Dance of Madness: Chapter 3

My fucking balls ache.

For two distinct reasons: one, getting kneed and then high-kicked in the fucking family jewels. And two?

They’ve been blue as fuck since that blood-boiling chase last night.

And I don’t mean because of the aforementioned kneeing and kicking.

I shift in the velvet chair, stretching my legs out in front of me. The wolf mask presses against my skin, making me feel uncharacteristically hot and claustrophobic, but I don’t take it off. Not in here.

Not in Court.

Smoke coils up from a nearby candle. Somewhere across the vast cathedral space, a woman moans in pleasure, followed by the groan of a man as he joins her in ecstasy. If I gave enough of a shit to focus right now, I’d probably hear a lot more moaning and groaning and cries of pleasure.

I mean, I don’t want to call it an orgy, but the parties we throw before the Black Court is in session can really only be described as…okay, yeah, an orgy.

Couples, threesomes and moresomes, plus plenty of solo voyeurs, are sitting or otherwise draped over the numerous chaises, couches, beds, and chairs on one side of the underground cathedral space where we hold Court.

It’s always nice to have some fun before the judgment begins.

But tonight, I’m not in the mood. Well, I’m never quite in the “mood” for what’s going on around me right now, even here. And that’s one of the reasons I’m…conflicted about last night’s chase.

A chase is a chase. A hunt is a hunt, and it’s the thrill of that hunt that drives me to seek it out. I don’t know, I could get obnoxiously introspective and say it’s my “darkness” or my “brokenness” or blah-blah-blah-just-fucking-no.

I suppose I do have a way of looking at the world in a more, shall we say, savage light. Maybe even what some would politely call an unhinged light. But hey—it’s not like I’m Carmine or anything.

As if on cue, my eye catches sight of my Hound-masked friend across the room. Obviously, he’s not indulging in the moaning and groaning and cries of pleasure. That never really was his thing anyway, but the odds of him indulging in any of that went catapulting into the stratosphere when he became a married man.

Case in point: he’s barely looking at the bodies writhing on the beds and couches. Instead, he’s sitting to one side, talking with The Raven and The Bull.

Nico glances over at me as if sensing my presence, nodding his winged mask before returning his attention to whatever he and his brother are talking about with The Bull.

Nico thinks I’m like his brother. Or, as he puts it, “Carmine-adjacent”.

I don’t know… Maybe I am. But I’m not a fucking psycho, and as much as I love the guy, Carmine is fucking certifiable in that regard.

But as for me? No estoy loco.

I’m not crazy, or a psychopath. Unhinged, hiding a darkness or…whatever.

I’m just me.

But…as I was saying… A hunt is a hunt. And it’s the hunt that drives me. The catching part is…well, part of it. But it’s not what you’d think, as an onlooker.

Last night was different, though.

I waited. I chased. I caught. And then, I wanted fucking more.

Then I got kicked in the fucking nuts, and by the time I’d shoved down the urge to puke or whimper like a little bitch on the floor, the reason that I “wanted more” was gone.

A very specific reason, with long legs.

Blonde hair.

Big, innocent and yet fiery blue eyes.

And a goddamn mean high kick.

Milena Kalishnik.

The name crackles in my skull like a match catching tinder.

I never exchanged names or real identities with the girl who messaged me via the Club Venom app. I mean, that’s sort of the whole fucking point. Like-minded users with, shall we say, more primal needs and urges make profiles, describe what they want, and then the system puts you in touch with each other—basically, Tinder for the dark and deviant.

I’ve used it a dozen other times for a dozen other hunts. This one was supposed to be no different.

Said she had a chase kink and wanted to try primal play. She even expressed a desire for some consensual non-consent stuff.

Check, check and check.

She said all the right things; told me how she fantasized about being hunted, caught, taken against her will. That she wanted it, that very fucking night, and could be ready within the hour.

But I never take them at their word, not until I see them run.

Fantasy’s easy enough to write from behind the safety of a screen. But when the dark is real, and the terror is pounding hot on their heels, ready to snatch them from the shadows, most girls freeze. Reality destroys that little fantasy.

There are tears. They plead.

That’s when I stop, tell them they’ve wasted my fucking time, and send them packing.

I’m there to chase, not to be a fucking coach. Not to teach them.

I mean, Christ. Figure out your kinks on your own fucking time.

So I messaged her back. Asked all the pertinent questions. Made it abundantly clear what this was.

I explained she’d be coming to Greymoor Manor. I’ve owned it for the last four years because one, it’s an excellent location for my…tastes. But two—I mean, come on. It’s a fucking haunted mansion. That’s cool as fuck.

So I went. I waited in the bedroom upstairs, as we’d discussed, listening to the sound of my prey entering quietly via the code I gave her. I listened to her creep around the house and then—loudly—clomp her way up the stairs.

Why do so many of them arrive in fucking heels?

But then, things went sideways. I knew there was something off the second she stepped into the room.

I told myself the girl who seemed too elegant, too proud, and the wrong kind of reckless was simply wearing a blonde wig. Or else had, for whatever reason, lied about being a brunette in her profile.

I chased her anyway, because I was already in that place where I let the savage part of me take the reins. But then, two strange things happened.

One, I caught her.

That’s not the strange part. Of fucking course I caught her.

But two, when I did, I didn’t stop.

I didn’t let go and tell her the hunt was over, that it was time for her to leave.

I kept going.

I hungered.

I fucking wanted her.

Then she whirled around and kicked me in the balls, and I saw her face.

Milena.

Daughter of Marko Kalishnik, and a certified Bratva princess. Royalty in stilettos—or pointe shoes, depending on the time of day. We don’t run in quite the same circles, but we do exist in parallel ones. She dances with Carmine’s wife Lyra, Nico’s new one-and-only Naomi, and their sister Bianca in the Zakharova Ballet company. I’ve seen her enough times to know the curve of her mouth, the sharpness in her glare.

To me, she’s always looked like she was born thinking she deserved a crown.

But last night, she looked like something else entirely.

Soft. Wild. Unhinged.

She ran like frightened prey. Squirmed like frightened prey when I caught her. And when I had her bent over that piano with my hand over her mouth and her panties in my fist—I felt it. Not fear.

Need.

Maybe hers…but definitely mine.

And I let her go.

Okay, that’s not quite fair. She “got away.” My bruised fucking balls are certainly the main reason for that. But it was also that I was simply too stunned to act. For the first time in years, I hesitated.

Now, I can’t stop thinking about her. About the heat of her skin. The sound she made when I pinned her. The scent she left behind on my fingers.

She’s gotten under my skin. Into my blood.

And I don’t like it, not one fucking bit.

Grinding my teeth, I snatch my phone out of my pocket, tap on the Club Venom app, and bring up my conversation with the girl I was supposed to be hunting last night, who was certainly not Milena fucking Kalishnik.

There’s even a fucking message from her—the other girl—waiting for me.

My brows furrow behind my wolf mask. Speaking of psychopaths…

I glare at my phone as I type out a brutal reply.

Then I block her profile and close the app, a smirk playing over my lips.

I’m not going to do any of that psycho shit. But people like that need to be scared shitless. They deserve to be.

…Also, it’s fun.

A presence materializes next to me, bringing me back to the here and now. I glance up to see the clawed, wide black antlers of The Stag’s mask as he looms over me.

Okay, if we want to talk “Carmine-adjacent”, I mean…

Ding ding fucking ding.

The Stag is one of my oldest friends. All the Court fuckers are. It’s how all this insane shit started. The five of us—all sons and heirs of major crime families—attended Knightsblood University together. To some, Knightsblood is known as the “Harvard of the mafia world”. To others, it’s “mafia Hogwarts”. Honestly, I like that one better.

It was there that the five of us first donned the masks and held our first adjudication as The Black Court. Since then, we’ve become the stuff of legend.

The leading families that run the underworld of this city—mine included—have limitations. They have the loyalty of their men and soldiers to think about when dealing with traitors or broken contracts. They have their business interests to consider.

As the Black Court, we don’t.

Some call us vigilantes. I’m sure others have far more colorful and sneered names for us, and I truly could not give less of a fuck.

We are what we are—and what we are is necessary. We keep order when order can’t otherwise reasonably be kept. We enforce the basic laws of our world—the underworld—because without those laws, it’s just chaos.

And as much as I love chaos, I would prefer not to live in complete anarchy.

So even if The Stag does creep me out a little at times, and even if I haven’t the slightest fucking clue how he spends his nights when he’s not with me—at Court or otherwise—he’s still one of my best friends. Like a brother.

“That time?” I grunt.

He nods slowly, slipping his glass beneath his mask to knock back the last of the whiskey in it. “That time,” he murmurs back.

“You wanna tell Bull that?” I smirk under my mask as I turn and nod with my chin to where our large friend is sprawled on a couch with three half-naked women crawling all over him. “The three of them fighting over who gets to blow him first might impede the proceedings slightly.”

The Stag grunts. “It’s not the pussy I’m worried about.”

I’d follow his blank look through the dark eyeholes of his stag mask, but I already know where he’s staring: at the large glass of whiskey in the Bull’s hand.

“He’s fine. He’s in control,” I say as I stand from my seat.

“For now,” Stag adds dryly.

That’s fair. And a conversation that needs to be had sooner rather than later. But right now, like he said, it’s time for The Black Court to be in session.

“Just ring the bell,” I toss back. “Let’s do this.”

The Stag nods, dropping the subject of The Bull’s fondness for alcohol as he heads toward the other side of the room, where the raised dais sits, five thrones on it.

What? Dramatics are fun.

At the sound of the bell tolling through the underground cathedral, dull and ancient, the entire scene changes. A few couples pick up the pace to finish what they were doing. But most of them know that when that bell sounds, it’s time to stop…well…fucking around, and pay attention to the real reason we’re here.

Adjudication.

All of us, even The Bull, leave whatever we were doing and move to the dais, sitting on our thrones as the crowd fills the chairs before us.

Between us and them there’s a large stone circle set into the ground, and to one side of that sits a table laden with all sorts of menacing-looking instruments of pain: knives, bats, swords, hatchets, hammers…even an old pair of dueling pistols—fucking dueling pistols—that have been used exactly once in all the years we’ve been doing this.

It wasn’t even me that got to use them, fuck you very much, Carmine.

As if sensing my glare, The Hound clears his throat and raps a gavel on the long table in front of us.

“The Black Court is now in session,” he growls. “Bring in the accused.”

Tonight’s a fun one, and not just because it’s my turn to carry out judgement. The Mori-kai yakuza family, primarily based in Tokyo and Kyoto, are moving more operations into New York. Tonight’s fuckwad is a captain who pledged loyalty—with a damn blood marker, no less—to Kenzo Mori, but instead of following Kenzo’s orders and setting up Mori-kai operations here in the city, our star of the evening decided to try and sell his boss out to the fucking Triads.

This is important. And yet as Carmine recites his crimes out loud, all I can think about is her.

Milena Kalishnik, with her perfect little mouth, running like she wanted me to catch her.

I shift again in my seat uncomfortably.

Balls: still swollen and sore.

Dick: still fucking hard.

No matter. Right now, I’ve got blood to spill.

The accused is dragged in, flanked by two Court guards. He’s young, fairly clean-cut, and makes the usual show of bravado, struggling and hurling threats.

If he only knew. His little tantrum barely ranks in the bottom twenty percent of what I’ve seen. Trust me, I have seen some tirades in this Court.

I lean forward, elbows on the table, and study him from behind the snarling face of my wolf mask as he’s shoved to the ground in the middle of the stone circle. When he looks up at us, all the macho bluster from a few seconds ago melts away.

Yeah, five dudes in creepy-ass blank black animal masks sitting in an underground cathedral looking like something out of Eyes Wide Shut will do that.

“Riku Kaito,” Nico says solemnly from behind his Raven mask, “you stand accused of breaking a blood marker—a sacred oath that forms the very foundation of the underworld we all call home. We exist in a world of broken laws, but a blood marker is the one law we must not break, because without it there is chaos.”

Yeah, I’ve heard this a couple hundred times at this point.

Nico clears his throat and then glances toward me.

Time to play.

“You came to New York,” I say slowly, “to oversee Mori-kai operations. You were entrusted with territory, men, and given discretion to act as you saw fit.”

He nods quickly. “Y-yes,’ he stammers. ‘I-I was. I still⁠—”

“You were caught,” I cut in, “communicating with the Red Lanterns, a rival Triad syndicate.”

His mouth opens, then closes again. Fear curdles in his eyes.

“You plotted to sell Kenzo Mori out. Whether it was for power or money,” I shrug, “it doesn’t matter. Because now you stand accused, ready for adjudication.” I turn toward Carmine. “Hound?”

“Guilty.”

The Raven is next. “Guilty,” he echoes his brother.

“Guilty,” I say in slight sing-song voice, my lips pulling into a grin behind the mask. It’s almost time for my favorite part.

The Bull grunts another “guilty”, followed by one more from The Stag.

I’m grinning as I turn to face the prisoner again.

“You have been adjudicated and found guilty by this Court.”

Riku is shaking as I stand from my throne and slowly step off the dais, walking around and stepping into the stone circle with him.

“Now, you have a choice…” My arm indicates the table full of goodies. “Fight?”

Please say it. Pick the fucking dueling pistols, you fucking prick. Do it.

“Or…flight?”

I turn and point to a stone archway across the floor, with ominous shadows and flickering candlelight beyond it.

The labyrinth.

Every guilty person who is sentenced by the Court is given this choice: they can choose to fight and pick their weapon. Or they can choose flight and try to outrun one of us through the labyrinth.

Unsurprisingly, flight is my favorite. Although those dueling pistols…

“Wh-what’s in there?” he croaks, staring in horror at the archway.

“Possibly a way out?” I shrug. “Possibly your death?”

Probably his death.

…Definitely his death.

“Fight or flight,” I mutter again, growing impatient.

He blinks. “I—I’m not sure I understand⁠—”

“Choose. You can fight me. One-on-one. If you survive, you walk out of here.”

His jaw works restlessly as he tries to size me up.

“Or,” I continue, “you can run into the labyrinth. You get a head start. And I hunt you.”

His face drains of color.

The maze only has one exit. I know every dead end. Every turn.

I mean, I did design the damn thing.

Riku glances back at the table of weapons, and his throat bobs again before he glances back at the maze.

“F-flight,” he whispers.

Hoo-fucking-ray. I smile behind the mask, a savage, teeth-baring grin that stretches wide.

Dueling pistols can come another day.

I live for this part.

The kill isn’t the thrill.

The hunt is.

Riku whimpers as the guards grab him and drag him over to the stone archway and the twisting black emptiness of stone and torchlight beyond.

He looks back one last time as I roll my neck.

“I’ll give you twenty seconds,” I call out as he disappears through the entrance, then shrug off my jacket.

I do my best to shove all thoughts of Milena Kalishnik and the way she got under my fucking skin last night out of my head.

Then madness surges through my veins, and I run.

I catch and kill Riku in a matter of seventy seconds.

But Milena?

She stays in my head long after that.

Because that particular hunt has only just begun…