by Vic Tyler
The tension in my body vibrates with the need to snap.
But for some reason, as soon as the door closes behind him, I run to stop him.
I need to talk to him. I can’t leave things like this.
I should leave him alone, but the thought that things might change between us fills me with anxiety. Even though they probably already did.
It didn’t take long for me to get to the door. But when I step out of my room and burst into the hallway, Damien’s already disappeared.
He ran.
He wanted to get away from me as soon as possible. He doesn’t want me going after him.
This isn’t a movie or a book, although I don’t know many stories where the girl has to chase after the guy.
I close the door behind me when I step back into my room, and only then do I allow myself to cry out loud, my sobs filling the air.
My insides feel shredded, and every part of me is shaking. My head feels like it’s been stuffed with sand, and in this one moment, I hate myself for the choices I’ve made.
I lost him.
I lost Damien.
chapter twenty-four
I don’t see Damien for the next few days.
I don’t look for him because I’m too embarrassed, and he probably wants some space.
It seems like we’re avoiding each other, but even if I do want to find him, there’s not much I can do when a master assassin/criminal/mafia general doesn’t want to be found.
On the fourth day of not seeing him anywhere, I get a little uneasy.
This is the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other while we’re still both on the mansion’s grounds.
So I text him, trying to sound casual as I say ‘hi’ and ask what he’s up to.
When I come back from school, he still hasn’t responded.
Dinnertime passes, and it gets late into the evening before I get irritated and text him again, telling him it’s rude to ignore me.
Even if things didn’t go the way either of us wanted, we still care about each other… right?
I wait an hour.
And then two.
He still hasn’t messaged me, and the worst case scenarios run through my mind, making me nauseous and scared.
Did something happen to him? Does he hate me now?
I can’t just let this go. I have to talk to him.
So I call him.
It doesn’t even ring before it goes to voicemail.
No.
It can’t be.
My fingers tremble as I press the call button again.
Voicemail.
Call.
Voicemail.
Call.
Voicemail.
No.
Energy surges through, fueled by indignation and disbelief.
The coward. That asshole. How dare he block me? It’s not like he can hide from me forever.
I knew he was lacking a little in the emotional department like everyone in this stupid mansion is, but this is too much.
The deviants I pass eye me warily as I stomp to the Twelve’s quarter, fuming.
If I were Turan’s size, I’m sure the entire mansion would be shaking right now.
The door slams against the wall when I shove it open. “Damien!”
My eyes skate around the room.
Empty.
Too empty.
His bed is made, and the pile of laundry stacked against the wall is gone.
So are a number of the knives he keeps locked in his drawer.
His favorite guns.
His basic materials kit.
Some of the clothes in his closet.
His backpack’s nowhere to be found.
Only the little collection of trinkets and presents that I organized on the top of his drawer is untouched, and the ones that are knocked over are from how hard I opened and shut the drawers.
Sprinting out, I crash against Kitty’s door, pounding my fists and yelling her name.
It opens, and she looks questioningly at me.
“Where is he?” I demand.
My stomach is already sinking and twisting into itself.
Already suspecting the answer.
And she confirms it. “New York.”
“When?”
“Mmm.” She taps her chin thoughtfully, watching me with amusement as she takes her time. “Three days ago?”
He left. He left right after I kissed him.
A scream threatens to rip out of my throat, but I swallow it. It feels like a ticking bomb inside me.
“Call him,” I grit.
Her lips curl into a smile. “Why?”
My mouth opens and snaps shut.
Because he blocked my phone number.
She probably figured it out, but I don’t want to tell her why it happened. What made him leave.
“Please.” My voice strains from my contained fury. “Can you please call him?”
She cocks her head and makes that thoughtful noise again. “Mm. No.”
“Kitty,” I plead.
“Yes?” Her emerald green eyes are twinkling. She’s such a sadist.
Now, I’m really tempted to scream, but I have a feeling she’d just find it hilarious, so I don’t give her the satisfaction.
Spinning around, I run out, bolting out and down the hallway and stairs, all the way to West’s office.
My fists thunder against the door, and it clicks open.
When West sees how frenzied I am, he arches an eyebrow.
A few feet away, Kaden looks at me with eager curiosity, and in his usual chair, Turan watches warily.
“Can I talk to you?” I keep my eyes locked to West.
He glances at the two other men in the room and nods. Kaden gives me a long, peering stare as he slowly makes his way out.
As soon the door shuts, I explode. “Why?”
West waits patiently for me to calm down or to explain or something. It aggravates me, but he just waits.
“Why?” I try again. “Why does he have to kill you?”
His lips twitch into a smile. “He won’t.”
I stare at him incredulously.
Then, what is this about? Is this some kind of messed–up game?
West pauses, holding up a finger.
“He can’t,” he corrects.
“But he’s going to try?” My words come out in a quiet breath.
Watching me carefully, he grows solemn as he takes in my turmoil. “Yes.”
“West.” My voice breaks into a broken sob as I run to him. “West, no. West, please.”
His expression doesn’t change. There’s no sympathy, no reassurance, no sadness, no nothing.
He simply stands there, unmoving, as tears streak down my face, unable to be held back with the agony spilling out of me.
Finally, he puts a hand to my head and gently asks, “Do you have such little faith that I can’t defend myself?”
When I look up, he’s smiling.
Amused.
What is wrong with these people?
“It’s not funny,” I grit angrily, wiping my wet cheeks with my sleeve. “I hate this. Why do you have to kill each other? Don’t you care about each other? Aren’t we a family?”
West’s face falls into cold impassivity, and my heart plunges through my stomach like I’ve said something wrong.
But I haven’t. Right?
“Adriana,” he says firmly, in the same way Damien said my name a few days ago.
“Even mafias are families,” I cry in an accusatory tone. “They might kill other people, but they care about each other. They protect each other!”
He regards me silently before his gaze drifts away, and he sighs. His large hand tugs at his white beard.
“This is how the organization has always been,” he says flatly. “It is our bylaws. Our commandments.”
“Then, change them,” I demand. “Everyone listens to you, so change the law.”
He smiles like I said something cute. “If only it
were that easy.”
“Trust me, it is!” I groan, exasperated.
He chuckles before his gaze drifts to the window. He murmurs so softly that I almost don’t hear him. “Trust.”
He’s looking out onto the lawn, but he’s not seeing anything. His eyes are distant as he’s slipped into the recesses of his mind, contemplating.
When his attention returns to me, he’s not West anymore. Not my West who’s as warm as the fireplace we always sit in front of.
He’s Cardinal Westlake.
“It’s time that you see what we are.”
A sudden whirring sound catches my attention, and the wall next to us is suddenly bathed in white light by a projector on the ceiling that I’d swear wasn’t there before.
“There aren’t many civilians who know the extent of our organization, and the ones that do usually don’t live very long.” He’s watching me, and for a brief second, fear flashes through me. Is that a threat? “For the mere reason that you’ve seen this information, you won’t be allowed to leave, no matter how you feel. Are you prepared for that?”
The strange, uncharacteristic gentleness of the question goes against everything else he says. Something shifted in the mood, and now, we’re toeing the point of no return.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
An ominous foreboding is screaming at me to run, but I want to know.
No, I need to know.
I’ll never understand West and Damien and everyone else if I walk away now. I’ll forever be a child in their eyes. Forever be a civilian. An outsider.
I need to know what I’m up against if I truly want to protect West and Damien and everyone else I care about.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I strengthen my resolve. “Show me.”
West studies me for a few long seconds. Something like regret crosses his face, but it’s too quick for me to place.
He doesn’t ask me if I’m sure. Instead, he goes to his desk and brushes his fingers on the black mat, and storage folders pop up on the wall monitor.
I startle when the bay windows darken, the sight of the lawn and the trees outside disappearing into a glass curtain of black.
When I turn back, West is holding out his trash can and pushing his chair towards me.
“Sit.”
Shakily, I drop into the leather chair, gripping the metal can in my arms. He smiles without any warmth.
The projector whirs. Flashes.
And then, the wall fills with murder.
Sprawled on a concrete floor of what looks like a warehouse, a man’s body is tangled in a knot.
A gaping red hole with a bloody white bone sticks out of his shoulder, and the arm that’s supposed to be attached to it lies a few feet away
His dismembered leg was hacked at the joints, the pieces of flesh around it looking like shredded ground beef spilling out onto the floor.
The rest of his limbs are attached to his torso, bent at unnatural angles, and the ends are crimson stubs where his fingers and toes should be.
The picture froze this man in the middle of a scream, his bloodshot eyes bulging out and veins popping from his face. His mouth stretches open as far as it’d go.
The skin on his shirtless torso is bruised dark purple and black with chunks missing, and I want to believe that the scarlet thing sticking out of his stomach isn’t… his stomach.
Mine empties straight into the container in my arms, and West waits until I’ve finished to click to the next picture.
Photo after photo of horrible mutilations have me retching stomach acid into the metal can.
Men, women, old, young. Save for any children younger than ten years old, no one else is spared.
“Who did this?” The sound coming out of my throat is hoarse and scratchy.
“Kaden Eurus.” West stares at the pictures with no expression whatsoever. My mind threatens to explode trying to imagine the smiling, golden preppy man committing these atrocious acts. God, what has West seen in his life that jaded him like this? “With the lieutenants and deviants under his command, but Kaden Eurus was the main culprit.”
“He’s crazy.” My voice sounds crazy. “He’s insane. He should be locked up.”
“The FBI calls him the Manhattan Shredder,” West remarks like he’s commenting on the weather. “He’s number three on their top ten wanted list.”
“Why hasn’t anyone turned him in?”
“Because he’s good at what he does,” West says simply. “All his victims are marks or tied with the underground. They’re not illegal by our standards.” His lip purses fractionally. “The eastern faction’s definition of ‘civilian’ differs slightly from ours.”
“West,” I croak, devastated. “No.”
Leaning against his desk, he studies me gravely.
“There’s more.” His tone tinges with sympathy when he asks, “Or is that enough?”
My entire body is sheened with sweat, and my mouth and nose burn from the stomach acid. But my fingers feel cold, and I’m shivering.
“No more pictures,” I sob.
“No. No more pictures. The rest is enough to listen to.”
I don’t respond, just barely moving to take the tissues that West offers.
After wiping my face, I toss the damp tissues into the rancid trash can and set it down.
Do I want to hear more?
I don’t know if I can take it.
But maybe I have a masochistic side because my head nods before I can stop it.
He gets straight to the point. “The eastern faction’s deviant initiations involve kidnapping and raping women before throwing them into sex trafficking rings. They keep people hostage to continually cook and produce high–quality drugs, and they dip their hands into anything you can think of. They sell weapons, software, missile plans to the highest bidder in blacklisted countries.” His voice is laced with disgust. “They’re an abomination.”
My head spins. “Then why? Why do you support all that? Why don’t you and the other two factions do anything?” I stop as horror washes over me. “Damien.” I jump to my feet. “Damien’s there. Oh, my god.” My hands wring through my hair. “He’s in danger.”
“Damien will be fine,” West says calmly.
“How can he be fine if he’s doing all that?” I scream, pointing at the now blank wall that had scarred my vision only moments before.
“The eastern faction is vast,” West says firmly. “Vast enough that the likelihood that Damien will ever contact those divisions in his one year there is low.”
“That’s so fucked up, West,” I croak.
“What the northern, southern, and western factions are doing is advocating Kaden Eurus to become the next eastern Cardinal.”
Even though I’m sitting, my knees buckle, and I shake uncontrollably. “How? How can you let that monster take over?”
West smiles sympathetically. “Because the current Eastwood is that much worse.”
My insides are churning as the gravity of the situation dawns on me.
“This has been in the works for the past seven years since the last factional exchange when Kaden Eurus was sent to the northern faction. Right now, Eastwood is untouchable unless we can not only locate and destroy him but also the eastern faction’s Twelve and the lieutenants under them.”
West presses his lips together. “They’re clever and wily enough to spread out throughout the northeast coast, and even if the rest of us pool our manpower and resources together — even if we work with the surface organizations — we can’t get rid of all the split heads of the eastern faction’s leadership without claiming hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.”
My eyes drill into the wall, looking but seeing nothing.
“But you need to understand that we are not heroes, Adriana,” West says. There’s a certain resignation in his tone. “We are the underworld.” His stare bores into me. “Damien included. As well as me.”
He straightens, and his figure looms powerfully i
n the dark room. “Our deaths are our penance, to die by our own for what we have done. It is the only honor we receive, the only redemption we can ask for.”
I laugh humorlessly. “That sounds like poetic bullshit.”
His lips quirk into a smile. “It is.”
My shoulders go limp as my head drops, feeling so, so heavy. “I don’t want you to die, West. I don’t want your death to weigh on Damien’s shoulders.”
I see his shoes stop in front of me, and his hand rests comfortingly on my head.
“There is no one who is exempt from death. It comes for us all.” He pats my hair. “But I’ll be offended if you think Damien can deliver me there anytime soon.”
I can’t help but laugh. It’s not funny. It’s so absurd. All of it.
Gingerly reaching out, I hold his hand and press my cheek to it.
“You don’t deserve this kind of life, West,” I mumble.
“Don’t fool yourself, child,” he says, chuckling gently. “All of the Cardinals are marked by government organizations. Most of the Twelve in each faction are as well. Kaden is simply louder than the rest of us. We are not good people. You should never doubt that.” He strokes my cheek. “Don’t make me show you our files.”
I swallow hard and shake my head.
“I believe you,” I whisper. “No more.”
“Good.” His fingers grip my chin, tugging me up to look at him. His expression is solemn. “I’ve signed your death warrant by offering you this information, do you understand that?”
My mouth dries, and I stare at him, trying to process the thought.
He smiles gently. “I’ve made you a hostage simply because I can.”
I swallow. “You or Cardinal Westlake?”
He doesn’t respond, his expression unreadable. He stands so still that he looks like a wax figure.
The warmth of his fingers disappears from my chin as he walks away. “Go see Hilda for some water and food and get some rest.”
Running straight into him, I collide into his back, squeezing my arms around his waistline. “There’s good in you, West. You saved me. I’m not your hostage because I want to be here.”
He delicately pats me, and his voice is solemn as he says, “Sometimes it is necessary to do good in order to cause the most harm.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I tell him. “But you’re saving me over and over again. And I don’t play a role in your world.”
