Bleeding from her lip.
“Winner!” Ash yelled.
She still wasn’t done, though. She bared her teeth at Junior and then flashed him what looked like a pink lacy bra.
His eyes immediately dropped.
And then so did he.
“Son of a bitch, Serena!” Junior cupped his balls. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Ha-ha,” She swiped the blood from her lip. “Oh, and PS I’m buying you an apron for Christmas now instead of that Rolex. You’re welcome.”
“Crawl, man.” I shook my head. “Just crawl right back to her, say you’re sorry, and give her a pony.”
Ash chuckled into his bottled water as Junior did just that, and then the kitchen was silent.
When they came back about a half-hour later, he had lipstick on his neck, and she was flushed.
“You got a little something.” I pointed to his everything. “Like everywhere, and probably places I don’t even want to know.”
“She likes marking her territory with bright things.” He winked.
Ash stood. “Yup, could have gone my whole life without that mental picture. Thank you for officially ruining red lipstick for me, man. Really, I appreciate it.”
“Anytime.” Junior shrugged, and then his eyes fell to me. “You said you needed a minute. It’s been nearly forty-five. Is this conversation private, or—”
“Kind of, yeah, it’s personal. Let’s go out on the balcony, it’s a nice day.”
“I’ll bring you guys a pot of coffee,” Serena said cheerfully, earning a weird glance from Junior. “What? I just don’t like being told what to do.”
Junior wiped down his face with his hands.
Ash snorted. “Don’t look so grumpy. You at least get sex out of this… with my cousin.” And then, as if remembering his gaze shot to mine. “And you with my sister.”
“Really, really not ever letting it go, are you?” I groaned.
“Never. It’s going to be on my gravestone.” He grinned.
“That’s… weird.” I pointed to the sliding glass doors. “Let’s go, I’ve got an appointment.”
Once we were nearly outside, Ash looked over his shoulder. “Should I be concerned that Maksim and Izzy haven’t even looked up from his phone?”
He glanced ahead again just as Maksim grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips.
Junior and I both shared a look, then we both spoke at once.
“Nah man, he’s harmless.”
“Total science nerd, probably can’t even you, know… sex.”
I mouthed “sex?” at him.
Junior winced
Ash visibly relaxed. “Good, because I don’t want to kill one of her best friends. He’s the only one who will help her with her science homework.”
“That would be because he’s a genius.” Everything that seemed hard in school for any of us was like breathing to Maksim, and sometimes it made him an idiot when it came to all the other things like the fact that Izzy had been in love with him since he sat down next to her one day, pointed at her textbook and said, “Osmosis.”
As we all stood on that balcony, the breeze picked up, and suddenly I was pushed into the past, when I’d first met Junior, here at this house, when we’d finally become something more than friends—brothers.
“I have to do something hard today.” I licked my dry lips. “I just want you guys to know I don’t want to, and if something goes wrong…”
Junior’s head turned, his teal eyes narrowing. “If there’s potential for something to go wrong, then maybe we should come with you?”
“You can’t go where I’m going.” I looked down. “Not this time, man.”
Ash leaned up, crossing his arms. “Now you’re starting to freak me out. Did one of the bosses give you a job or something while you were here?”
“Yeah. And I can’t exactly say no because a lot of people will die if I do.”
“Shit, man, how deep are you right now?” Junior lowered his voice. “You know we got you, right?”
He was like a brother, the concern in his face was real, but that was the hard part; it had to be real, didn’t it?
And I’d sworn an oath I would do anything to keep her safe.
From them.
Wow, a year ago, I would have never thought it would come to this.
And now that it had?
I didn’t feel like me; I felt like someone else watching it take place, like a bad movie you can’t look away from.
“When do you take off?” Ash asked.
“Now.” My voice shook. “Look, if something goes… sideways, I’m leaving the briefcase on the table for you, call Phoenix, and make sure that you burn it all.”
“What the fuck, man?” Ash shoved me. “You can’t just say shit like this to us, not after Cl—” A spasm of pain claimed his face. He still couldn’t bring himself to say her name, and now he would hate me more than he hated himself for not protecting her—the hate that my brothers would have for me.
Forgiveness wasn’t in my future, at least not that I could see.
It all went back to that day.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, pulling me into a hug. “We’ll fix this.”
You tried, Phoenix, in the only way you knew how.
And now it was my turn to do the fixing.
“I don’t like this,” Ash said again.
“Well.” I patted him on the shoulder then squeezed. “Welcome to the mafia, right?”
“Damn mafia.” Junior sighed. “Just give us a call when you’re safe.”
“Yup.” I gave him a quick hug and then Ash.
They didn’t see my hands shake with bitter anger.
Could they sense the loss of this clinging in the air? The loss of us? Could they tell that I was walking out of here, but I would never be walking back in.
I poked my head in the kitchen. “Hey, Serena, I’m gonna take off.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re pale.”
“Thank you?”
Something changed in her stance, and then she was walking over to me and pulling me into her arms. “Violet’s gonna be okay, I promise.”
I sighed; she had no idea how badly I needed to hear that. “Thanks, Serena, you’ll always be my favorite.”
“Back at ya.” She winked.
King was back downstairs with Maksim and Izzy. I gave them both side hugs, probably freaking them out, and then I met King’s eyes, and I knew he knew.
He fucking knew.
“No.” He shook his head. “No.”
“King—”
“You promised me!”
Tears filled my eyes. “I’ve been given no choice.”
“You promised!” he roared.
And then he was throwing punches, and I was holding him in my arms, keeping him close even as he beat me and sobbed against my chest.
Because he knew.
Because he was the only one I had confided in other than the other two people who knew.
Because he was the brother I’d always wanted.
The one I’d been given.
“It’s going to be okay.” My voice cracked.
“It’s the end.” He shoved me away. “It’s the end.”
“All things end, King. Just because this one came sooner than we thought—doesn’t mean we can’t—”
“Go.”
“King.”
“Go!” he thundered.
So, I went.
I walked with heavy footsteps toward the red corvette I’d parked outside. The papers were in the glovebox, my name on the title.
My clothes were in the trunk. All of them.
I started the engine and sped off before I lost my nerve.
Chapter Fourteen
Glass shattered across the stone as the prince rose from the grave and walked, muddy, shattered, toward his broken throne. The crown was heavy, the cost too steep, someone kill me before I’m in too deep. —Valerian Petrov
Ash
It wasn’t locked.
I quickly opened it and peeked inside.
All I saw was a black folder, which was, I guess, semi-normal for our family, and beneath it, a fucking white horse.
I dropped it like it was possessed. Ignoring my freak-out, Junior shakily picked up an envelope that said his name.
He ripped it open.
“Fuck!” he bellowed. “Get the keys NOW!”
Numb, I reached for the keys on the table as my eyes fell to the other picture in the briefcase.
Of Claire and me.
Smiling. Happy. Together.
“Ash!” Junior shook me with his hands. “We need to get the hell out of here now!”
“What?”
He shoved me toward the door. “I’m driving. Turn on your Find My Friend and ping his location.”
I shook out of the sickening daze of anguish and quickly found him. “He’s going north?”
“SHIT!” Junior hit the accelerator, passing cars in a blur as we made it on the freeway. “I can’t go any faster!”
“Why do we need to catch him?” I asked, trying to understand the situation without thinking about her. Thinking about her last breaths nearly took all the energy I had.
“Read.” He slammed some white papers against my chest. “It’s a goodbye letter. He’s saying goodbye like he knows he’s going to his death, and we have to stop him before something happens.”
I read over the words and suddenly felt like I was going to puke. What was so dangerous that he felt like he had to write us goodbye notes?
“Why the hell didn’t he ask for our help?” I slammed the papers down on my thigh with shaking hands, then glanced back down at my phone. “He’s taking the exit for Everett.”
“How close are we?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
They went by slowly as we tried to tail him.
“I see him!” I pointed. “Up ahead on the bridge—he’s going into the right lane—” No sooner had the words left my mouth, then that same Corvette drove straight through construction and off the bridge, falling at least sixty feet to the water below.
Cars screeched to a stop.
Junior was screaming.
So was I.
But I heard nothing.
Nothing but the sound of metal twisting metal.
No sound but the slow beat of my heart as it came up to speed with what my eyes were seeing.
The car started sinking, and somehow caught fire, which seemed impossible as it continued to sink.
Junior pulled over to the side. I backed up to run and jump in, but he grabbed me before I could go over the edge.
People took pictures with their phones like my brother wasn’t drowning.
They gasped and stared and pointed like it was a TV show and not reality.
And whatever good parts of me that still existed, that still believed that people were inherently good and deserved to live—fell in angry shards and sank to the bottom of the Sound with one of my favorite people.
One who was too young to die.
One who seemed to know he was going to his own funeral.
My brother—who took his last breaths alone.
A car.
Twisting metal.
My knees hit the ground as my legs gave out. The sting of gravel through my jeans barely registered as I leaned over and puked.
I heard Junior yelling into his cell phone.
I heard the sirens.
I felt nothing.
So, I sat on my haunches, and I waited for Junior to do what I couldn’t. Make the calls, burn the information, pay off the police.
My phone started ringing. God, not now. Not her.
Violet.
It said, Violet.
I squeezed my eyes shut as tears I didn’t even realize I still had flowed down my face.
She just kept calling.
“Yeah.” I could barely get the word past my lips.
“Hey! I was thinking about coming over again since—” She stopped. “Ash, talk to me, what’s going on? You know you can talk to me about Claire, right?”
I sucked in a shuddering breath. “Not Claire.” I clenched my teeth. “Breaker, it’s Breaker, I don’t think… we couldn’t save him, we can’t save anyone.”
“No.” It was such a quiet no; it was worse than the yelling. “I just saw him, he was fine; he—he wouldn’t leave me like this. Not like this, Ash, not—tell me—I can’t—”
One of the detectives I knew well since we had them placed all over the cities we had dealings in, walked over to us and gave us a sad understanding smile. “It’s already been dealt with. You can go back home.”
People were still scattered everywhere as sirens went off, alerting everyone to the disaster to the tragedy. My heart thudded to a stop in my chest.
Home? What was that anymore? When everyone you love is constantly taken from you?
Junior looked ready to lunge at him. “What the hell do you mean it’s been taken care of?”
He held out his cell.
I put it up to my ear.
“Get back to the house where it’s safe,” Phoenix said in a cold voice void of emotion. “Burn everything in that briefcase, including the tape.”
“Tape?” I repeated my voice sounded foreign to my own ears, hollow like it no longer belonged to me, to this body but someone else, someone else who was going through hell, through unimaginable pain. “I don’t understand?”
“Look at it, and it’s your ass.” He hung up.
I handed the phone back to the detective and shook my head at Junior as we wordlessly got back in our car and drove to the house.
Neither of us spoke.
I was afraid I’d crack.
I needed his anger right now.
Just like he needed mine.
But we had a job to do first.
And blood always came first, even when you wanted to crawl into a ball on the floor and sob your way through life—blood came first.
Violet was at the house when we got there, sobbing on the couch while Izzy and Serena held her.
And King was staring straight at the wall, his jaw clenched as he bounced a ball against it over and over and over on an endlessly repeating cycle until I was afraid I was going to go crazy.
Maksim was pacing.
And I had no purpose other than burning.
Nothing else mattered.
I grabbed the briefcase, pulled out all the letters, and was even more pissed when I realized Violet’s was the lightest.
“I’ll burn everything.” Junior’s voice was barely recognizable from the screaming he’d done. “You give them the letters.”
With shaking hands, I grabbed the letters and dispersed them to each of my friends, my family. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. God, why was this even happening? I couldn’t even look at my sister. I could feel her pain like it was my own.
Like being set on fire with no relief, dying of thirst without water, having your soul stolen never to return.
I saved her for last.
Her broken sobs filled the room as she shoved me away, covering her face with her hands. “Y-you read it.”
With trembling fingers, I opened the simple white envelope that bore her name and slid out the small crisp piece of paper.
“You have been and will always be my best friend. I love you. I’m yours in life, in death, in sickness and in health, I’m yours. Forever. My blood for yours,” I read, my voice heavy with grief.
Why?
WHY!
A scream built up inside my chest like a living breathing monster with teeth as it ripped at my throat over and over again, its nails digging into me from the inside out.
Pain pulsed instead of a heartbeat.
What good parts of me were left?
She pressed her left hand to her face.
A
nd that was when I noticed the monstrosity on her finger.
“What the hell, Violet!” I roared my hands shaking.
Because how dare he!
How dare he!
The letter fluttered to the floor, I was ready to bring him back to life just to kill him all over again.
The rage was back.
And so was the disappointment that I knew nothing when I thought I knew everything.
“I’m married,” she said quickly.
“He married you?” I roared, kicking one of the chairs into the wall, it impaled itself into the side.
A picture fell with a crash, spreading shattered glass all over the hardwood floor. “Then had the fucking audacity to die?”
“Not him.” She burst into tears again, her body rocking back and forth. “Not him.”
“Ash!” Junior barked my name. “A word real quick.”
“This isn’t over.” I pointed at her while Serena gave me a stop making it worse look. “You will explain to me what the hell is going on!”
I’d lost my ability to stay calm and didn’t give two shits if I was making things worse. My sister was somehow married, apparently to a complete stranger from where I was standing, and nothing was what it seemed. Nothing. Why else would they send her here?
It was all a ruse.
A setup.
Had he known?
And why the hell didn’t he say something to us?
I followed Junior outside where he’d already tossed in the video and a few other items; the black folder, however, he was holding in his hands made me want to hurl all over again.
Do your job, just do your job.
“It’s our names, ages, aliases,” I whispered.
“It’s our garage codes,” he hissed. “Our driver’s license numbers. It’s not even useful unless they actually get in, whoever they are.”
“Oh, that’s the weirdest part…” He sighed. “There are records from here to Seattle Penitentiary and back and then back again. Phone conversations about carrying out hits and the contact person is—”
“The guy who cut all our brakes.” I grabbed the paper. “I wish I could kill him all over again.”
And then I wished I could bring her back, bring him back—all the loss, all the heartache. Maybe it was my penance for killing my own cousin in cold blood because he had the strength to say no to this life.
Maybe God was punishing me, the way I punished them, over and over, for not submitting to the Family, for choosing themselves over blood, however stupid that choice may be.
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