“I HATE YOU,” I MUTTER to Tatum. “I can’t believe you’re making me wear this.”
She laughs, walking out of the bathroom, spraying her Coco Chanel perfume all over herself. “Well, you know I know what’s best for you. Like that dress—that dress is what’s good for you.”
I pick at the skirt. It’s a tight, knee-length, black leather pencil skirt with a split that goes almost all the way up to my hip. She paired it with a thigh chain that dangles over my very exposed leg, and a little bralette crop top. Yes, the outfit is almost no outfit, and because the split is so high, I decided it was either a G-string or commando kind of night. Commando won. I slide on the nude lipstick and ruffle my hair into a nest of tousled mess. “Well,” I mutter, slipping on some red pointy heels. Totally don’t know how this is going to end, what with me in heels and everything, but again, that was Tatum being Tatum.
She snatches her bottle of vodka off the dresser. “Let’s go. Is Sammy driving us?”
I nod. “Yeah, she’s already waiting.”
“And Bishop and Nate?” she asks, going for casual, but I see what she’s doing.
“They’ll meet us there, had something to take care of beforehand.” I don’t know what it was they had to take care of; I didn’t care to ask. I respect there will be some things that Bishop can’t tell me, especially when it comes to the Kings, so I won’t pry for information unless it directly impacts me. Daemon still hasn’t come out of his room, but I try every day. I knock, but he doesn’t answer. I’m not sure what’s going on with him, but all I know is I want to be there for him. Whatever it is he’s going through.
Piling into the limo, Sammy gets into the driver seat and looks at me in the rearview mirror. “You be safe now.”
“I’m always safe, Sammy.”
She rolls her eyes. “Dressing like that is only asking for trouble.”
“Just drive,” Tatum says sassily to Sammy.
“Tate!” I growl her. “Shut up and drink.”
She takes a sip and then passes it to me. “I don’t want to get white girl wasted, but I’ll have a little bit.”
“Myth” by Tsar B starts playing, and I take a sip of the vodka, ignoring the way it stabs my throat when I swallow. “Sammy! Turn it up!” She does as she’s told, winding up the window separator while she’s at it. I give the bottle back to Tatum, and she scoots over beside me. “Oh! Selfie! Right now.” I move next to her and she snaps a hundred different selfies. All ranging from serious to duck face, to smiles, laughing, to funny faces. I laugh, leaning back in my seat, and look to Tatum. “I enjoy our friendship. You know that, right?”
She waves me off. “Don’t go soppy.”
“I’m not!” I reply defensively. “Okay, maybe just a little, but I just don’t want you to feel left out now that Bishop and I are….”
“Are…?” she prompts, an eyebrow raised. She must realize she’s being a brat, because she rolls her eyes, her shoulders dropping. “Look, okay, I’m just worried he’s going to hurt you.” After drinking some vodka, she hands me the bottle.
“With good reason, but I don’t think he will.” I stare in front of me, watching the tinted back window and the headlights of the car following us.
“What? So you’re in love?” she asks.
I take a long pull of the vodka. Longer than I intended. I really wasn’t planning on getting drunk tonight, but with the way this conversation is going, I’m going to be legless before we even reach the party, and that will probably do all sorts to piss off Bishop. Only because he’s not there right now—I don’t think.
“I don’t know. Love is a weird word.”
“It’s not a word, Mads.” Tate looks at me, taking the vodka from me and bringing it to her lips. “It’s a feeling.”
“Well, I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“Then it’s love.”
Turning my head, I look at her. “What do you mean?”
“It is what it is, Mads. You’re in love with him, and for that reason alone”—she shoves the vodka into me—“you’re going to need this a lot more than me.”
I take it from her, taking another swig. “So you and Nate?”
She freezes then taps on the divider window. “Yo! Sammy! When are we there, homie?”
I laugh, fits of giggles erupting from my belly. She looks at me, pauses, and then starts laughing too. We’re both swiping the tears from our eyes when the car stops outside of Carter’s house, music blaring out and people already standing outside on his front porch drinking.
“Gah, I don’t feel like going in now.”
She laughs. “Just because you have a man to go home to, bitch. Come help me find my next victim.”
“What?” I smirk as she opens her door. “You’re not going to be in the room next to mine?”
She pauses then pushes open the door. “Okay, no, I won’t be. I wanted something more, and he couldn’t give it to me because apparently, he’s into someone else. I can have him for sex only.”
I step out of the car, thanking Sammy briefly and telling her I’d text her if we need a ride home. “You don’t want that?”
She swallows, a sad look passing through her eyes. “With him? Unfortunately, not. I caught fucking feelings.”
Hooking my arm with hers, I nudge my head toward the house. “Well, let’s go get you a bed bud then!”
She grins, tilting the vodka up to her lips and swallowing. “Sounds brilliant.”
Passing all the drunken people on the porch, I push open the front door just as my phone starts ringing in my little bag. I pull it out, blocking one ear to cut out the music, and search for a quiet corner to talk to Bishop.
“Bishop?” I yell into the phone, trying to drown out the music.
“Madison? Go home. Now!”
“What?” I can’t hear his words properly; every time he says something, someone does something loud.
“Bishop?”
“Fuck!” he roars down the phone. I heard that.
“What did you say before?” Finally finding a bathroom, I close the door, the deep bass shaking through the walls.
“I can hear you now.”
“Good. You need to leave right now. I’m on my way.”
“What? Why?”
“Just fucking do it, Madison. For fuck’s sake, I will kill you myself—”
Banging on the door interrupts. “Hang on. Wait there. Someone is knocking like they’re the fucking five-oh.”
“Madison!” he screams, just as I pull open the door.
“What the fu—” I pause, tilting my head. “Brantley?”
“Is that Bishop?”
I look down to my phone. “What? Yeah?”
“You can hang up. Come on, I’ll get you out of here.”
Swallowing past my distrust, I put the phone back into my bag, not hanging up. I’ve got scattered memories as a kid of Brantley and me, but I don’t trust him. Every memory I have of him, which there is only one or two, it’s clear he hates me. Even now, I see that he still hates me. Why though? I don’t understand why he hates me.
“Madison?” Brantley pulls me into his side, his mouth coming to my ear. “There are some people here who are going to take you. I know you don’t trust me, but you trust Bishop, who trusts me.”
Wait!
“Wow! What?” I pause, just as we’re about to get to the door. I look over my shoulder briefly, watching Tatum bump and grind up against some hottie to a techno song. How different our lives are going, like two different lanes. “I don’t want….” I shake my head.
Brantley pulls open the front door and grips me around my arm, squeezing roughly. I look down at his grip and then look back to his face. “That’s too hard.”
“Shut the fuck up.” We reach the end of the path just as a black limo pulls up, one much like ours. The back door swings open and Brantley grabs my hair, shoving me into the dark interior.
“Agh!” I scream, crawling to the corner of my chair.
Brantley gets in after, sitting beside me and unbuttoning his suit. “What the fuck?” I scream at him, but his eyes haven’t moved. They’re stationary, stuck on someone in front of him. When I follow his sight, I suck in a shocked breath. Not someone, someones.
Bishop’s dad, Hector, sits directly in front of me, and though I cannot see the man who is next to him due to the shadows cast over his spot, I see he’s wearing a suit to match Hector’s. “Um?” I clear my throat.
Hector just stares at me, fascinated. He’s more than intimidating; he’s downright lethal. He sucks the oxygen out of everyone sitting in the space. Now I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for Bishop.
He clears his throat. “You’re quite the nuisance, Madison.”
I look to Brantley, hate brewing in my gut. I trusted him; Bishop trusted him. That must be why Bishop told me to leave. I look back at Hector. “Wish I could say I was sorry.”
Hector pauses, tilts his head, and then chuckles, pulling a cigar out from his suit jacket. “Well, I guess you have been reaping all the benefits.”
“Why am I here?” I ask, sounding way more confident than I really am.
He rests his ankle on his knee, taking a puff of his cigar. “I thought it was about time you were filled in on something. A few things, actually.”
“Oh?” I whisper out hoarsely. Secrets revealed just gives him more of a reason to kill me if he wants, but I’ll take it.
“Does the name Venari mean anything to you, Madison?” His eye squints as the smoke puffs past.
Swallowing, I close my eyes, shutting out my early distant memories.
Don’t remember.
Let it go.
Build the wall and stay over it.
“No.” I open my eyes and plaster a fake smile. “It doesn’t.” Wall back up.
He narrows his eyes at me, as if to try to read my mind. He won’t find anything by trying, just darkness and pain I’ve suppressed from childhood memories. Memories I used to fight every day to forget. But I’m curious how he knows that name. “Why?”
The limo stops and he looks to Brantley, gesturing toward the door. “Let’s take a walk down memory lane.”
He gets out of the car and I follow, shutting the door behind me. Walking around to the front of the car, the bright headlights beam up toward the log cabin.
Brantley steps up beside me as we both watch the front door. “Bishop may be the king of the Kings, but he forgets there’s a higher power than him. His dad.”
I know this already, as I’m sure Bishop knows this too. Hector smiles at Brantley and pats him on the shoulder. “Good boy.” Then I watch as he walks into the cabin.
“Brantley,” I whisper. “What the fuck is going on here?”
He doesn’t answer. He simply gestures toward the door, but it’s not in an insolent way. His jaw is clenched, and there’s fire in his eyes. He’s not happy; actually, fuck that—he’s pissed.
“I believe you already know who this is.” Brantley puts a cigarette into his mouth and lights it, just as Hector steps down the cabin steps with—
I gasp, my legs turn to jelly, and my stomach recoils, breakfast threatening to come up.
Brantley’s lip curls. “Daddy dearest, AKA—Lucan Vitiosus.” Voices come in and out, my head pounding as memories start flooding back. All the hard work over the years I put into blocking them out doesn’t mean shit now, because the wall hasn’t just dropped. I look up, my eyes connecting with my childhood abuser, and that wall shatters to a million pieces. There’s no rebuilding that.
Sucking in a shaky breath, I turn around and go to run, only someone steps in front of me, blocking me from going further, and I fall flat on my ass. That person isn’t Brantley, because I see Black Converse shoes and tight yoga pants. I bring my eyes up to the small torso and frame until I’m met with one of the most exotic-looking girls I have ever seen in my entire life. Her black hair floats effortlessly and naturally down over her chest, her eyes curve in almonds, and her skin holds a natural golden tint. She’s stunning in an obvious way. The kind of way that she’d gain attention anywhere she goes no matter what she’s wearing. All that beauty gets washed out when she opens her mouth.
“You’re so much prettier in photos.” She tilts her head, and I stand to my feet, brushing off the dirt from my butt.
“Who the fuck are you?” I whisper out, I meant it to be harsher than it came out, but with tears pouring down my cheeks, I’m not in a very badass state right now.
Hector appears beside me and tsks. “Madison, play nice with Khales. She’s a good little puppet.”
I freeze. All thought processes mute, and my skin prickles to life. Khales?
I say the first thing that comes up in my head. “I thought you were dead.”
She laughs, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Naw, honey, there’s so much”—she steps toward me and presses her finger to the tip of my nose—“you just don’t know.”
I step backward, squaring my shoulders. Is she intimating? Yes. But I’ve grown accustomed to being around a pack of wolves, so instead of running from them, I learned how to play with them. If she thinks I’m going to roll over and submit to her ways, she’s deluded. Even if I’m feeling emotional about coming face-to-face with Lucan, I won’t bow to her. “I don’t doubt that at all, but why am I here?” I look to Hector. “Where is your son?”
Hector puts a cigar in his mouth. “He’s not here.” He lights the tip of the cigar and rolls it around in his mouth. The silence between all of us borders on awkward, so I turn around to focus all of my attention on Hector.
“And what exactly do you want with me? And why is she alive? Does Bishop know? Does anyone know? Why bring him out?” I point toward Lucan, the mere sight of him making my head spin and my hand itch. I think I’ve passed the shocked phase. I can feel myself slowly brewing, my anger like a swimming pool of lava at the bottom of a volcano, ready to erupt.
I look back to Khales. “And who are you, by the way?”
Hector shakes his head. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is this—”
“No.” The word is instant and automatic.
“Oh?” Hector’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “I see you’ve grown a little backbone now that you’re not hiding behind my son.”
I tilt my head and watch as the gray cloud of smoke floats into the dark night. “I never hid behind your son. He shielded me. There’s a difference.”
Hector leans back onto the car, and I step back a little so I can see both him, Khales, Brantley, and Lucan in my peripheral vision. “And anyway,” I add, shooting a glare at Brantley, who is standing on the other side of the car. “Loyalty and all that—right, Brantley?”
“You don’t know shit about loyalty,” Khales murmurs, stepping up to me, chest-to-chest. I can feel her breathing labor as she looks down her nose at me.
I stand up straighter and match her stare. I don’t know who I’m kidding; I’ve never been in a fight before, but I won’t let someone hit me and get away with it. “You don’t know shit about the shit I know, Khales, so step the fuck back.”
“Okay, girls.” Brantley grins, stepping between the two of us. “As much as this is getting my dick hard, we need to stay focused.”
“You’re disgusting,” I mutter to Brantley, eyeing him up and down. I don’t know what he’s playing at or why he’s here. I’m not even 100 percent sure if he’s on our side anymore.
“One question,” I state, looking directly at Brantley. “Your birthday party, when we were little….”
Brantley’s face drops. Hector remains quiet, watching me carefully.
“What of it?” Brantley asks, folding his arms in front of himself.
“What happened that day?” I whisper, leaning against the car. “I mean, I remember vague parts, but not all of it.”
“So, what?” Brantley snarls. “You suddenly having memories and shit now?”
“No!” I snap back. “I just want to know why no one told me about this earlier.”
Brantley looks to Hector, then to Lucan, who then looks to me.
Hector then looks to Lucan. “What birthday?”
My eyebrows pinch. “Wait!”
Brantley freezes.
Closing my eyes, I think back, digging for more from that day, but I was so young… so young.
“Where are we going?” I asked the man. He was the same man who hurt me at night. I didn’t know why he hurt me, but he’d tell me not to tell any adults. I had to respect my elders, so I didn’t tell a soul, afraid I’d get into trouble.
“You’ll see, Silver,” he murmured, his rough hand clutching onto mine as he pulled me down a long, dark hallway. We passed so many doors. All of them the color red. Not a nice red, a blood red. He stopped at a door, a door that had Vitiosus on a gold plate hanging on the door. I looked up at the man, tilting my head. Over the time he hurt me, it would only ever be in my bedroom. I didn’t know why he had brought me here. To this place.
He pushed open the door and gestured toward the room. “Go and get on the bed, Silver.”
“No!” I scream, dropping to the ground. Shaking my head, I clutch my hair and pull at it, wanting to scratch the memories out of my head.
“Madison!” Who is that? It sounds like Bishop. “Brantley—”
Looking toward the bed, I swallowed, slowly stepping into the room. It was a big room. Gigantic. It was dim, almost dark in the room, and there was a big bed sitting to the side. I looked closer, stepping toward the bed, my heart beating in my chest and my throat clogged. All the lights were dim, but there was one shining on the bed, only when I got closer, I saw it was a camera sitting on a stand with a light pointing toward the mattress.
My eyebrows pulled together. “Wha—”
“Go to the bed, Silver.” That voice. I hated that voice. I felt sick, my tummy not feeling good. Something was wrong, like it was always wrong when he was around. I hated him, but I obeyed because that was what I’d been told to do. I had to listen to adults; they always knew best. But why did he make me feel dirty? No other adult made me feel dirty. He made me sad, hurt, and angry all at once. I was confused, I think.
Walking toward the bed, I stopped at the foot of it. There was a small boy curled up on top of the covers, but he was wearing no clothes. Why was he wearing no clothes? He must’ve been cold.
“Silver, on the bed!” Lucan raised his voice at me, and I flinched, quickly crawling onto the soft mattress.
“Hi,” I whispered out to the boy who was crying. “What’s wrong?” I asked, wanting to know why he was so sad. Did he feel like I did? Did Lucan make him feel the same way I felt?
The boy sobbed then buried his head into the blanket. “Go away!” he yelled as he continued to cry. He was angry and sad, so maybe he did feel the same way as I did.
I stopped, sitting on the mattress as Lucan loosened his tie and pointed the camera at us. “Silver, take your clothes off.”
“No!” I scream, sweat oozing out of my flesh. “Leave me alone. My name isn’t Silver! It’s Madison! Madison Montgomery! I’m not Silver!” I rock back and forth on the gravel road, trying to pull myself out of the memory.
“I—what about the boy?”
Lucan looked toward the boy on the bed, his lip curled. “Brantley, make room for Silver.”
My eyes pop open and I shoot off the road, ignoring the tiny stones that are embedded into my flesh. “Brantley!” I scream.
Brantley turns to face me, a blank look pulling over his features.
I turn pale, all blood leaving my body. The pain, the anger, the sadness, it’s all been cracked open again, and suddenly I’m that scared little girl again.
“What the fuck are they talking about?” Hector booms, losing his cool slightly. “And what the fuck just happened there, Madison?”
Headlights flash up the cabin, but I ignore them. I ignore everything.
And suddenly, rage. Pure rage electrifies me like a rush of adrenaline. Squaring my shoulders, I finally look directly at Lucan, the man who abused me as a child. The man my parents trusted. The man I thought I could trust. The man who made me keep secrets by using his “I’m an adult” card on me.
The man I want to kill.
“You!” I seethe.
His eyes join with mine, and he still looks the same, only older. So much older. His head is bald now, his face free of hair, but his eyes. His eyes will forever be the trigger to that feeling. That same feeling I felt when I was a little girl starts slowly slipping into me, but I fight it. I’m not her anymore. I’m older. More experienced. And though I may feel this pain for the coming months after being face-to-face with him, I know whatever I do it will be worth it. Car doors close in the distance behind me, but again, I ignore it. I ignore everything because my focus is solely on Lucan. Everything in my peripheral is closed.
I can hear people, or someone, walking toward us behind me, their feet crunching against the gravel, but I ignore it.
He chuckles. “Ain’t no one gonna believe you, Silver.”
The footsteps stop.
Ice cold wind whips my hair across my face, and that’s when I know. I know those footsteps belong to Bishop and the Kings.
Lucan lunges at me, gripping my hair and pulling my back up against his front. It happens so fast I barely blink, but when I do, I see them. With my back pressed against Lucan’s front, his gun pressing against my temple, I look pleadingly right at Bishop, but he’s not looking at me. His shoulders are rising and falling in anger, his eyes zoned directly in on Lucan.
“What the fuck is going on here, son?” Hector asks calmly, not fazed I’m about to get my brains blown out everywhere. My heart pounds in my chest, and goose bumps prickle all over my flesh as fear ripples through me. No. There’s no way. I didn’t survive through all the memories, all the suppressed bullshit, only to go out by his hands. His hands already took so much from me; I won’t let them take my life too.
Bishop steps forward, his lip curled and his eyes black. So black. I’ve not seen this look before; this is feral. Casting a look over his shoulder, Nate is there, the same position, his knuckles cracking. He starts jumping in his spot, craning his neck as if he’s ready to fight. Which I have no doubt he is. The rest of the boys are there too, ready to throw down if they need to. Whether they know the story or not, I see it right there. Their loyalty to Bishop. It’s unquestionable. This is The Elite Kings in full form.
“Ah!” Lucan presses the gun into my temple more. “Don’t fucking move. Now, since people will be dying tonight, I want to get a few things out there for Silver so she knows the deal.”
“Don’t call me that,” I hiss, my lip slightly curling.
“Hey, I’m doing you a favor.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughs, his breath falling over my neck. I can’t hide the disgust; I dry heave, ready to spill my guts all over the road.
“What the fuck is going on?” Hector asks again.
Where is Brantley? This was all a setup. He and Khales are nowhere to be seen. I look around again, as much as I can from the position I’m in, and sure enough, they’re both not where they were a few minutes ago.
Hate.
“First, let me start with this. Silver, do you know much about the last names of these boys here?”
What?
“The hell has that got to do with you and what you did to me all those years ago?”
“I’ll get to that part.” He grins. I can hear it in his sick voice how much he’s getting out of this, and that’s the thing about age. The tone of your voice is one of the last things to change. Therefore, Lucan still has the same voice.
“What are you doing, Lucan?” Hector warns. His tone should be enough to put the fear of God into Lucan, but it doesn’t, because he continues.
“Hector and Bishop Hayes… Hayes meaning ‘The Devil,’” he starts, and just as I open my mouth to ask another question, his hand slams over it, pausing me. “Everyone shut the fuck up and let me finish, or I swear to God I will shoot her.”
He clears his throat, before smugly murmuring, “Now, where was I? Oh yes, the names. Lucan and Brantley Vitiosus. I’ll get to the meanings of the names and the English translations when I’ve finished.” He laughs. Then his lips skim over my earlobe before he whispers, “and you know how theatrical I can get, don’t ya, Silver?”
The first teardrops, followed by anger. Rage.
He continues. “Max, Saint, and Cash Ditio. Phoenix and Chase Divitae. Raguel, Ace, and Eli Rebellis.” He laughs at these last two. My eyes shoot toward Nate, who is now being held back by Chase and Cash. He looks absolutely feral. The lack of light and smudged tears in my eyes make for hard looking, but even if I couldn’t see it, I could sure as fuck feel it.
Lucan carries on. “Nate Malum-Riverside.” Then he laughs, bringing his lips to my ear again.
I shut my eyes, fighting the bile that’s about to spew out of my mouth from not just his proximity, but his touch. “Johan, Hunter, Jase, and Madison Venari.”
I freeze. All life drains from my face.
“You hear that, Silver? You’re adopted… you and that skitzo brother of yours.”
What? More tears spill out of my eyes. This can’t be true. There’s no way. He’s fucking with me. My dad is my dad and my mom was my mom. Lucan is being what he is.
I look at Bishop, who is finally looking directly at me, and I see it. The look. It’s the look he gives me when it’s just us together. His eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes are zeroed into mine.
Not only is it true, but he knew.
Sobs wrack through my body, and my knees buckle, but Lucan yanks me back up. “Careful, careful… maybe you can talk with your man here about the meanings of those last names and what they mean in regards to each family’s duty in The Kings, but let me tell you this, Silver,” he whispers so harshly into my ear. “When you know all there is to know about this—they will kill you.”
I don’t care.
I’m adopted. My whole life was a lie. I was wrong. I can’t trust anyone. I can only trust Daemon. Daemon. His face lights up inside my head, but instead of it soothing me, it brings on another set of tears.
“So I’ll make this easier for you and tell you the big firework kicker!” he yells, laughing hysterically. Leaning down, I pause, my heavy breathing the only thing breaking the silence.
“You—”
A gun fires and Lucan screams, his hand loosening from around my mouth as he falls to the ground.
I freeze, static buzzing in my ears from the gunshot.
Pain.
Anger.
Rage.
Rage.
Rage.
Heat rises inside of me as I think over everything. His touch when I was a kid. What he made me do to Brantley. And what he made Brantley do to me as a kid.
“Stop!” I scream, my eyes unblinking and fixed on the car in front of me.
Silence.
I slowly turn around, noticing Bishop is beside me, kneeling down next to Lucan, who is bleeding out on the road.
I look at Lucan, tilting my head. Smiling, I whisper out, “Seeing you in pain soothes my anger.”
Lucan looks at me square in the eye. “I will live in your memories, Silver. Forever.”
Squaring my jaw, I bend down to Bishop’s level, bringing my hand to his boot. I feel up toward where I know he keeps a knife. I feel him freeze, realizing what I’m about to do, but before he can stop me—if he was going to stop me—I unclip the holster and pull out the large hunting knife then slowly raise it into the air. Lucan’s eyes follow it slowly.
“You see this?” I run my pointer finger down the blunt side of the knife. “It’s a Fallkniven A1Pro Survival Knife.” I smirk, admiring how the boys—except for Bishop, he’s still crouching beside me—watch me with awe, or fear, or a combination of both, and are all standing behind me. They have my back—but I won’t need it. I launch the knife into Lucan’s pelvis area until I feel his bones crunching against the blade. He screams out, a loud, curdling scream, his back arching and tears pouring down his face.
I bend down to his ear, running my lips over the lobe like he did to me not long ago. Feeling his blood spilling over my hand, I grin and whisper, “You know, since you love to be theatrical… this knife is a survival knife.” I circle the blade, my hand sticky from his blood. It blankets my anger, soothing it like an ice pack on a burn. Putting out the pain.
Pulling the knife out from him, I inch backward, both hands wrapped around the blade, ready to stab it into his head. Needing it to finally put out the burn I have inside me. The burn has only been temporarily eased, when Brantley appears, snatches the knife out of my hand, and stabs it right between Lucan’s eyes. Blood sprays out all over me, the tang of blood overpowering every taste bud in my mouth.
Brantley screams, veins popping out from his neck, his eyeballs almost bulging from their sockets. He has anger; I was right. He has anger just like I did, if not more, because Lucan was his father.
My breathing slows, and when Lucan’s head drops to the side, his death stinking up the air, I collapse into Bishop, my head resting on his shoulder.
He wraps his arm around me, kissing me on the head, as Brantley pulls the knife out of his dad and launches it back into him again. And again. And again. I flinch, digging my face into Bishop. His smell, his just—Bishop. The only sound I can hear is Brantley slicing into Lucan. Again and again.
“Come on, baby,” Bishop says into my hair when he sees Brantley isn’t stopping anytime soon.
“Well,” Hector says, and I turn in Bishop’s grip to face him but away from Brantley making dues with his abusive dad. “This is all lovely, but do any of you fuckers want to tell me what the fuck is going on and why my right-hand man is dead? Brantley, hear that? He’s dead so you can stop that now.” Hector pauses, looking at the mess Brantley has created, and then shrugs like he sees that type of shit daily. He probably does. Actually, all of them seem unbothered by it.
Bishop squeezes me into him. “Lucan would rape Madison when she was a little girl.”
Hector sucks from his cigar, but just there, below the surface, I can see it enrages him somewhat, and that surprises me because he’s Hector Hayes. I wouldn’t think something like that would bother him. He must catch my notice in him, because he laughs.
“Don’t take it to heart, sugar. I personally don’t like you, for a lot of reasons.” He looks at his son and then back to me. “But I don’t condone rape.”
“And…” Bishop pauses but then continues. “…and Brantley.”
The stabbing sound has stopped; now it’s sobbing. Not the quiet sobbing, it’s the ugly kind, and I turn in Bishop’s embrace, finally bracing myself to look toward Brantley.
He has his arms wrapped around his knees and is rocking beside what is left of Lucan. Blood drips from his hair, face, and hands, but he just rocks, sobbing loudly. “I didn’t want to. Why? Why did you have to make me do it? All those times….” He shakes his head. My heart snaps. I slowly start to walk toward him, when Bishop grabs onto my arm.
I turn to face him, and he shakes his head. “Don’t.”
“What do you mean, don’t? No wonder he hates me, Bishop,” I whisper, searching Bishop’s eyes. “He needed someone to blame, so he blamed me for what his father made us do that day. He blamed me, because if I didn’t exist, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Bishop shakes his head. “No, babe.” But then his eyes go over my shoulder.
“Thirty-seven,” Brantley whispers from behind me, and I quickly spin around to face him. “Thirty-seven young girls.”
What? I want to ask, but I don’t in fear that he might snap at me. Instead, I remain silent, hoping he will say more, which he does.
He looks at me, the headlights from the car shining on his face now that he’s level with it. Blood paints his face and clothing, the knife gripped in his hand. He tosses the knife over and it lands near Bishop’s feet. “You’re right though,” he starts, sidestepping around the mangled corpse on the ground. “I hated you. I never understood why you came back. When we were kids, at my birthday party, I hated all kids, not just you, but my father had already started talking about what he was going to get us to do together.” He pauses. “When you started Riverside, I didn’t know at first whether you remembered me or not. At first, I thought you did remember and you were—I don’t know—fucking with us after some revenge for what Lucan did.” Shit, that makes a whole lot of sense. “But also…” He pulls out a pack of smokes and puts one into his mouth, lighting it. “…you were my first. So there was hate for you from that as well. I didn’t make the Silver connection to The Silver Swan, which I should have. I’m an idiot for not making that connection. I just figured it was because of your eyes. They’re murky green now, but when you were a kid, they were silver.”
I nod, because they were. It was always strange.
He steps up to me, leaving the smoke in his mouth. “Do you feel that?” he asks, tilting his head.
I look deep into his eyes, a sense of peace washing over me. The fire I had burning for so many years from undying hate toward Lucan had gone out. Smiling, I nod. “Yeah.”
He blows out a cloud of smoke. “At least that’s one of us.” He narrows his eyes at me.
I frown. “You still hate me?”
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “No, fuck.” His eyes dart around the place. “It’s just—never mind. But I don’t hate you. I feel peace with you now.” Then he smiles. The first time I have ever seen Brantley smile, and it’s at me. I want to jump on him and hug him, but that’s probably going too fast for him. Baby steps.
Turning back around, wrapping my arms around Bishop, I look over his shoulder, directly at Hunter and Jase. My brothers. Biological brothers with Daemon.
Hunter steps backward, shaking his head and walking straight toward the parked car, slamming the door behind him. I frown, my shoulders dropping. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t for Hunter to act like that. He’s always been warm toward me.
Jase just stares at me, his dark eyes glued to mine. The last string in my heart is about to snap when he smiles at me. Giving me a wink. For the older brother, that surprises me. I haven’t spent much time with Jase, if any, but I know in that moment that will change.
Bishop tucks me under his arm as the rest of the boys walk back to the cars. He looks at his dad. “Want me to call Katsia about this mess, or do you want to?” he asks his dad, nudging his head toward the destruction on the road.
Hector looks at me and then looks at Bishop. “I’ll call her.” Then he looks to me. “There was a reason for my bringing you here tonight, and it wasn’t that.”
I sink into Bishop, and his grip tightens around me. “Though, I did plan to tell you that you’re adopted.” He looks to Bishop. “But you see, as much as I love my son, he did something bad tonight. Something that is against our rules. And we only have one rule, Madison.” Hector looks right at me, and chills break out over my flesh. “So now that your adoption is exposed, I guess it’s only fair I find something else to tell you since my son is so trigger happy tonight.”
I look up at Bishop. Trigger happy?
Hector steps forward, pushing his hands into his pockets. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the initiation process of a King?” he questions, looking at me. I nod. “Very good. So you know…” He gestures behind him, and Khales reemerges from the shadows. Bishop freezes, his grip turning to steel. “…that Khales was Bishop’s…” My head spins and my stomach recoils. Someone else steps out of the shadows. “…as was your adopted ‘mother.’”
The End
Tacet a Mortuis (Whispers from the Dead), the final book told from Madison, and now, Bishop, coming soon.