by Amo Jones
Water from the faucet pours into the tub, layering the room with thick condensation. Emptying almost an entire bag of bath salts, I toss the packet onto the counter and grab the lavender oil, drizzling in a few drops. Swiping my eyes, I snuffle, attempting to calm myself down. When I was a kid, my mom would make me a bath with lavender and rose oil in an attempt to relax me. She said that I carried a lot of rage, but that I carried it well.
“If you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, then you better use that weight as the material in which you build your life with.”
My mother was wise, but I’ve come to think of death like this. When people are too precious for earth, God takes them early. The world can be so broken that those who are too precious to walk it, are taken.
I screw the lid back onto the oil, clutching my towel in my hand.
“You really should lock your door.” My heartbeat quickens at Killian’s voice, but I refuse to turn around. Leaning forward, I place the little bottle onto the edge of the bath.
“You really should have a shower, Killian, I can smell your last meal from here.” I clamp my mouth shut as the final word flies out. Annoyed with myself for showing my hand.
He must make his way farther into the bathroom, because his hand flexes around the front of my throat. My skin prickles at his proximity. At his touch. It soothes that pain that I have rooted deep inside of me. But what if the same hands that soothe me are the very ones that harm me?
His thumb massages the line of my throat as he tilts my head backward so I’m looking up at him upside down. “What’s wrong?” He’s not wearing a shirt, as per usual. K I Z N I T C H is tattooed over his chest in small Old English script.
I turn away from him. “Nothing.” Standing in the tub, I turn to face him, the level of the bath giving me more height, even though Kill is a couple inches above six-foot and I’m barely five-foot-three. I grip onto the towel and unwrap myself, but I keep my eyes on his.
Tossing the towel onto the floor, I sink into the bath and sigh as the hot water pinches my skin.
“You’re mad.” He sits on the edge of the tub. “You gonna tell me why, or are you gonna be a girl and dance around the fact until I figure it out myself?”
“I’m not mad,” I answer honestly. Because I’m not. “It’s nothing.” It’s not nothing, but I can’t tell him any more than I have. I have to conceal my hand. Sometimes protecting ourselves means hurting ourselves in the process.
His hand comes to my chin as he squeezes roughly, casing me out. I scan his face. His jawline is cut impeccably flawless, with a blade as sharp as a razor. His cheekbones stride classically across his face in perfect symmetry. His eyebrows are expressive, curving and dipping whenever he’s deep in thought. His lips, well. His lips are something else entirely. The edges soft, dipping into a cupid bow. Everything about Killian is powerful and addictive.
His tongue sneaks out, dampening his bottom lip, the piercing on his tongue catching my eye.
“Did you have fun last night?” I need to distract myself from wanting to pull him into the bath and hate fuck him into tonight.
He leans down, his lips grazing over mine. I melt, slipping under the water a little more. “No,” he mumbles before leaning back. His hand drops from around my face. “You know that I’ve fucked all of those girls, right? And have multiple times. It’s what this lifestyle is all about and I was raised in this here, so I don’t know any other way.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I don’t look at him, reaching for the soap and squeezing the bottle into the palm of my hand.
“Because I feel like what happened last night is playing a part in why you’re pissed.”
I leer up at him innocently, as I rub the soap over my breasts. “I’m not mad.”
His eyes fall to the movement. He smirks. “Sure about that?”
I shrug. “I’m sure.”
He pauses, pinching his lips between his teeth. “We’ll see.” Just when I think he’s going to do or say something. Anything. Maybe tell me what happened last night, he turns and leaves.
“Lock your fucking door.”
The flight was long. Longer than I wanted it to be. I slept for the better part of the trip, but it still felt long. I still can’t get over the fact that the founding families own a damn 747.
I’m gathering up all of my crap after landing when P hooks her arm in mine. “We all have to get our tattoos while we’re here.”
I freeze, one hand on the strap of my backpack and the other clutching my phone.
“Why?”
We start walking toward the exit. “Well, because you can only get the tattoo here. Something about the ink, and then there’s this whole ceremony thing that we all have to go through—” We make our way down the stairs. I shiver as the cool air whips around me. I am well aware of the ceremony and what it entails, but I didn’t think we would do it right now. Amongst everything else that seems to be going on, getting marked seems diminutive.
Four jacked out black Range Rovers are parked in front of us. Men dressed in dark suits and dark glasses standing guard at each one.
“So, you’re in?” Perse asks, nudging me.
“Sure,” I say, just to get her off my ass about it. Truthfully, I don’t want to be here, and I don’t know why. I think I’m ready to be back in the US and back to usual touring. Usual shows. I don’t want to be here, in Kiznitch. I just wish I knew why my stomach and heart ached being on what’s supposed to be my homeland.
“Tell me more. More. More. More.”
The walls are tightening around me, the closer they get, the less I can breathe.
“More.”
“I don’t know!” I scream so loud my eardrums pop.
“Sass! In here…” Killian calls out. Our tension swallows everyone and everything around us whole. “Now.”
“Just go.” Perse pushes me toward him. “He’s not going to let up.”
I slide my glasses over my eyes and follow his orders. This once. Mainly because I don’t want to cause a scene in the middle of an airstrip. As soon as I’m in front of him, he grabs at my fingers and leads us around the Range Rover that I thought we were getting into.
“Where are you taking me?”
He pulls out a set of keys from his pocket and points.
I pause. I know the extent of their money, but wealth is hard to digest when you’ve been fed poverty all your life.
The matte black Lambo lights up as he points. “Get in.”
“Why?” I ask skeptically, making my way to the passenger side. “Why not ask someone else?”
He pauses, reaching for his smokes in the back of his jeans. He puts one in his mouth. “Why do you always analyze everything?”
“Like you don’t?” I throw back at him.
He stills, then slowly flicks open my Zippo and lights the tip of his cigarette. “Get in the car, Hellhound.”
I sigh, taking in my environment. The other cars have all started to pull away, displaying an airport in the distance.
“Fine.” I pull the handle until the door slides up. Sinking into lavish leather, I try really hard to ignore the way it buries my skin with its velvet touch. He slips into the driver’s seat, his cigarette polluting the prominent scent of freshly stitched leather.
He pushes the car to start and the deep rumble of the engine vibrates beneath us. Pushing the gear into first, he drives us out of the airstrip, whizzing behind the line of affluent and exclusive cars.
“I don’t know shit about you, but you said you’ve been here before?” I don’t know if that was a question or a statement.
“Hmmm,” I answer. “Yeah, I have. When I was little.” I turn to look at him, but he simply puffs on his smoke and hits the stereo. “Why am I here?”
He tilts his head to stare at me. “I’m curious.”
“About what?” I ask, though he’s still watching me closely. I shift my attention to the road ahead of us. “You might want to watch where you’
re driving…”
He smirks. “Ever seen Fast and Furious?”
I shuffle uncomfortably. “Yes, and you’re not Dominic Toretto.”
He winds his window down and flicks his smoke out just as the car swerves into the other lane and he drops the gear back down to second, flying past the line of cars.
“Oh my god, Killian!” I grab onto the handle of the door as he continues to gain speed, along with my heart rate. A semi-truck is coming closer and closer, in direct line of us, but there’s nowhere that Killian can swerve into because the line of cars are driving too close together.
“Killian…” I warn, my palms sweating and heart thumping.
“What are you hiding from me?”
“What?” I glare at him sideways.
He stares back at me through narrowed slits. “Answer the question because I know that you heard me.”
“Nothing!” I yell. The truck is flashing his high beams at us now, signaling us to move.
“Why do I not fucking trust you?” Killian’s jaw clenches and he cuts in front of the SUV at the front of the line, just in time for the truck to pass us, honking.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I scream. I want to hit him.
“Fear acts as a truth serum for humans.” He looks over at me briefly and then back to the road as he finally drops to a more acceptable speed. “Why do you think people are tortured? The fact that they’re going to die, instills fear inside of them.”
“What has that got to do with me?”
He shakes his head. “It has everything to do with you.”
I ignore him for the rest of the trip, somewhat annoyed with his cryptic messages and questions. Around an hour and a half later, I watch as the trees that lined the road slowly start shifting into long gold pillars with light bulbs at the top. The grass looks greener, bushes groomed. As we get closer and closer to the city, the region begins to look medieval, only more opulent. I shuffle up, leaning back against the leather. I have been here before, but I was so young that I don’t remember much of the trip itself. The pillars start to become more frequent, when a large statue with the letters KIZNITCH embedded into the stone comes into view. The statue is of four suited men, standing proudly as they guard the city. The street that leads you into Kiznitch is cobblestone, with freshly blooming flowers on the sidewalks. People shuffle around the place slowly, moving about their day. A large waterfall behind a line of stores catches my eye, but I only get a brief glimpse of the water crashing into the giant pool beneath it as we continue driving through the city.
People stop and stare with a mixture of expressions flashing over their faces.
Shock.
Lust.
Hunger.
Beauty.
Games.
Killian hooks down a side street.
“Where are we all staying here?”
He chuckles. “At one of the founding houses is where we will all be staying. Delila has her own plantation here, and all the others do also.”
“I’ll stay with Kenan.” I’d feel more comfortable with him or Perse, but I know that Perse and King are still in that nice, honeymoon stage, so they probably don’t want someone hanging off them for however long that we’re here for.
“Like fuck you are.”
I drop down onto the bed that Killian put me into, curling my legs beneath my butt. The Cornelii plantation is oddly haunting. Cold brick held up by Victorian style windows, but that really offers only a small detail of what it’s really like inside. The walls are half white and half dark burgundy, with grey trimmings and aged drapes. There’s a four-post bed in the room that I’m staying in and an old wood fireplace on the opposite side. A large dresser and a closet sit on the other side, right beside a door that leads into a bathroom. To the left of me are white lace curtains that hide the small balcony which overlooks the entirety of the back yard. In the yard, there’re old statues, and a large stone swimming pool with bright blue lights illuminating from the bottom. It hasn’t been lived in, in probably years, but it’s quite obviously been kept up. Killian also wasn’t kidding about the founding houses. I think they’re all in a circle. Each plantation style home is acres away from each other, with a large forest right in the middle of them all. In front of the Cornelii house is the number II. I know the complexity of The Four Brothers of Kiznitch and the world that they operate in, but I never completely immersed myself in finding out what a lot of the terminology or rituals that happen really mean. I’m guessing that II means his standing down the line, with King being I. I would have rather stayed at any of the other houses, and I tried to fight him to not stay here, but he didn’t budge. Eventually, I gave up so long as I stayed in the wing that he wasn’t staying in. He agreed.
There’s a knock on the door before it’s swinging open. I shuffle up onto my elbows as Val makes her way into the room. “Hey!” She kicks closed the door with her foot. Handing me what looks to be a folded robe, she chews on her lip nervously. “For the ritual that will be happening tonight. Usually, you have to wear your family crest, but we couldn’t find one for Royal, and Delila didn’t want to talk about why, so she gave you this one.”
I unfold it, spreading it out over my thighs. It looks to drop down to my ankles and has a string near my collarbone where it ties. A hoodie is folded beneath and when I flip it over, I freeze.
“It says Cornelii.”
Val’s eyes flash with sympathy. “I know. I don’t know why she did that, but it’s what you have to wear. Hey…” She takes a seat on the bed beside me. “Who are your family? Obviously, you’re Kiznitch, but why the secrecy with your bloodline?”
After running the tips of my finger over the blood red lettering that spells out CORNELII, I shrug. “My family wasn’t very well known in Kiznitch. They were at the bottom of the food chain.”
“Oh, well that could be it.” She brushes me off before flopping back onto my bed.
I internally tell her to get out. I don’t know when it was that we became friends, but she’s obviously getting comfortable with it. Immensely.
“Are you bi-sexual?”
I turn quickly to face her, to make sure I caught her question right.
“Ah, no. Why?” I ask, pushing the robe drama to the side for now.
“Well, I think I might be.”
Just as I’m about to open my mouth, my phone vibrates in my pocket. “Shit. I forgot to turn global roaming off.”
I see it’s Hope, so I hit ANSWER. “Hey?” Kicking off the bed, I make my way to the balcony door and step outside.
“Sass, tell me you’re not in Kiznitch.”
I gulp.
Val starts kicking off her shoes and crawling up my bed. I hope that the reason why she asked me that wasn’t because she wanted anything with me. Nope. No. “I am.”
There’s shuffling on the other side of the phone. “I’m coming over. I will text you when I land and give you the details of where I want you to meet me.”
“What?” I grip onto the railing. “Hope?”
The line goes dead. I bring the phone away from my ear. “What the fuck?”
“Everything okay?” Val asks, coming out onto the balcony.
I look up at her from my phone, figuring it’s probably just something to do with the fact that I’m in Kiznitch and Hope’s in America. She can be dramatic when she wants to be. “Yeah, everything is fine. Val?” I raise my eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”
She tucks her long blonde hair behind one ear. “Sorry. I know you’re really close with Perse, but.” Her cheeks flush red and her eyes meet mine. “Okay.” She exhales. “I’ve only got a very small pool of friends, because of my life in general, and one I’m sleeping with, and the other is not interested in this drama.”
“So—” I pause, turning to face her. “Wait! You’re sleeping with Maya?”
She jumps up onto the balcony railing. “Yes. But, please shhh.”
“Oh wow. I thought what I saw the other night was just�
�”
“—Kiznitch?” she interferes, a smirk on her mouth.
I chuckle, leaning against the railing beside her. “Yeah, Kiznitch.”
She shakes her head, looking down at the floor. “No. Okay, so I’ve been with girls before. A lot. Not only for the show, but because you know, alcohol and stupidity. I used to mess around a bit, but it was never serious. It was just drunk shenanigans.”
“Are we going to need alcohol for this conversation? I might need a shower first because that flight was brutal.”
Val laughs. “You’re right.” She kicks off the railing and lands on her feet. “I’ll be back in an hour with alcohol and snacks.” She turns her back on me and starts for the door. Pausing, she turns her head over her shoulder. “Killian is known to be a bit of a dick to people he doesn’t have time for. Don’t take it to heart.” Before I can answer her, she’s gone. Sex is not a guarantee for commitment.
Heading back into my room, I make a beeline for the bathroom, filling up the tub that sits in the corner. There’s a black shower with red fittings, and soaps of all sorts which fill the empty parts of the cabinetry.
After a quick bath, I slip on a pair of tight shorts and a loose Thrasher shirt. I’m making my way back into the room when the door swings open and Val steps through with a handful of snacks and a bottle of vodka. “So, I brought the vodka because I might need it.”
I’m trying to hide my laughter behind the fishtail braid I’m doing in my hair. “It’s fine. I have a feeling I might need it too.”
Val tosses everything onto my bed and dives on, twisting the bottle cap off. “Okay.” She takes a swig, swiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “So, it all started on New Year’s Eve when Killian broke her heart.”
I wriggle into the bed, taking the bottle of vodka off her and taking a swig. “He did?”
Val turns over her shoulder, glaring at me. “What, that’s surprising to you? Everyone knows that if Killian wanted her, she would have been his a long time ago.” Tilting her head, I watch as her lips wrap around the rim of the bottle. “I don’t know if you know this, but Killian is relentless when he wants something.”