Destructive King

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “I know.” I held his gaze.

  “You have no fucking clue what I was going to say.” Ash’s voice was hoarse. “And Enzo was wrong because there’s no chance in hell he was giving you lessons for your protection—more for any chance to get close to you, to touch you, to see your eyes light up like they are right now. To be the center of that fucking stare that haunts my dreams, finishes my nightmares.”

  I gasped.

  He lowered his head, his lips pressed against my ear as he whispered. “I would never lie to you.”

  “Wh-what?” I could count my heartbeats, feel them banging against my chest.

  “You are, and always have been… very pretty.” I was weightless then as he slowly moved away from me and stood, then held out his hand.

  I took it.

  And Ash Abandonato, fallen angel half the time, devil the rest, held up his hands and whispered. “Again.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You must not shut the night inside you but endlessly in light the dark immerse— A tiny lamp has gone out in my tent, I bless the flame that warms the universe.” —Author Unknown

  Chase

  The Past: A Week Before Claire’s Death

  “They really are the worst at sneaking around,” I said under my breath as Junior ran up the stairs with Serena in tow. They didn’t even see us sitting at the table in the dark, drinking wine, thinking dark thoughts, blood still caking our fingertips.

  Phoenix shrugged. “I thought you were gonna deal with it.”

  “This is me dealing with it.” I lifted my wine glass to him and drank deep. The wine was bitter on my tongue. Hell, these days, everything felt bitter.

  In a hoarde of cousins and fucking De Langes, around fifteen people ran up the stairs and down the hall toward the movie room. It was nice to see them at least making an attempt at being normal.

  I sighed again as Ash lingered in the back, his eyebrows etched together in concern as Claire shook her head and then rose and kissed him on the cheek, holding her hand there.

  I ground my teeth.

  Ash stared down at her like she was his heaven.

  And I couldn’t help but wonder if he realized she would eventually become his hell.

  “He loves her,” Phoenix whispered. “Beyond all reason. Desperately.”

  “He does.” I sighed as a weight settled on my shoulders.

  The small quiet girl, Annie, came up behind them. Neither of them even noticed her existence as she tugged at her cardigan, trying to cover the bruises we all knew were there.

  Why else would we be covered in blood after hearing about what she’d dealt with? Ash and Junior killed her adoptive parents—and we killed the rest of the monsters, the associates, involved. It was an easy in-and-out job.

  At least we continued to protect her and to protect the rest of the De Lange orphans; we did what we had to.

  We killed those who would use them against us.

  And would keep that secret to our grave.

  Annie walked by Ash and Claire.

  Ash glanced at her, his eyes lingering on her longer than I’d seen him look at any other female since Claire.

  The hell?

  Frowning, I sharpened my focus on Ash.

  Did he… like her?

  Was he attracted to her?

  Claire gave his hand a tug and then smiled at Annie, a genuine smile, one that was full of happiness and protection.

  Annie shook her head and made her way into the kitchen only to see us both sitting at the table, looking like a horror movie gone wrong or perhaps a horror movie gone right?

  Depended on who was alive or dead, I supposed.

  “Hi.” She was a few feet away from us and waved like we were across the street playing friendly neighbor.

  Phoenix smirked and looked away. She was small, quiet, unassuming—she was also a victim, and I wondered if it would be my son or me who would fight for her vengeance one day?

  “Are you enjoying yourself tonight, Annie?” I asked.

  She gulped, her eyes drinking in all the blood most likely still covering my face. “Y-yeah.”

  “Halloween costume.” Phoenix coughed. “Fake blood.”

  I almost choked on my laugh as Annie nodded slowly as if to say, “Your secret’s safe with me… besides, I like living.”

  I’d never seen a human being grab a bottle of water from the fridge faster than that girl, and then she sprinted down the hall, nearly colliding with Ash in the process.

  He gave her an annoyed look.

  She hung her head.

  And Claire?

  She was staring straight ahead at the wall like it held secrets.

  Heavy is the crown.

  It seemed that was all I’d been thinking.

  “Have you decided?” Phoenix asked what I’d been thinking—what we’d all been thinking since that day.

  “I can’t make that decision. It’s not my choice. It never was. Let him love her. Let him watch her resentment destroy him from the inside out. That’s my decision.”

  “Blood in, no out.” Phoenix poured more wine.

  “To the day we both get out of the mafia—our funerals.” I clinked my glass against his as a shroud of sadness draped over us until I felt like I was choking with it.

  For the first time in a very long time—I wished for a different life for my son—because maybe then he’d have the happy ending he deserved rather than the smokescreen of perfection.

  Ash deserved someone strong.

  He deserved someone who wouldn’t ask him to change who he was.

  Even if he was a killer, it was his choice to be made, to follow in my footsteps, and I hated anyone who made him feel like it was wrong—to want to be like your father and to already surpass him in so many ways—in all the ways that counted.

  “You know…” Phoenix followed my line of sight. “…I can always talk with her or tell Nikolai to call. She’ll listen to her uncle.”

  I released a humorless chuckle. “She won’t even listen to the man she loves. What makes you think she’d listen to her uncle? The same one who kills for sport with one hand while holding a Nobel prize in the other?”

  Phoenix choked out a laugh. “Sorry, it amuses me every fucking time.”

  “Same.”

  “Besides, Nikolai can be very convincing…”

  I snorted and looked back up at my son’s hurt expression. “Fuck it, give him a call; I don’t need to know the details, just that he gets the point across to her in a way that I clearly didn’t.”

  “Consider it done.” Phoenix’s grin was menacing. Hell, I almost felt sorry for Nikolai now.

  Some of the sadness dissipated.

  And to think it was Phoenix, the man who used to be enemy number one back in college, who was sitting with me in the dark… bloody, beaten, drinking wine and offering to fix what I couldn’t.

  Yeah, God was probably having a laugh over that one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing, and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” —Banksy

  Ash

  “Ma!” A swat landed on the back of my head after I attempted to grab one of the breadsticks she’d made from scratch. “That hurt!”

  “Manners!” She jabbed a wooden spoon at me. The same one that she used to smack my ass with when I used to lie to her about finishing my vegetables. It wasn’t like it was a hard smack; I was just more terrified of it than I was anything else for some reason. Now just seeing it had me holding my hands up in surrender.

  Dad chuckled.

  I shot him a glare.

  Got a middle finger back.

  Then watched in horror as he picked up a breadstick and took a huge bite.

  “How is that fair?” I asked the table.

  Ma just grinned and kissed him on the head. “He’s worked hard today.”

  “Yeah, son.” His grin made me want to hurl. “I worked real hard t
oday.” Note that he said this as he was grabbing Ma’s ass.

  “Not at the dinner table!” I nearly shrieked as Izzy walked in, sighed, and then blindly tried to find a chair while covering her eyes. Thank God the baby of our family, Ariel, was at a friend’s house, nobody needed that sort of trauma.

  “What did we say about censorship?” I grumbled to myself.

  Annie came in next, took one look at them, blushed, and quickly pulled out a chair.

  Damn girl blushed at anything and everything like she was some virgin who’d never seen a dick before.

  And mine just chose an inopportune moment to remind me and my brain that she had, in fact, seen mine, touched mine, that I’d been inside her, that I’d nearly gotten off on her. Used her as a way to make the pain go away, only to discover that she made it worse.

  She always did.

  Was it her smile?

  Her fear of me?

  Her presence?

  No clue.

  But it seemed after sparring for a bit tonight, after teaching her more of the basics, we had some sort of white flag waving between us.

  Already I knew she had been hurt after the tweets that had gone out. Add that to my basically threatening the entire school, and it had been a long day.

  And with Mom and Dad flirting over the pasta.

  It promised to be an even longer night.

  “So.” Ma held out her hands. “Who wants to pray?”

  “Pretty sure you two shouldn’t,” I grumbled. “What with you fornicating all over the place.”

  Annie flinched in her chair. Why the hell was I noticing every single thing she did? Like I was hyperaware of each reaction, each movement when all I wanted was revenge.

  Pain.

  Blood.

  “Married,” Dad annoyingly pointed out, shaking me out of my dark thoughts as I pulled my head out of my ass and tried to focus on the plan ahead, which did not include thinking about how close Annie had been when we trained, the way her breaths came out in short little gasps from those parted full lips.

  I adjusted myself under the table like I was in junior high and then looked up, only to see my dad giving me a knowing smile. “Been a long time since you’ve been to confession—you pray.”

  Son of a—

  Was it wrong to pray with a hard-on?

  Because I was pretty sure that was in the Bible somewhere: thou shall not think of sex and thank God for food at the same time.

  “Sure,” I grated out and bowed my head. “Dear God, thank you for our health, our family, and our food. Amen.”

  I quickly grabbed my fork, so I was doing something with my hand other than thinking about rubbing one out beneath the dinner rolls and shot a glare toward my dad, who seemed to be purposefully taking eons to reach for the pasta and hand the dish to me.

  When I reached for a roll, he passed the basket the opposite direction like a complete savage and then eyed Annie with a smirk. “Heard you were sparring today.”

  She grabbed a roll and was about to bite into it; I licked my lips in anticipation and then verbally slapped myself for staring at her mouth.

  Again.

  “Yeah.” She relaxed her shoulders. “Well, someone has to teach your son a lesson.”

  My mom, aka Judas, raised her wine glass into the air and said, “Cheers.”

  Izzy followed.

  Dad grinned.

  “Cool, everyone’s against me. Thanks, guys,” I grumbled under my breath, suddenly not even hungry anymore.

  “So, Annie,” Mom piped up. “How were classes today?”

  My fingers curled around my wine glass as I watched Annie’s short intake of breath, the way her eyes darted down to her empty plate like it would have all the answers.

  With an annoyed sigh—more with myself than her that I couldn’t seem to stop staring at her or thinking about touching her, I spoke up. “Some asshat started spreading rumors about Annie this week via the university’s Twitter account.”

  Mom gasped while Dad dropped his fork onto his plate.

  I’d seen that look of rage before.

  Actually enjoyed that it was clearly pointed at someone else other than me since Dad could be fucking terrifying.

  The table was silent. “I hope you took care of the fucker.”

  Guilt gnawed in the middle of my chest so viciously I had the sudden urge to rub it away with my fingers as I chugged the rest of my wine and shrugged. “I took care of it.”

  “Any body count?”

  Annie made a choking noise.

  I grinned. “Not this time, unfortunately.”

  “How disappointing. Is my son losing his touch?” Dad’s eyebrows shot up as he reached for his wine, the dark tattoos on his fingertips moving with the motion.

  I glanced away, my eyes zeroing in on Annie. “What do you think, Annie? Am I losing my touch?”

  She squirmed in her seat while Izzy looked between us with a shit-eating grin on her face.

  She was always too perceptive.

  I could only hope this time she’d just stay out of my shit.

  “Yeah, Annie…” She licked her lips. Well, there went that wish. “How is Ash’s touch?”

  I kicked Izzy under the table while Mom tilted her head at me as if questioning why the fuck I was touching the poor innocent girl living under their roof.

  If she only knew I was balls deep last year in the shallow end while my dad watched.

  Okay, creepy thought.

  Dad cleared his throat. “Well, I’m glad things are okay—you are okay, right, Annie? You don’t need me to follow up? I would hate for your sophomore year at Eagle Elite to be anything but positive?”

  I snorted. “Yeah, that’s just what she needs, Dad. A US Senator known to be involved in the mafia just strolling onto campus, guns blazing. Besides, you know it pisses Mom off when the fangirls start taking pictures.”

  “Didn’t a student faint last year?” Izzy asked damn well knowing the answer since we refused to let dad forget about his popularity.

  “No, no.” I waved my hand in the air. “That was the year before. Last year a girl went topless and painted her chest with ‘Mr. Senator,’ then asked him to fu—”

  “Enough of story time,” Mom said through clenched teeth. “And watch your language, Ash.”

  “I’ve always wondered,” I teased. “When you’re asked to watch your language, does it mean to like literally watch it, because that’s impossible to do since speaking isn’t writing and—” Mom held up her hand, silencing me in the process. I just grinned and shoveled some food onto my plate.

  Dad chuckled under his breath as the tension dissipated, and I tried like hell not to bring my attention back to Annie by focusing on getting as much food into my mouth as fast as possible so I could wash her off my body.

  Wash off the sweat from our sparring and pray it would wash off the temptation as well.

  “Someone’s hungry,” Izzy observed under her breath. “What did you and Annie do down there, hmm brother? You show up all sweaty, she’s out of breath, and now—” She shoved the fork into her mouth and bit down, pulling it out slowly. “Extremely.” Chew. “Extremely.” Chew. “Hungry.”

  Annie’s fork clattered to her plate.

  “It’s just food, Iz, you should know since you refuse to let any of it touch on your plate. God forbid your broccoli mates with your mashed potatoes and poisons you.”

  Dad laughed. “Just like your mom, all prim and proper…”

  “NOPE!” Iz covered her ears. “Can we please have one family dinner where sex isn’t mentioned? It’s traumatic and damaging to my young mind!”

  “You know what else is damaging to your young mind? Maksim.” I grinned.

  Dad let out a growl. “You two hanging out again?”

  “Yeah, you two ‘studying’?” I made air quotes.

  Izzy appeared ready to murder me.

  “Well.” I stood and grabbed my plate. “Since you’ve got dishes all covered, sister, I’ll just
be going to wash the sweat from working out off my body. Oh, and Dad, my advice, chop the tree in the north yard.”

  “IZZY EUSTICE ABANDONATO!”

  “And there it is.” I snapped my fingers. “Middle named by Scary Dad. Have a good night, sis.” I winked as she shot to her feet, reaching behind her and pulling out a knife from the waist of her jeans.

  Mom reached for her wine with a dramatic sigh. “Put the knife down, Iz.”

  I made a face at Iz once I was behind Dad and then strolled out of the room and into the cool night air.

  I was about halfway to the pool house when footsteps sounded behind me. I hung my head. “Iz, if you’re planning on sneaking up on me, do it better!”

  But when I turned, it wasn’t Izzy.

  It was Annie.

  Slightly out of breath.

  Her cheeks flushed as her eyes met mine. “I figured my chances of survival increased if I followed rather than stayed.”

  “Me? Safer?” I flashed her an angry grin. “Not a chance.” I took a step toward her. “Did you forget our little… bargain?”

  “B-bargain?”

  “We aren’t necessarily… friends.” I tilted my head. “And yet you keep acting like that’s still on the table despite what I say.”

  “But—” Her eyebrows drew together as her forehead furrowed in confusion, and then she sucked in a deep breath and steeled her expression. “I don’t need to be your friend to stay safe from Izzy wielding a knife, and I sure as hell don’t need a friend to learn how to defend myself. I’m not inviting myself into your stupid pool house because I want to eat popcorn and brush your hair.” She shifted her weight on her feet. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what the hell is it?”

  “I’m lonely!” she yelled and then covered her mouth with her hands like she’d just admitted to kicking puppies.

  And something in my chest cracked.

  Because I knew that look.

  I knew that feeling.

  I’d been lonely for the last year.

  Existing but refusing to enjoy my actual existence.

  Waking up every day, wondering when things would begin to feel different. Lying to my friends that I was okay, lying to my family that I wasn’t still in severe pain, my heart in need of triage.