It seemed almost like Tiernan loved him.
I stood there in the masses of New Yorkers bustling past as if time had stood still for me alone. It seemed cruel to say I’d thought Tiernan was totally heartless, but I certainly hadn’t thought he was capable of genuine, compassionate love. How ridiculous of me when it had been staring me in the face this whole time.
Just because Tiernan wasn’t capable of loving me didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it at all.
He’d been good to Brando since the beginning.
Because he loved him.
For whatever reason, my beautiful baby brother had found his way through Tiernan’s fortress of solitude into his heart.
My own panged in my chest like the chords of an old harp, brittle, close to breaking under the strain.
“I think you understand me,” Elena said softly into the silence.
My answer was a long-winded sigh that prompted her to laugh.
“I want to help you, Bianca, I will help you. But I need you to understand that Tiernan is my client so if what you need or want is in direct conflict with him, I can’t be involved.”
“Yeah, I figured,” I said sullenly. “But I understand.”
“You said Tiernan told you that your dad left you an inheritance and he was trying to find it,” Elena mused allowed. I could hear the clack of long nails thrumming on a desk in the background. “Let me quietly ask around to figure out which lawyer handled Lane’s estate. Maybe he or she can give us some answers.”
“Thank you, Elena,” I said, hope bubbling in my chest. “I only need one more thing from you.”
“Anything,” she said instantly, and if it was possible to love someone you barely knew, I did then.
“Where exactly does Tiernan work in the city?”
Inequity was impossible to find unless you knew exactly where to look.
It was down a short flight of stairs like so many other businesses in Soho, but the blue door was nondescript, not even a sign to mark its contents. Just a keypad to one side housed in a black box affixed with a golden lion symbol on the front.
Elena had hesitated to give me the code, but she’d told me where to go.
Happily, a simple phone call to Henrik revealed the combination.
Apparently, it rotated every week to keep members and unwanted intruders on their toes, but that week the six-digit code was my name.
Bianca.
242622.
I tried not to feel that like a punch to the throat, but I was disorientated as the door swung open to reveal a small, almost cramped reception and coat check. Everything seemed almost in a shambles, old and tired, including the older Black man sitting on a stool behind a partition like a coat check attendant.
“Name?” he said, his long, beautiful eyes squinted as he peered at me.
“Bianca Belcante,” I said even though I knew I wasn’t on the list.
To my surprise, the man broke into a wide, toothy grin as white as gum squares. “I’ve been waitin’ for you.”
“Oh?”
He chuckled deeply. “Oh yeah, Miss B, Henrik called me not ten minutes ago to say you were on your way. Charity is waintin’ for ya. Go on in.”
I blinked at him for a moment, trying to understand exactly what the hell this place was. It seemed like the entry to a theatre but even though Tiernan was like something straight out of Shakespearean tragedy, I couldn’t see him associating with theatre or drama in anyway.
The man laughed at my confusion. “I’m Chuck Bentley. I’ve run this door since Tiernan opened ten years ago, you’ll find a lotta shenanigans behind that door, but none of it should kill ya.”
Heartening.
I braced my shoulders and went to the next blue door.
“Password for that one’s 200204,” he called out.
My birthday.
February 20th 2004.
Something in my chest crashed and crumbled into motor and brick filled dust. It felt, terrifyingly, like a section of the walls I’d been trying to build and maintain around my heart.
I punched in the code and opened the surprisingly heavy door.
It was heavy, because it was something like the door to a vault with steel reinforcements and heavy locking mechanisms.
What the hell?
Noise spilled into the little room before I could even fully open it. Sounds of laughing and chatter, a hollow, clanking ping, and technical sounding rattle. The air was warmer there, my new heavy winter coat suddenly suffocating.
And then I saw it.
The lobby.
The ceilings soared above me, golden accents and beautifully rendered designs pulled from various mythologies. There was Zeus with Leda the swan and there was Odin with one eye and his two Ravens. Chandeliers sparkled in domed pockets throughout the massive space, their shine so bright I had to squint when I looked at them.
Below it all was chaos. Sumptuous, sinful chaos.
It was clearly something of an underground casino, but I’d never seen such beautiful slots machines, such lush velvet on the mahogany table tops where poker and Black Jack and whatever else people who gambled played. It wasn’t the blatantly expense of the furnishings and aesthetic that made me draw breath though.
It was the people.
I recognized some celebrities, an older female popstar I’d listened to since I was a kid, a retired soccer player who’d married a famous actress, even a politician or two I’d met when Caroline hosted a charity brunch last weekend. They were all dressed impeccably, expensively, in outfits that put my new nine-hundred-dollar velvet dress to shame.
And it was only five o’clock in the evening.
I had no doubt the group would swell in numbers as the night went on, too.
The opulence and energy went straight to my head as if I’d had too much champagne.
It was magical.
A smile split my face as I stood in the entry surveying Tiernan’s den of inequity like a glutton faced with an endless feast.
When a gorgeous, model thin woman appeared at my side, she was smiling too.
“I see you like it here already.” She had a thick Russian accent that made it seem as if she was speaking around marbles tucked into her cheeks.
“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” I admitted, watching as a staff member in a slinky gold dress served a tray of champagne to gamblers at a roulette table. “I feel a bit like Alice through the Looking Glass.”
She frowned at me, not understanding the reference. “Well, Mr. Wagner asked me to see that you were settled.”
“I’m looking for Mr. Morelli.”
“He isn’t in yet. May I suggest you wait at one of the tables? Mr. Wagner suggested it himself.”
I was guessing Mr. Wagner was Henrik and it was difficult to imagine pink nail polish wearing, prank-loving Henrik as the stern Mr. Wagner in charge of Inequity beneath Tiernan. At the same time, I loved the dichotomy of it. Of Henrik and Tiernan and everyone in Lion Court.
Even, I was coming to understand, in myself.
Giddiness bubbled up my throat and erupted in something like a giggle. “Lead the way,” I suggested.
I learned the Russian woman’s real name was Inga as she led me to one of the lower stakes poker tables where they were playing Texas Hold ’Em. The dealer was also beautiful––I was sensing a theme––and he carefully explained the rules to me while Inga disappeared for a moment. When she returned, it was to settle a massive stack of chips in front of me.