Growing up, I’d been the kid who skipped school and then skipped detention right after that on principle alone. No doubt about it, I’d been a little shit.

But there’d been one day in the ninth grade where I’d managed to keep my ass in class long enough to learn something. English literature. Ms. Mackenzie. She’d been the real reason I’d stuck around, and it was her that I had to thank for discovering Dante’s Inferno and his nine circles of hell.

No one else had found the book intriguing, but to me, it’d felt like I’d found a bible of sorts. Or, at least, a bible for the permanently fallen.

Ms. Mackenzie had thought it funny to test us all, just a little pop quiz to determine in which circle of hell we’d find ourselves. A personality quiz of epic proportions.

The girls giggled into their palms.

The other guys sat forward because, yeah, death and destruction was their thing after playing endless rounds of video games after school.

And me . . . I’d worked down the eraser of my pencil to the nub as I filled out the multiple-choice options. Determined to evaluate my fate by a scaling system some dude had created centuries before I was even conceived.

Pencils down, Ms. Mackenzie asked that we stand when our “circle” was called upon after she read out the answers. The overall average determined which circle we would have found ourselves in had we existed in the book.

One by one, she read out the questions and which answers correlated with which circle.

One by one, everyone stood.

And, one by one, I’d noted that my peers rose in clusters, with most falling into Lust or Limbo, that halfway, in-between spot where you descended no lower but weren’t allowed to enter Paradise.

Not me.

Question after question, I climbed to my feet to find myself in a new circle of hell.

Lust.

Greed.

Treachery.

Violence.

Anger.

Ms. Mackenzie paused, pencil eraser against her cheek, to stare at me when it was all said and done. “Looks like you’re well-traveled, Lincoln,” she said with wide, pretty blue eyes.

The me at fourteen years old had nothing on me at thirty-four, twenty years later, and as I entered my house a week after my implemented suspension, there was no denying that I was on the verge of revisiting every damn one of Dante’s circles all over again.

The bastard sitting at my kitchen table, drinking my Scotch straight from the bottle, would have it no other way.

I snapped the door shut behind me and flicked the dead bolt into place, not that it had done me any good tonight. Dropping my mail onto the entryway table, I schooled my features into the blank mask that had served me well for years.

Almost as well as the .19 tucked into the waistband of my jeans and the second one attached to the concealed ankle holster on my right leg. I’d been safer as a cop than I was now as a civilian, and the irony of that wasn’t lost on me as I took an empty seat at the kitchen table, my back to the refrigerator.

Damn bastard had already taken the seat that kept his back to the wall, and I scraped my chair across the tile so that I had a clearer view of every possible entry into the kitchen.

“Don’t trust me, Lincoln?”

I bristled at that sly, familiar tone. “Last time we were in the same room, you aimed your nine-millimeter at my thigh and fired. Twice.”

Jason Ambideaux, New Orleans’s most infamous real estate mogul, chuckled into my bottle of Scotch. “Ever hear of the saying, ‘let bygones be bygones?’”

It took every last ounce of self-control I possessed not to pull out my gun and unload a clip into the man’s head. Breathe, I warned myself, fingers digging into my thighs. “Should I remind you that you left me to bleed out?” And that maybe I’d like to return the favor, finally.

With his slicked-back hair, dyed black to hide the grays, and the sharp business suit he wore like a second skin, Ambideaux was the physical embodiment of the power he’d wielded over New Orleans for the last twenty years. He was the bane of every competitor’s existence, and those who didn’t acquiesce gallantly to his established rein eventually found themselves face-down in the swamps of the Atchafalaya Basin two hours outside of New Orleans.

My sixteenth birthday had been commemorated with my first Basin run, at Ambideaux’s command.

On the way back to New Orleans, I’d pulled over on the I-10 and vomited until there was nothing left but me dry-heaving on the side of the highway as the clock struck midnight like some fucked up fairy tale. If Cinderella had been given a gun instead of some glass slippers, she wouldn’t have lasted an hour in my life.

At Ambideaux’s silence to my question, I filled it in for him, my temper close to snapping. “Nothing to say?” More silence, each passing second more grating on my nerves than the last.

And then, finally, the bastard spoke: “The scars are worse than they told me.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

The Scotch bottle shattering on the tile coincided with the mouth of my .19 connecting with Ambideaux’s forehead. The force drove his skull into the wall with a sickening thud, and it was there, in the deepest recesses of my soul, that whispered for me to pull the trigger.

Revenge delivered swiftly was never as satisfying, but, goddammit, it would feel good.

“You don’t have the balls, son,” Ambideaux said, voice as even as if he’d been discussing a play by play of the weather and not staring down the barrel of a pistol, “put down the gun.”

I put the gun down all right—dragging it down the center of his face, over the slope of his straight, aristocratic nose, until it settled against the pulse beating at his neck like some sort of hickey of death. Only when Ambideaux’s right eyebrow twitched tellingly did I growl, “It wasn’t enough for you to just let me die, was it?” The mouth of the .19 dug in a little more, my finger resting on the trigger guard. “Nah, you had me driven out to the Atchafalaya and tossed in as fuckin’ gator meat like the rest of them.”

I met his dark eyes. Felt the way he struggled to swallow with my gun jammed against his throat. The grin that spread across my face was one born of vengeance. “What was it you told me right before you pulled the trigger? Oh, yeah.” I leaned in, breath coasting across his face, finger lifting off the trigger guard. “I won’t think any less of you when you piss your—”

Arms clamped around my throat, squeezing off my oxygen supply, dragging me backward.

Pft! Pft!

Splintering glass echoed in my ears as my gun went off before being torn from my hands. Vision swirling, I gasped for breath and let instinct take over, driving an elbow into the body behind me. My attacker was big, but I was bigger, and I dug in my heels and wrapped my hands around his forearms, fully prepared to flip the asshole right over my shoulder and put the .19 at my ankle to good use.

There was always a benefit to being a walking artillery.

With my full weight, I arched my back to get momentum and then snapped my body forward like a slingshot, thighs clenching, knees tight, core flexing. I felt my attacker’s feet come off the floor behind me as I assumed his full weight, and I buckled down, tightening my muscles, ready to—

Cold metal to my forehead stilled the fight in me, and I glanced up, past the barrel of my own weapon, to Ambideaux. His slicked-back hair was disheveled, his pristine suit rumpled, his expression ambivalent.

“You done?”

A sneer caught in my throat, even as gravity dropped the bastard on my back, back onto my kitchen floor. Not even a second passed before he’d readjusted his grip, massive arms binding me once again.

Ambideaux twisted away, setting the Glock on the table, out of my reach. “Sit his ass down and make sure he can’t move.”

Ambideaux’s lackey shoved me into the chair I’d just vacated, then snapped handcuffs around my wrists, the click-click-click of metal sliding into place a completely unmistakable sound. “Benefits to breaking and entering a cop’s house,” he grunted brusquely, “you made this way too easy for me.” He drew up another chair and positioned it behind me. A half-second later, familiar cold metal touched the back of my skull. “We’re all set, boss.”

My fingers flexed in the restraints.

Ambideaux planted his ass on the edge of the table, arms crossed over his chest. “You’re still a hothead, Lincoln.” He shook his head with a low laugh, like I hadn’t just been seconds away from ending his life. “Once a hothead, always a hothead. Damn, but I wish I’d been there when you punched Little Hampton. Would have made my year.”

Grinning at my expense, he added, “Actually, you would have made my life a hell of a lot easier if you’d just”—he mimicked slicing his throat open—“finished off the deed.”

When I opened my mouth to speak, the pressure point at the back of my skull increased. Narrowing my eyes, I gave that pressure right back, leaning my weight into that gun, challenging the owner to get on with it and shoot me.

After a moment, the pressure slackened, and my chest hitched with minute relief.

“I’m going to assume you didn’t bust in here to reminisce about the good old times or talk about how much you want Hampton’s kid dead.” I eyed the gun on the table, then redirected my attention back to my old boss. “So why don’t we cut to the chase and get this over with? Fill in the blank for me. You’re here because of . . .”

“Impatient still, too.” Ambideaux’s mouth quirked up in a humorless grin. “It’s like the last twelve years haven’t existed, wouldn’t you say?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from mouthing off. I wasn’t a hothead, not in the way he remembered. “Just answer the question, Jason. You’re here . . . why?”

“I heard about your suspension.”

Just like that, my heart threatened to leap out of my chest. I yanked forward, caught back by the handcuffs, and then grit my teeth. “It’s not happening.”

Ambideaux sank to his haunches before me, and then the gun at my head angled forward, leaving me no choice but to dip my chin and keep my eyes on the real estate mogul. If he were closer, I’d drive my foot into his chest hard enough to send him sailing backward.

But Jason Ambideaux hadn’t spent years working toward being one of the three most feared men in New Orleans without learning a thing or two. He squatted just out of reach, one hand on his knee, the other on his inner thigh as he watched me.

“A deal is a deal, son,” he murmured, looking not even a little remorseful about playing puppeteer with my life. My mother’s life. “We agreed that for however long you were on the job, I’d leave you alone, but you’ve never been good at stepping back from playing hero.” His dark eyes roved over my face. “Tell me, did you feel like a champ to know that you saved that poor girl from being raped? Or perhaps the other one, too . . . the one a colleague of mine spotted you with outside of the station last week?”

My vision flashed red, my chest heaving with labored breathing as the implication behind his words hit me.

He grinned wolfishly. “Ah, you’re just figuring it out. Good, that’s good.” He tapped his knee as though debating on giving up information. “In case you’re still concerned, Casey’s doing quite well. I believe she opted for a gift card in exchange for her troubles, but I had something more sentimental in mind.”

Sentimental, my ass. Visions of the poor girl sinking into the Atchafalaya Basin etched across my retina, and it was like I was sixteen all over again, feeling the urge to retch after tossing my first dead body into the swampy marshlands. My scars prickled with memories better left forgotten, and I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

“You’ve always been such a saint, Lincoln,” Ambideaux said in a contemptuous tone, “but you can’t save them all.”

Between clenched teeth, I ground out, “I won’t help you. Put a bullet in the back of my head if it’ll make you feel better, I don’t give a shit.”

“And leave your mother as she is? No, I don’t think so.” Knees popping as he stood, Ambideaux picked up the Glock and stared at it, his gaze almost wistful. “A deal is a deal, Sergeant, and you’ve already paid in blood. I agreed to leave you be for as long as you remained with the NOPD, but it seems that you’ve recently been suspended.”

There was no end to the hatred that thrived in my veins. It pulsed, and, like poison, spread through me like an infection. “You fucking bastard,” I spat, “you organized all of this. You really think you can—”

The pistol came out of nowhere, but holy hell, I felt it.

My head whipped to the side as the barrel made contact with my scarred cheek. The metallic taste of blood spurted in my mouth, pain erupting in my tongue as the impact forced me to bite down.

And all the while, the gun at my skull never wavered. If anything, the pressure increased, forcing me to look down completely, chin to my chest.

Like I was bowing to Ambideaux, no matter the fact that I was still slouched on the chair, hands handcuffed behind my back.

The longer I sat there, the drowsier I became. It wasn’t my first concussion and I knew the symptoms well.

Stay awake. You need to stay awake.

It’d be easy to surrender to the darkness, to slip into the abyss and ride out the numbness of my existence until everything went black. Permanently.

Ambideaux had other plans.

His fingers sank into my hair, pulling my head up. I blinked and then blinked again, but no matter how many times my lids fell shut and opened again, he remained a hazy mirage that wouldn’t sharpen.

“This is how it’s going to work, son,” he said, voice chipper for the first time since I’d walked in to find him drinking my Scotch. “I’ve got a little list that I need you to take care of for me. Knowing you, you’ll get it squared away for me before you’re back to work. And if you’re not”—his fingers tightened their grip on my hair and I swallowed a hiss—“I’ll just make sure your suspension ends up being just a little longer. How’s that sound?”

He let me go and set the Glock on the table again, only to ferret around in his suit jacket. He revealed a spiral-bound notebook that he tossed at my feet. “Two are already done, which means that all that’s left are three Basin runs . . . once you’ve taken care of business, of course.”

My gaze latched onto the compact notebook, my stomach turning at the sight of the familiar names. Two dead—Josef Banterelli and Micah Welsh. I hadn’t seen them in years, but I’d still felt a pang of remorse over old times’ sake when I’d heard about their deaths on the news. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why Ambideaux had chosen the Mississippi River as their final resting ground, but the momentary concern was swept away under the frustration bubbling under my skin.

Twelve years. I’d spent twelve years putting this shit with Ambideaux behind me, and even if I’d done runs recently for a few people, nothing had ever been as bad as what Jason enjoyed tasking his “employees” with.

“I should point out that if you’re hoping to get out of this, I’ve left an identical one of those notepads in your desk at the station.” Grinning widely, Ambideaux straightened his suit and turned for the door. “And as we all know, Sergeant, you aren’t allowed to set foot on NOPD property for the length of your suspension or risk being permanently terminated. What a predicament you’ve found yourself in, wouldn’t you say? At the risk of working for me permanently, I suggest you take care of what I’ve given you. Your mother will thank you, I’m sure.”

The door swung open and Ambideaux strolled out, whistling like a damn lunatic.

Another ten minutes passed before the bastard at my back stepped away and flashed me a gold key that he set on the table—on the other side of the table—before following his boss out.

Leaving me alone to my past that was, once again, my present and my foreseeable future.

The sinner.

The executioner.

The man who belonged in every circle of hell.