Destructive King

by Rachel Van Dyken

  She would always be there.

  And I was okay with that.

  As long as I was there too.

  “Ash,” I warned.

  “I was going to give you your present… do you still want it?”

  “Is it a puppy?” I joked, trying to break the sexual tension between us. I needed to stay strong.

  His eyebrows shot up. “I think a puppy would take too much of your attention away from me. I mean, you’re already commandeering my fruit snacks; what if I got you a puppy and you started ignoring me or provoking me on purpose?”

  I snorted out a laugh. “Admit it, you’d like it.”

  “I admit everything.” His arms tightened around my body; I had to tilt my head up to see him. “I admit I’m an asshole, but I think you like me that way. I think me being polite scares the shit out of you.”

  “Because you aren’t polite,” I blurted. “You’re mean.”

  “I know.”

  “And cruel.” I just kept going. “You’re the definition of a selfish asshole who thrives on others’ pain.”

  “True and true,” he admitted.

  I sighed. “You’re supposed to get mad.”

  “Why would I get mad at my own twisted truth? If you want to make me mad, just try to change me; that will make me mad. But you don’t want the gentleman…” He pressed forward, his lips against my cheek as he whispered. “You want the sinner.”

  I closed my eyes as my knees weakened.

  He gripped the towel in one hand, tugging it away from me.

  My breaths came fast and shallow. “What are you doing?”

  “Making you fall…” Just as he said it, the towel pooled at my feet, and then his hands were cupping my face. “Look at me.”

  I opened my eyes, terrified of what I’d see. “I’m looking.”

  “I’m not,” he said simply. “And I won’t look. I swear to you I won’t look until you’re ready because I know this is too soon. I know I sliced over and over again and never even attempted to stop the bleeding. I know that now… So I’m not going to look even though it’s fucking killing me. I just want you to know that you’re beautiful. That I care. That I won’t stop caring even if you shove me away the way I did you.” His thumbs moved against my jaw. “And Annie?”

  I couldn’t trust my voice. My tongue felt thick, my throat dry.

  “You aren’t alone.” He shook his head. “Not anymore.”

  He released me and turned away like he was leaving.

  “Wh-what about the fruit snacks?” I asked.

  His dark chuckle said it all. “I’ll get even… one day…”

  “Ash!’

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  And I knew.

  Sleep… would be completely futile, maybe for the rest of my life as I fell against my bed completely naked and wanting.

  Him.

  Always him.

  Only him.

  And as I looked out my window, I watched the stars.

  And wished.

  Begged.

  Prayed.

  That he’d be mine…

  “Until the stars fall..” I whispered into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” —Norman Cousins

  Chase

  January

  “Things are better, then?” Phoenix asked just after New Year’s.

  I glanced out the window as the snow continued to pile itself around Chicago and shook my head. “They’re hard to read.”

  Phoenix snorted out a laugh. “Welcome to your twenties.”

  “Were we ever that young?” I wondered out loud.

  “No,” Tex said from his spot in the corner half-assed watching Dante and Nixon playing chess. Andrei and Valerian were deep in a discussion about Russian politics, and Sergio was reading a medical text that would probably scare a sane human.

  Dom was at the door watching, guarding as always.

  And there I sat.

  It was the first time since her death that I wished I would have trusted more, trusted my friends, my family, the bosses.

  We’d been to hell and back, over and over again, and yet, this secret wasn’t mine to keep, wasn’t mine to tell. And yet I knew, in the way that Phoenix sometimes looked at me—he knew I wasn’t the same.

  Would never be the same after that day in the hospital, when the life left her eyes when she was lost to him.

  My son.

  My fucking son.

  With his broken heart, spirit, soul.

  I pounded the desk with my fist, gaining everyone’s attention before I even realized what I was doing.

  “Someone’s panties in a twist?” Andrei grinned like he wanted to pick a fight.

  But Nixon?

  Nixon just shot me a cool stare that said. “Stop hiding.”

  “What would you do…” I stood and stared out the window. “If someone you loved asked you to sacrifice everything at the risk of your own happiness?”

  “Er, asking for a friend?” Tex joked.

  I heard a muffled “ouch,” so clearly someone hit him.

  “Seriously.” I lowered my head. “How do you even begin to unravel that?”

  Phoenix spoke first. “If they truly love you, they don’t ask you to sacrifice what makes you… you.”

  “Damn.” Dante laughed. “Phoenix just rose from the ashes a poet. Okay, Lord Byron, while I agree, it just depends on circumstances.”

  “No.” Nixon was next. “I disagree. You give everything up for those you love at the risk of your own happiness; to do anything else isn’t love.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, you won Trace, you’re such a dick sometimes.” He laughed with me. “You’re lucky I love my wife.”

  “And you’re lucky you do too. Otherwise, I’d kill you for loving mine,” Nixon said so casually I had to flip him off.

  I meant it.

  My wife was… everything Trace wasn’t.

  She was perfect.

  Mine.

  But that didn’t mean Trace wasn’t still one of my dearest friends that I just so happened to kiss back in college.

  Someone cleared his throat, and then Sergio spoke. “I would have done anything and everything for Andi—in the moment.” He drew a deep breath and released it, then added, “But in that moment, would it have been fair in our relationship? There must always be a balance, Chase, especially in this lifestyle.”

  I nodded, crossed my arms.

  Continued looking out at the snow.

  “Brother,” came Andrei’s voice. “At the risk of getting the shit beat out of me… you can’t measure love. It simply has no scale, so every situation is going to be different depending on the ask.”

  I hung my head. “And if… the ask was death? Then what?”

  The room was silent.

  The clock ticked in the distance.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt the room fill with tension, and then Phoenix’s voice… “What did you do?”

  My truth.

  My life.

  My son.

  With a shaking voice, I whispered, “I killed her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us. What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” —Albert Pike

  Ash

  One Week Later

  “Wake up!” My dad’s voice was tense, worried—afraid.

  I jerked awake and stared into his icy blue eyes. I saw nothing but terror there, nothing but uncertainty. “What’s wrong?”

  “Emergency meeting. Now.”

  “With who?”

  He swallowed and looked away with shaking hands. “Everyone.”

  “All the bosses?” I didn’t mean to question, but it was rare to have actual meetings. Dinners were one thing, but meetings? A commission?

  “Yes.” Dad tossed me a pair of jeans from th
e floor and said, “Get ready.”

  “For what?”

  He stopped at the door and whispered, “War.”

  I immediately thought of Annie as I hurried to brush my teeth, then threw on a beanie, dressed in dark jeans and a gray T-shirt, and stumbled out of the guest house.

  By the time I arrived at the kitchen, it wasn’t just all the bosses who were present, but all the cousins—even the younger ones.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked in a cold voice. “Because right now, it looks like we’re planning another fucking funeral.” Where was Annie?

  My stomach dropped.

  My heart stopped beating.

  Eyes furiously darting around the room until I saw her holding Kartini’s hand.

  Kartini?

  I mean, she was young, only seventeen but, why Kartini?

  And that was when I saw it.

  The dust on some.

  Dark smudges on others.

  Blood on a few.

  What the hell had happened to my family? And why was Kartini shaking?

  “Someone. Talk. Now.” I was losing control fast. Something snapped within me, imagining the smudges on Annie, the fear in her eyes.

  Did Annie have blood on her?

  What the hell would cause everyone to look this morose?

  “Someone…” Tex shuddered and glanced at King, who had smudges of burnt something across his face. His eyes were rimmed with red, his jaw locked like he was afraid if he opened it, he’d scream. “Someone sent one of those shitty white horse bombs to every single one of the cousins. Most of them knew what to do, but they were on timers, so they went off anyway… Had they not been warned because of the one at Ash’s …”

  I clenched my fists. “So who do we go after? Who are we killing?”

  I was ready.

  Adrenaline surged through my body.

  Nobody threatened what was mine.

  Nobody.

  “That’s just it.” Tex sighed and ran a shaky hand through his copper and brown hair. “We still have no intel; it’s like they’re off-grid.”

  Tank chose the worst timing ever as he let himself into the house, the door nearly coming off its hinges. “Is everyone okay?”

  His eyes darted around the room, finally settling on Kartini as he seemed to sigh in relief.

  I wanted to shout, “with no thanks to you! “But I kept silent.

  I watched.

  Waited.

  “Yes,” Dad finally said. “We’re just trying to figure out what’s the safest route…”

  Tank immediately jumped into action. “I can get agents to surround your property; you know they want the bigger fish, the violent squirmy one.” He pulled out his phone. “Just give me a minute.”

  “No.” The voice was feminine. Familiar. Shocked, I watched as Annie made her way into our circle as if she’d been a part of this life for an eternity. “You can’t involve them.”

  “Annie.” Tank’s face fell as his eyes softened toward her sealing his fate of getting punched in the face later. “This isn’t the same.”

  “You don’t know that.” Her teeth chattered. “Just because you have protection doesn’t mean you’re protected. And if they’re smart, they’ll just wait until your guard’s down… and you can’t live your life that way—just waiting, for the other shoe to drop, just waiting for that next hit, the next shove, the next draw of blood.” her voice caught on a sob.

  I reached for her; thank God she let me pull her against me. Her body shook as she spoke. “You draw them out…”

  She smelled like smoke.

  My fingers dug into her hair.

  Someone was dying that day.

  “Them?” Phoenix said in obvious interest. “And who are they? Do you know?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, I tried to turn her toward me, but she jerked away and then looked up to my dad. “Do you know?”

  He was silent, his eyes guilty as hell.

  “Do you?” Her voice was softer now. “Do you? Does he?” She pointed to Phoenix, who sighed heavily. “You do, right? It’s why you took me in?”

  “Okay.” I was losing my mind. “Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  “She was my target because of her adoptive dad.” Tank pulled out a chair and sat like he held the weight of the world on his shoulders. “He was a De Lange recruit; they adopted the orphans and wanted to brainwash them, train them against the other families.”

  The very Family that we’d tried to flush out.

  That wanted us dead more than anything just because they’d fucked up and been left with nothing.

  My own dad, the executioner that went after their families all those years ago and cleansed the family lines only to grow a heart and let the kids live, make better choices, survive.

  A mistake, people said.

  Grace, he’d snapped back, a man broken and beaten, who still saw the value of human life despite the horror around him.

  I’d heard the story a million times.

  “You’re De Lange?” I couldn’t keep the hiss of pain out of my voice. Was history just repeating itself?

  She lowered her head. “No. I’m—”

  “She’s Sinacore,” Dad answered in a calm voice that had me ready to throw furniture. “Her father wanted to move up in the De Lange line… but they couldn’t get pregnant, so…”

  Andrei’s eyes softened as much as they probably could as he took in the scene, she was related to him, and he never knew; she’d been threatened all this time, and he hadn’t protected her.

  I knew that guilt well.

  So. Well.

  A tear slid down Annie’s cheek. “He whored out my mom to a Sinacore underboss… and she got pregnant. Only they fell in love, and my dad, he never forgave her for it and never forgave me for being born.” She fell into gut-wrenching sobs. “H-he killed her the day the men came and stole me from my house, and she said, she said…” My arms went around her as I held her tight, refusing to let her go despite our curious audience. “She said the only Family I could trust were the Abandonatos.”

  Had the moon fallen from the sky?

  The sun?

  The stars?

  In that moment, I couldn’t have moved as my brain replayed every single shitty thing I’d done to her, said to her, been to her.

  My throat all but closed up.

  She’d seen me as a hero.

  And I’d been nothing but the villain.

  I’d reveled in it.

  I’d punished her.

  “How old were you?” I rasped.

  “Nine,” came her damning response. “He killed her, then killed himself, and Tank was undercover as a high school student next door. I didn’t know it then, but I was adopted or taken because of my bloodline; nobody wanted a girl that old. I was so excited to leave my life behind, and then—”

  “Hell,” Tank finished. “Fucking. Hell.” He stood to his feet then. “They tortured those kids, they wanted information, but they were so young.” He slammed his fist onto the table. “The FBI did whatever they could to gain the protection those kids needed—your fucking protection.”

  “And you’ve known?” I asked. “This whole time? Fuck how old are you?”

  Tank shook his head. “Found out before I came here… the FBI thinks the horses are a way at getting back at the FBI for attempting to gain protection for the De Lange orphans.” He sighed. “And not as old as you think, regardless of what you think, I was a child prodigy when it came to math, was recruited sickeningly young by the government.” He swallowed. “Our best guess is they want to get even.”

  “Shit,” Nixon said from his seat. “So they want retaliation?”

  “We think so, yes,” Tank admitted sadly. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Several of the De Lange Family are still living and went underground after we busted Annie’s family. Most of the kids that you know, that you’re training, were adopted under those pretenses. That’s why they’d die for you
guys, they have nothing left, no protection, no family—and they’re pissed, all they wanted was love, and all they got was used.”

  The door opened again as six of the De Lange recruits slowly walked in. Four guys, two girls.

  The last remaining kids of the De Lange line, each of them had been training under us for the past year and a half—all of them made leaps and bounds as they swore their fealty to me—to the Family.

  All while going to Eagle Elite and learning skills we’d need them to perfect later on in life. They lived under Phoenix’s roof too, safer that way, but I’d only ever seen them as leeches.

  Pawns.

  My own foot soldiers.

  And now?

  Now I realized I’d never taken the time to ask their names, their ages, backgrounds because that had been Tank’s job as trainer, his punishment.

  But me? I was their leader.

  Not my dad. Not the Capo.

  Me.

  I was who they looked to.

  And I was the one they were looking to right now.

  “We just heard.” Dylan, I think his name was Dylan ran a hand through his shoulder length jet black hair. “Just tell us what we need to do.”

  I hesitated, my eyes darting to my father’s and back.

  It was a moment that usually the bosses would take—they’d plan, they’d tell us how to execute it, and we’d be fine.

  But right now.

  Right now, all of the bosses curiously stared at me, as if it was my turn to truly step up to the plate, to own my heritage of the Abandonato Family.

  “Annie’s right,” I found myself saying. “By hunting, we leave ourselves exposed. Besides, we won’t even know exactly who we’re looking for.”

  “So?” Junior crossed his arms. “We just wait?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “When were you going to have an engagement party?”

  Junior swore. “That? That’s what you focus on right now?”

  I held out my hand. “Hear me out… rumors constantly circulate about how much of a douche you are.”

  “Oh good, I like this conversation. Please continue.” Junior threw his hands in the air . Standing next to him, Dylan smirked.

  “It’s true, right?” I eyed the eighteen-year-old kid, who gave a reluctant nod. “I’m sure you were told we were spoiled rotten rich kids with silver spoons poking out of our asses. And while ridiculously exaggerated, if that’s what they think, then let’s give it to them, make them think we’re lowering our guard.” I had everyone’s full attention now. “We throw a party downtown, make sure security is undercover, control the location, and we draw them out… just like Annie said. Besides, waiting for the monster under the bed is way more dangerous than reaching beneath and crushing his skull while he thinks you’re sleeping.”