnie, the lead electrician, approached me halfway through my tour. He was a short, stocky man with eyes the color of old pennies and a face like a rock, but he was the best in the business. “Can I talk to you for a sec? It’s important.”

Shit. That tone of voice didn’t bode well for my blood pressure. While Vuk and Willow examined the teller enclosures, I followed Ronnie to the back of the club, where a mess of wires crisscrossed in some sort of nightmarish Gordian knot.

“We’ve got a small problem,” he said. “This wiring hasn’t been updated in decades. The situation isn’t dire—you’ve probably got a year or so left before a rewire is no longer optional—but I figured you might want to get this done before you open.”

“What’s the catch?” An update was simple enough. Ronnie wouldn’t have called me over unless there was something else.

“Can’t get it done before the New Year” he said. “A full rewire of this scale will take at least ten days, and that’s not counting the necessary finishing decoration works.”

There were fourteen days left in the year. Ronnie went on holiday starting Wednesday. I opened my mouth, but he shook his head before I uttered a single word.

“Sorry, boss, no can do. My wife has been planning our Christmas trip since last Christmas. If I cancel or postpone, she’ll cut off my balls, and I’m not being figurative. No amount of money is worth my balls.”

“It’s a matter of timing. I’ll cover all the expenses for your trip if you take it after the New Year.”

Ronnie grimaced. “She’ll cut off one ball for even suggesting that. Christmas is her thing.”

I could tell there was no swaying him, which left me with limited choices.

Choice #1: I could try to find another electrician who could get the job done in time (possible, but the quality of their work might be lacking and would lead to bigger headaches down the road).

Choice #2: I could wait until the New Year to rewire, but that would mean pushing the design plans back. Considering the timeline and all the scheduling and labor that went into that process, it was the least desirable option.

Choice #3: I could stick with the current wiring and update once the club was up and running. Again, it wasn’t ideal, but nothing about my situation was.

“You said the situation isn’t dire, right? So we don’t have to rewire before the club opens,” I said.

“No, but…” Ronnie hesitated. “The insulation has worn off on a few wires, so there’s a safety issue.”

Double shit.

I rubbed a hand over my face, a headache setting in at the base of my skull. “How big is the safety issue?”

“It’s not an emergency, but it’s something to keep an eye on. Gotta make sure the wires are handled properly and don’t overheat, or you’re in for a nasty shock.”

I summoned a half smile at his pun.

“Have you been running into any electrical issues?” he asked. “Flickering lights, power outages, or the like?”

I shook my head.

“Then I think you’re okay for now. Again, I recommend rewiring as soon as possible, but I know you have a deadline. I’ll try to do as much as I can before I leave for the holidays.” Ronnie nodded at the wall. “So, what’ll it be?”

Part of running a business was making hard decisions, and I made mine before I could overthink it.

“We’ll rewire after the design is finished. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get it done before the opening,” I said with more optimism than I felt.

“Maybe.” Ronnie shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

With that behind me, I rejoined Vuk and Willow, who’d tucked her clipboard into her car-sized purse.

“I’m afraid we have to leave early,” she said. “Mr. Markovic has a personal emergency he must attend to.”

I flicked my eyes at Vuk, who didn’t appear particularly concerned about his alleged personal emergency. Perhaps he and Alex were related. They possessed roughly the same range of emotional expression.

“We’d like to finish this walkthrough another time,” Willow said. “Mr. Markovic is…indisposed for the rest of the year starting on Sunday, but we can come by Saturday morning. He has a few more questions regarding your plans for the club.”

Sloane and I were supposed to go ice-skating on Saturday, but I didn’t want to insult Vuk again by postponing. If I finished the walkthrough in the morning, that left the afternoon and night free for our date.

I smiled. “Saturday it is.”

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear.

Sloane had stayed over last night, and she was still in bed when I slipped out to meet Vuk. She rarely slept in, but I’d kept her busy all night so I didn’t wake her before leaving.

The city was already awake and busy when my cab dropped me off at the skyscraper housing the vault. A family of tourists in matching Christmas sweaters blocked the building entrance, and I had to endure their impromptu daytime caroling as I skirted around them.

At the same time, someone came around from the other side and bumped into me. A baseball cap shadowed half his face, but he looked vaguely familiar. Before I could investigate further, he disappeared around the corner, and my curiosity about his identity became an afterthought when I entered the vault to find Vuk and Willow waiting for me.

He wore the same black shirt and pants; she’d changed into a red dress that matched her hair.

“Add some green accessories and you’ll give the Rockefeller tree a run for its money,” I quipped.

Willow was not amused.

I’d paid the construction company a shit ton of money to work weekends; even then, they could only spare a skeleton crew this close to Christmas.

There were only three workers inside, which made this walkthrough much easier than the first one. Actually, it was more than easy.

It was smooth. Perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

I’d just finished answering Willow’s last question about the security measures when her head jerked to the left. Beside her, Vuk tensed, his nostrils flaring with the first iota of emotion I’d seen in him.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Do you smell that?” Willow’s voice and body were drawn as tight as the strings of a violin.

I paused, my senses pushing aside the overwhelming construction-site scents of wood and metal to focus on the whiff of something harsher.

Smoke.

The realization hit right as the drills died and a panicked shout reverberated through the room.

“Fire!”

What occurred next happened so fast, my brain didn’t process it until the back wall burst into flames.

More shouts. Running. Movement. Heat.

So much fucking heat. It was the bad kind, the kind that hit you like a sudden power outage, plunging crucial corridors of your mind into darkness and short-circuiting the pathways between your brain and muscles.

Choking, paralyzing, life-stealing heat. Sweat enveloped my skin.

Xavier! ¿Dónde estás mi hijo?

She was trapped…couldn’t get past the front door… Died of smoke inhalation…

Lucky we recovered her body… It should’ve been you.

My mind seethed with visions better left buried. Reality wavered, switching from past to present and back again.

It should’ve been you.

An attempt at air drew in smoke instead of oxygen. I coughed, my lungs burning, and ironically, that was what snapped me out of it.

The smells, the heat, the panic. I’d been here before.

I’d almost died when I was ten, but I wasn’t ten anymore, and I’d be damned if I let another fire finish what the first one had started. I blinked, and my surroundings rushed back in horrifying clarity. Flames danced around me with malevolent glee, spreading faster than my eyes could track them. Their red and orange tongues reached hungrily for anything in their path and cast a surreal glow on the vault’s stone floors and ribbed ceilings. The temperature soared to such unbearable heights that every inch of my skin screamed for relief.

Still, my feet remained rooted to the floor.

My mind was back, but my body remained frozen until a loud crack finally, thankfully shattered my numbness and spurred me into motion.

I didn’t waste time checking to see what had caused the sound. I simply ran, dodging abandoned tools while covering my mouth and nose with my forearm. Flames rushed toward me like ants streaming toward an overturned picnic basket, and I made it halfway to the exit before a wave of dizziness slowed me down.

I stumbled but didn’t stop moving. I was already lightheaded from the smoke; if I stopped moving, I would die.

I made it another ten or so feet when a flash of black caught my eye.

My heart stopped. Vuk.

“Markovic!” I coughed from the effort of shouting amid a scarcity of oxygen. “We have to get out of here!”

The fire was closing in fast. If we didn’t leave soon, we’d get trapped.

Vuk didn’t move. He stood there, his eyes blank, his body so still I couldn’t even see him breathe. If he weren’t standing, I would’ve thought him dead.

Willow was nowhere in sight.

“Vuk!” I didn’t give a shit if he hated his given name. I only cared if it got through to him.

It didn’t.

Dammit.

I silently cursed using every English and Spanish expletive I knew as I closed the distance between us and forcefully hauled him toward the exit.

I was in excellent shape. I worked out regularly, and I packed a good amount of muscle, but trying to drag two hundred and thirty-five pounds of uncooperative Serb through a fire was like trying to pull a freight train with a toy car.

Sweat poured into my eyes. My muscles weakened and turned slack. The distance between us and the door stretched endlessly, each step akin to climbing a different Mount Everest.

Part of me wanted to give up, lie on the floor, and let the flames burn away the pain and worries and regrets.

But if I did that—if I didn’t get us to the exit—we’d die. I’d never see Sloane again, and I’d be responsible for yet more death.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Through sheer force of will, I dragged us inch by inch across the floor. I wasn’t breathing so much as gasping now, and bursts of darkness peppered my vision.

But somehow, I did it.

I didn’t know how. Maybe it was the same superhuman strength that allowed mothers to lift entire cars off their children, or maybe it was my body’s last rallying cry before it collapsed.

Whatever it was, it pulled us through the vault exit and toward the stairwell. The door flung open, and suddenly black and yellow streamed past my vision.

I glimpsed the letters FDNY before someone pulled Vuk off me, and someone else grabbed hold of me, and we were moving, ducking, hurrying up the stairs while other crew members battled the encroaching fire.

I let them guide me, too dazed and disoriented to do more than follow, but I looked back once—just long enough to see the vault, my dream, and everything that came with it burn.