The Devil's Game (Rhodes to Hell Book 1)

by K. B. Saint

  “Oh shit,” I say, looking over at Tasha, “My bad I’ll just come back later.”

  “Nah, it’s fine shorty, I was just leaving,” the guy says, getting up and gathering his shirt from the floor.

  “Don’t go, she said she’d leave,” Tasha says, eying me. “We didn’t finish.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just go, I’ll swing by tonight, T.”

  I don’t let them debate it anymore and make my way back to the front door. Once it closes behind me I know I have nowhere to go and even though the sun is shining now, it’s cold as shit so I do the only thing I know to do and sneak back into my grandma’s house to get warmer clothes.

  When I get there the doors are taped off with yellow tape but the back door is still unlocked and I slip back inside unnoticed. I hurry inside and close my eyes as I walk through the now empty hall. I don’t want to see the blood again. I get to my room and I dump my school bag out and stuff my warmest clothes inside. I only bring one pair of shoes, my boots, because it's rare I can be found without them on and bringing other shoes would just be dead weight.

  I pack as much as I can and pull the thick blanket from my bed. When I come out of my room I do my best to make it past the stain of blood in the carpet without touching anything and I go into the closet in the kitchen where grandma kept the key to the shed in the back. I don’t know what’s out there because no one messed around in there after my grandpa died years ago, but I feel like there might be something back there I can use.

  When I get out to the shed, I set my bag down and the blanket on top before pulling as hard as I can to get the door open. It’s heavy but swings open wide once I get the handle down and when I get inside, I am faced with nothing but spiderwebs and an old musty stench. I turn around and search the yard for a stick or anything to clear the webs but come up with nothing considering there aren’t any trees in her yard.

  Throwing caution to the wind I step inside and spot a shovel just a few feet away. I only have to go through a few webs to get it and once I have it, I am able to clear myself a path to the back wall where all of my grandpa's camping stuff. It’s all dusty but I grab a tarp and a black bag with the white label on it in his handwriting saying “tent”.

  I leave the shed and do my best to shake the tarp out before rolling my blanket inside of it and pushing it through the straps of the bag. As I walk away from my grandma’s house for the last time, I get the sinking feeling being alone is a feeling I’ll never be able to hide from again.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  RUBY—PRESENT

  I’m sitting alone in the garden when Elijah finds me. He doesn’t say anything when he sits next to me and I’m glad. I don’t want to talk about it and I’m mad I’ve already lost the happiness I’ve found over the last few days. I actually believed what Preston told me when he said we were all a real family. I’d chosen to believe when we got back it could all be what he said it would be, but I’d forgotten one thing.

  Messiah still thinks I killed Cece. Well, maybe now he doesn’t, but it still hurts. He couldn’t just believe me when I said it, he had to have it confirmed by someone else. He had to have something I would never lie about confirmed by someone who wasn’t even there.

  “You’re being a baby,” Elijah finally says, his tone even keel, just like always.

  “Excuse me?” I ask, turning to glare at him.

  “You’ve got this tough girl act down pretty well, why change up and be all pissy over an old misjudgment?”

  “A misjudgment Elijah? Really? He accused me of killing my best friend and then turned his back on me. He left me!” I tell him, raising my voice.

  “I know,” he tells me with a nod, his warm brown skin glowing in the morning sun.

  “Then how do I just look past what he did? Why would I even want to look past it?”

  “Because you’re a part of Preston’s family now and it's what he wants,” he tells me frankly. I scoff. “Don’t you want to make him happy, Ruby?”

  I sit for a few seconds in silence before taking a deep breath and sighing slowly. “I do but Elijah how the fuck do I just forget he just left? How do I even trust him again?”

  “Well, you two avoiding each other surely won’t help to build trust at all,” he tells me.

  I clench my jaw hard.

  “I don’t avoid him,” I say, shaking my head. “He’s been gone most of the time I’ve been here and when he has been here if I walk in a room he just leaves.”

  “What did Preston say about what to do?”

  “To trust him and he’d fix Messiah,” I tell him.

  “You believe him? You got trust in him yet?” His question is innocent enough, but I know there’s far more packed behind his words.

  He wants to know if my training worked. He’s here for Preston.

  “I trust him,” I tell him, never taking my eyes off his.

  “Then he will fix it for you,” he says, looking out to the garden and I follow and just sit in the silence being out here provides.

  I’ve decided the gardens are my favorite and I even found out some of the food we eat is even grown out here. Like fully self-sustaining for seasonal fruits and vegetables. “How come y’all don’t ever have to tend to the garden?”

  Elijah scoffs. “We did when we were younger. Preston says gardening teaches patience and teaches someone to love the earth. Apparently, it makes depression not so bad which is why we all spent a lot of time out here.”

  “What did he make you do? Like water it and stuff?” I ask and he meets my eyes.

  “We created all of this, Rue. When we weren’t in the streets or training he had us in this damn garden connecting with nature and doing our best to forget everyone we’ve killed under his orders,” he explains.

  “Is Preston a good guy?”

  “You just said you trusted him,” he says with a chuckle.

  “I’ve trusted some pretty bad people, Elijah.”

  He nods. “Fair point. Preston is a good guy as long as you’re on his side. Cross him once and it’ll be your last time because Hollis will put a bullet between your eyes faster than you can blink. We may not always agree with every choice he makes but he’s more of a father figure to all of us than any of us have ever had. Yeah, he makes us sacrifice stuff in his name, but Ruby what is life with no sacrifice? It’s no life at all. Life is a big push and pull of negative and positive and without one the other can’t exist.”

  “I don’t think I ever want to find myself on his bad side,” I tell him honestly.

  He grins and looks over at me. “Me neither.”

  “How old were you when you came here?”

  “Just before my fifteenth birthday.”

  “A baby.” I smile looking out at the garden again. “What was it like back then?”

  “Hard,” he tells me abruptly. “I was worse than you.”

  “Hard to believe.” I laugh. “Not like you seem like a pushover, just …”

  “I wasn’t a brat like you,” he says, our eyes meeting again as he fights the smile trying to creep its way across his face. “But I was wild and quick like you.”

  “So is that why he kept you too?”

  He just nods but doesn’t say anything else for a long while as we both just sit and enjoy the warm sun even though the autumn air is a little cool. I feel my anger level lowering and in this moment I’m thankful for this time with the always calm and collected Elijah.

  “Do you ever wish your life was different?” I ask, breaking the silence but I don’t open my eyes to look at him.

  “Nah,” he says softly. “I got what’s meant for me, or it’s coming, one of the two. I’m content.”

  I don’t say anything back to his response because I’m a little surprised by his words. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone respond the way Elijah has and it hits me hard. I want to feel the contentment Elijah feels but I don’t know how to achieve it. I’ve spent so much of my life being restless and unsatisfied I don’t even know where I w
ould start to feel what he feels.

  “Are you content?”

  “No, I’m not even sure if I know what you mean,” I say, offering nothing else because I don’t know what else to say. After a few minutes of stewing, I finally come up with something better. “Or maybe … I just don’t know how to be content.”

  “Then you found the real reason why you’re here if you ask me, because learning to be satisfied with what life has given you is one of the most important things you’ll learn being a Saint,” he tells me, before standing and holding a hand out to me.

  “A Saint?” I ask as I take his hand.

  “The night you got your brand you became a part of the King Valley Saints, he didn’t tell you all about it while you were gone?” He wonders as he releases my hand and we start walking. I shake my head when he looks at me. “We are a family inside these walls but to everyone else, Ruby, we’re a gang.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  HOLLIS—PRESENT

  I’m doing my last set of tricep curls when Elijah finds me in the gym. It’s where I’ve been for the last three hours and if I didn’t already have something to do I’d stay in here even longer. Releasing my stress here is easy and after Preston stopped by a few minutes after I got in here I have enough stress for a lifetime. He told me to get Messiah right and anyone who knows Messiah, knows just how hard this is about to be.

  Messiah isn’t difficult on purpose but fuck, he pisses me off sometimes.

  “You know no matter how many of those you do, I’ll always have bigger triceps than you,” Elijah tells me, picking up a set of weights to rise over his head.

  “You fucking wish, asshole,” I tell him with a laugh. “I’d break your ass in half now, E.”

  He laughs, he’s been laughing a lot more lately. “Do you even remember the last time we fought?”

  “Yes,” I tell him loudly, smiling. “I fucking remember the last time because Preston told us we couldn’t ever fight again.”

  He squints as I release the handle of the weights, setting them back on the shelf. “Why did he forbid us again?”

  “Because he said if we killed each other he wouldn’t have anyone else to count on.” I chuckle, watching him put his weights back.

  “I still think we should get in the ring together so you can release some of your stress.” He shrugs.

  “On your face, motherfucker?”

  “Aye man, I’m just looking out for you,” he says, throwing his hands up some. “But I’m not here to mess with you, I actually have something to talk about.”

  “About Ruby?”

  “How did you know?” he asks.

  I grab one of the white towels folded by all of the weights and wipe my face before pulling it around the back of my neck and holding it there. I look back to Elijah and shrug. “I don’t know, cause you were just on Ruby duty.”

  He nods. “Right, well, yeah it’s about her and I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

  “Out with it, Elijah,” I snap, not wanting to deal with the bullshit runaround.

  “You remember the first robbery we did for P?” He asks, I nod. “I think it was Ruby’s grandma.”

  “What?” I pause, trying to remember the night better. “Why do you think it was her grandma?”

  “Because Preston had me read her file and after the night we robbed the women Ruby literally disappeared. I checked the address of her grandma’s house and I’m almost positive it’s the same house,” he says, his face stone.

  “So, I killed her fucking grandma?”

  “I mean, I haven’t said anything to Preston, but I imagine he knows and I’m pretty positive you did.”

  I stay silent for a few minutes, just standing there thinking and Elijah doesn’t interrupt. He knows this is a lot because he knows the feelings I already have for Ruby. They’re feelings I probably shouldn’t have, considering the amount of time Preston is putting into her, but I can’t seem to not care for the little fucking firecracker, and now I have to figure out a way to tell her I killed the only family she had left after her parents and Messiah left her behind.

  “Fuck,” I say with a growl. “I have to tell her before she finds out some other way.”

  “No, you don’t, I doubt she’ll ever find out,” he tells me, shaking his head.

  “But if she does, Elijah, and it’s years down the road she’d never forgive me.”

  “You think she’ll forgive you now?” He asks.

  “I think I have a better chance now than later and I don’t know… I don’t want to build an entire relationship with her on top of a lie. Even if it's just a friendship, or whatever King Valley is.”

  “We’re a family, Hollis. She has to be a part of this family now whether she likes it or not. It doesn’t matter if she finds out in five minutes or fifty years, she’ll still be a part of this,” Elijah tells me, and I knit my eyebrows together in disdain before letting my hands fall from the towel, shaking my head.

  “But just like with any of y’all, I don’t want her to hate her fucking life,” I say moving past him. He steps in front of me and I stop quick so I don’t slam into him but I look down at him with anger in my eyes. “Get the fuck out of my way, Elijah.”

  “You need to think about this before you just run off and tell her,” he says, stepping out of my way.

  I ignore him as I push through the gym door out into the hall and the chill of the air out here is enough to give me chills, but I don’t even fucking care at this point. All I want to do is figure out how to ensure Ruby won’t hate me at the end of all of this.

  What are the chances of something like this even happening? Why did she even come up to me at my apartment? Why did I help her at all at the club the night Benzo died? Why did the old woman I killed ten years ago on accident have to be her fucking granny?

  I fish my phone out of my pocket and when I notice a text from Preston, I open it and it’s just a list of the things I need to have done by the end of the week. I sigh as I shoot him a text acknowledging his requests and asking if he knew I was the one who killed Ruby’s granny. It doesn’t even take a full thirty seconds before his reply comes through. I want to be surprised, I almost wish I was, but I’m not.

  Of course he knew.

  I send him a message back telling him I’m telling her and when he doesn’t immediately respond I take it as my green light to handle this any way I see fit. I intend to handle it any way I can to keep the vibes between us the way they are now.

  I stop by the theater to see if she’s hiding out there with Salem like usual, but it’s empty so I decide to check her bedroom. I don’t even knock when I get to her door and I find her moving to the music in the room with a optimo pressed between in her lips. I frown.

  “Where the fuck did you get a blunt?” I bark, making her jump, her eyes and mouth pop open. The blunt drops to the floor below her bare feet and she panics but scoops it from the rug and holds it behind her back. She finishes blowing the smoke through her lips quickly and her eyes are like tiny slits when she looks back to me.

  “What?” She’s so high.

  “Who gave you the weed, Ruby?” I ask, less harsh this time. “Sorry I scared you.”

  “I gave it to her,” Salem says, coming out of the bathroom. “It’s cool, right Hollis?”

  I look down at her hand when she runs it up my bare chest. I’m still sweaty from the gym, but Salem has never cared about sweat. “Preston …”

  “Preston doesn’t have to know. She’s had a fucking week, okay? Just let her escape for like five seconds. I’m sure he’ll be by to blow her high soon.” She laughs. “Please?”

  Salem knows all she has to do is look up at me with those big blue eyes and it’s impossible for me to say no to her, but when I realize I’m about to ruin Ruby’s whole vibe I start to wonder if telling her right now is the best idea. Waiting a couple of weeks for her to reconnect to life outside of the physical and emotional trauma she just went through for the last week with Preston
is probably best. I will tell her when I feel like she’s more ready.

  “Fine, but let me hit it next,” I tell them, leaning over to snatch the blunt from behind Ruby.

  “Hey,” she says, smiling big and jumping to try and get the blunt back. I hold her off to my left as I face the other way and take a hit, the feeling of her body pressed to mine enough to make me toss the blunt to the floor and stomp it out. “Give it back, Hollis! I just got it.”

  I look down at her as I hold my hit in and I can’t help the smile spreading across my face at her deep little pout. I can hear Salem laughing next to me, but I don’t take my eyes off Ruby. I feel her pushing her pussy into my leg as I hold her to my side and hit the blunt again.

  It’s not long before she’s full on grinding on me.

  “You’re so cute when you’re mad,” I tell her.

  “I’m not mad,” she responds. “I’m fucking horny.”

  I chuckle before releasing her and giving the blunt back. “I can fix that.”

  “Preston won’t let you,” Salem tells me and I scoff.

  “Preston says she can’t smoke too,” I tell her and she nods.

  “Point made,” she says. “But what if he comes in?”

  “He won’t,” I assure her. “He texted me when I was headed this way and was telling me what he needed done for the next week. Meaning …”

  “He’s leaving her for a week?”

  “He’s leaving her to test out her new skills,” I tell her and look over at Ruby, thinking of all of the nasty things I want to do to her. “Let’s see what he’s taught you, little one.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  MESSIAH—PRESENT

  I can’t avoid her much longer and I know it. Hollis has been a complete dick to me for the last two days since she’s been back and I know I’m only prolonging the inevitable by staying away from her. I have to have this talk with her and the longer I wait the worse it will be for me. She hasn’t changed much and ignoring her has always gotten under her skin the most.