When the Dark Wins

She took in the other hands holding glasses in the crowd. Tabletops where more cups waited. The only way Maggie Bone was probably getting away with it was she didn’t appear to be selling the alcohol. Only serving it for a party, and even that could get you into a nebulous area with the enforcers. If she took a dime for it, the Gluttonous would be all over her. They didn’t start selling sex, and the Lustful didn’t start selling liquor. When all seven of the Vices avoided stepping on each other’s toes, everyone had a good time.

“Here you go.”

When Buckeye looked back, something about the several earrings in the man’s dark earlobe jarred her memory. His name was …

“Thanks, Cyrus.” She took the beer and raised the glass. Received a nod in return as he bent to rummage beneath the bar.

She stepped aside and found a wooden hutch about rib-high to lean on and sip her drink, back to the wall.

The parlor of The Yellow Rose maintained a high, rolling boil of lewd and lazy chaos. Tricks of all genders teased and laughed with johns. They bounced on knees, massaged shoulders, copped indiscreet feels.

An ancient record player—the sort that had a crank to keep it wound and an enormous floral bell, worth a small fortune—spun out something old-timey and swinging, from the early 2020s, if Buckeye had to guess. Some of the last recorded music, probably, but The Rose had an old-fashioned vibe about it, so it still managed to fit.

She took another deep swallow of beer, and by god did it taste better than road dust. Her head began to nod to the beat. Watching other people cut loose had some of the tension leaking out of her.

A petite woman wearing what looked very much like a cleverly-arranged—and scant—configuration of grommeted seat belts stood from the arm of an upholstered chair. She grinned at the man sitting there and offered her hand, which he took and got to his feet. His eyes bounced with the cheeks of her ass as she hauled his hand over her shoulder and led him up a staircase on the exterior wall.

Buckeye had never been in The Rose’s parlor but, judging by the bannistered mezzanine lined with doors above everyone’s heads on the back wall, these stairs led to the rooms where the business of the house went on. The muffled thumping she could hear during pauses in the music was probably also a clue. She sipped from her glass again, working to hide the hint of red coming to her face.

Just because this was The Vice didn’t mean she’d been a patron of every sort of house. Buckeye had found time for a man or three over the years, but Houses of Risk were more her speed. Fucking was way less of a thrill, for her, at least. She winced at the thought of her empty purse out in the truck, useless to anyone but her.

“Hey there, Postie.”

Buckeye’s jaw tightened at the slang. And at the man who’d slid alongside her.

“Skinner.” She drank, avoiding his eyes.

“Aww, you don’t have to be formal,” he said. “Call me Leo.”

She tucked the arm not holding her glass across her chest, not even about to get familiar with Leopold Skinner.

Tall, dark, and oily, he was the likely reason Maggie was getting away with serving booze at all. The man was way too suave and sleek looking for the VT. His was the kind of face dumb young people sighed over until they got to know him better. He was the regional enforcer for The Gluttonous.

He was also Maggie’s beau.

What the boisterous, friendly woman saw in him other than the smoldering face was beyond Buckeye. And how the two had arranged it, considering Maggie Bone had been an employee of The Rose until now, with other cocks to warm, was also a mystery.

“You don’t seem like you’re enjoying yourself yet,” he said, ignoring the bristly expression she’d pointed at him.

“I was.” She wedged into the corner between the wall and the hutch, glaring Maggie’s way as though the other woman would feel the burn of her eyes, turn her head, and see what Skinner was up to.

The man leaned on the wall next to her. His next w

ords came lower, closer. “I can think of about, hmm … three things that would make your night better.” A knuckle grazed her folded arm, just above the elbow.

Buckeye jerked back to slap him.

“Leo!” Maggie’s voice disintegrated their confrontation. Her call carried from across the room. “C’mere and tell Brother Caleb what happened to you in the Vegas ruins last year!”

The man flowed away from the wall, and Buckeye, as though nothing had happened. Slid with a Devil’s smile toward the seated Covvie Maggie was trying to entertain.

Buckeye sneered at the whole thing. Miss Bone, sadly oblivious. Skinner, a snake in snake’s clothing. And the fucking Covvie sprawled on a tufted couch, a pretty rentboy nuzzling his ear.

Hypocrites. People from New Covenant demonized everyone in The Vice Territories. Called them all ‘sinners’. But boy did they scurry under the wall like a bunch of rats in the night, popping up in every House, just as eager for good times as any normal person. What this ‘Brother Caleb’ would be doing with that cute, shirtless trick later was ten kinds of illegal in the shiny, clean nightmare back East. The clergy were the worst. He would go back and pretend he’d never even heard of The Rose. Call all the Vicers animals and perverts.

A single, wooden chair opened up next to the stairs, still far enough away from Skinner, and Buckeye shoved herself out of the corner to commandeer it. She set her glass on a tiny end table within arm’s reach. Blinked when a half-naked ass landed on her lap.

“Hey, Bucks,” the redhead drawled, leaning in to smack a kiss on her temple.