Kitty frowned, read the message twice, then matched the confident—arrogant—tone to the number and came up with a face. He flowed through her mind, flaunting his disarming smile, twirling the prongs of his beard.

She texted back: sorry busy

It didn’t take Johan long to respond: car is a limo. And a moment later: we’re going somewhere special but u don’t have 2 dress up. just b kitty

This prompted a smile, as surprising as it was welcome. Kitty’s fingers dithered above the keypad. She started to write something, then deleted it. Her thoughts and feelings were at odds. She threw the phone onto the sofa, looked at it for a full minute, then picked it up and, perhaps against her better judgment, texted back:

where r u taking me

The reply came within seconds:

higher ground

6
Higher Ground

Johan had a new tattoo on the back of his left hand, written in the Younger Futhark. He took great pride in his heritage, and felt a savage connection to his Norse ancestors. Other tattoos across his body included Ouroboros, the Horn Triskelion, and the Helm of Awe. Odin’s twin ravens—Huginn and Muninn—flew across his chest, and Yggdrasil, the tree of life, spanned his broad back. Women had journeyed his naked body and asked what each one meant. Others had asked about the weapon mounted over his bed, and he told them: it was a replica of Krókr, a bearded ax wielded by his forefathers, and rumored to have opened the skulls of a thousand men.

“This is beautiful,” Thiago said, pointing at the new tattoo. “What does it mean?”

He was sitting with his new husband, Enzo, on the opposite side of the limo. Both were dressed in Canali suits, one royal blue, one gray windowpane. They had matching Ivy League haircuts, slick with product. Johan could smell the oils they’d worked into their thin, freshly waxed bodies. Xander Cray—his driver and one-man security detail—was also present, along with Liberty Mendoza, a YouTube star who made headlines last year when, high on coke, she’d driven her Maserati into the Torso statue on Rodeo.

There was a magnum of Cristal in an ice bucket on the cocktail bar. There had been molly, too, up until a few minutes ago, but Johan had asked them to clean the colorful little pills away. He had his own product, of course—Xander was holding on to it—but he wasn’t going to waste it on these starfuckers.

“It means the hungry wolf will always hunt.”