Amanda Foody - King Of Fools

Indulge your vices in the City of Sin, where a sinister street war is brewing and fame is the deadliest killer of them all...

On the quest to find her missing mother, prim and proper Enne Salta became reluctant allies with Levi Glaisyer, the city’s most famous con man. Saving his life in the Shadow Game forced Enne to assume the identity of Séance, a mysterious underworld figure. Now, with the Chancellor of the Republic dead and bounties on both their heads, she and Levi must play a dangerous game of crime and politics...with the very fate of New Reynes at stake.

Thirsting for his freedom and the chance to build an empire, Levi enters an unlikely partnership with the estranged son of mafia donna Vianca Augustine. Meanwhile, Enne remains trapped by Vianca’s binding oath, playing the roles of both darling lady and cunning street lord, unsure which side of herself reflects the truth.

As Enne and Levi walk a path of unimaginable wealth and opportunity, new relationships and deadly secrets could quickly lead them into ruin. And when unforeseen players enter the game, they must each make an impossible choice: sacrifice everything they’ve earned in order to survive...

Or die as legends.

Also by Amanda Foody

Daughter of the Burning City

The Shadow Game Series

Ace of Shades

King of Fools

King of Fools

Amanda Foody

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Amanda Foody 2019

Amanda Foody asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9781474083096

Version: 2019-04-24

To Dad, for encouraging all my games, stories, and schemes.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

PART I

EPIGRAPH 2

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

LEVI

EPIGRAPH 3

ENNE

JAC

ENNE

LEVI

JAC

ENNE

LEVI

EPIGRAPH 4

JAC

ENNE

LEVI

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 5

JAC

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

LEVI

LEVI

JAC

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 6

JAC

LEVI

ENNE

PART II

EPIGRAPH 7

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 8

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

ENNE

JAC

LEVI

JAC

EPIGRAPH 9

ENNE

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 10

JAC

LEVI

JAC

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH J

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

EPIGRAPH Q

ENNE

EPIGRAPH K

LEVI

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH A

LEVI

ENNE

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Publisher

PART I

RISK

2

“After the executioner lowered Veil’s body from the gallows, he claimed he couldn’t remove the wrappings covering Veil’s face. He used to wear that black gauze all around his head, you know? Well, the executioner said he couldn’t take it off. That it was part of Veil’s face like his own skin.”

—A legend of the North Side

Ten hours after escaping the Shadow Game, Levi Glaisyer found his destiny slapped onto the side of a dumpster behind St. Morse Casino.

Criminal Wanted Dead or Alive

Accomplice in the Assassination of the Chancellor

If asked, Levi would deny believing in destiny. Five years on the streets of the City of Sin had taught him that destiny and luck were for the desperate and the thickheaded. As a card dealer, he’d often encountered believers bemoaning the mirrors they’d shattered or the white cats they’d passed. They’d rub lucky coins between their fingers or kiss the shriveled remains of a rabbit’s foot, praying for divine intervention in a game that Levi had already rigged.

For Levi, when the cards no longer ran in his favor, he cheated—simple as that. Luck was a mechanism to be devised, and luck and destiny were merely two sides of the same coin.

Yet as he stared at the wanted poster, sirens wailing across New Reynes in search of him, he couldn’t deny that something felt inevitable about this moment. The thought made his heart pound, even with the Augustine bodyguard looming beside him. Everything in Levi’s life, all his dreams and follies and tragedies, had led to this afternoon, to this alley, to this poster, to this single flip of destiny’s coin.

Dead?

Or alive?

Maybe he was meant for more, the feeling of inevitability whispered to him. Maybe this was his new beginning.

He checked his watch. His new beginning was late.

At half past noon, the Casino District was unusually vacant. Gone were the unlucky gamblers, the slovenly drunks, the outrageous street performers, the wandering tourists. The honest and the crooked, the naïve and the wicked had all found their ways home to sleep off whiskey hangovers and mourn empty purses, leaving backwash-filled bottles and half-smoked cigars clustered in the gutters. Despite the lack of patrons, the street’s neon signs continued to flash, the ragtime music continued to hum, and the shows continued to play. No matter who you were, what you’d done, or how little you had, Tropps Street was open for your business.

It was remarkably hot in New Reynes today, even for the mid-June afternoon. Levi’s bodyguard wiped the sweat collecting from his brow and aired out his reeking shirt.

Levi didn’t know or trust this man. But anyone who worked for Vianca Augustine—the owner of St. Morse Casino and the donna of the notorious Augustine crime Family—knew better than to cross her. Regardless of the three-thousand-volt bounty on Levi’s head, this man would follow Vianca’s orders and protect him. Greed always answered to fear.

Again, Levi checked his watch. He’d pace if he weren’t so exhausted and achy from his collection of injuries: two broken ribs, a black eye, several bruises, and a bandaged knife wound. The City of Sin hadn’t been merciful to him these past few days.

After he and Enne had escaped from the Shadow Game and returned to St. Morse, he’d managed a mere five hours of shut-eye before the bodyguard had knocked on Enne’s apartment door and informed Levi that his ride to Zula Slyk’s safe house would soon arrive. Zula owned an illegal monarchist newspaper in Olde Town and, several days prior, had been the one to coldly inform Enne that her mother was dead. If Levi had a choice, he’d never see that heartless woman again. But thanks to Vianca’s unbreakable omerta, Levi never had a choice. Zula’s was safe. What mattered right now was moving from here to there without meeting trouble along the way.