by C. Lymari
I leaned forward, staring back at him.
“Okay, let’s play pretend since you loathe where you come from. Let’s say we do it, we back out, and leave it all behind—what then, Huxley? What happens then? Because they are not going to let us run around on our Harleys like nothing ever happened. You can’t become king when the old one still lives. If you want the throne, you have to make sure everyone in the fucking court is dead.” I got up, holding on to the table for support. “Axton is king. We are his court. The world is his kingdom.”
I was breathing heavily by this point, and I didn’t dare look anywhere but him. My father taught me from a young age all I needed to know. I didn’t know if he wanted me to have the mentality of a king, or if he had a feeling he wasn’t going to live long, but my father made sure I knew there was no out to embrace the darkness and dance with the stars.
“We get out, Hux, and you’re just signing our deaths.”
I turned to Axton and said the thing I wanted to say since I walked into this house.
“I’m not marrying Huxley.”
Axton looked at his son and then at me. “We can discuss this at a later time.”
“No,” I said. “You negotiated my marriage with my parents, and I want to negotiate on my own behalf.”
“You have nothing I want.” Axton gave me a mocking smile. He then got up, closed the lapel on his suit, and walked away.
I watched him go while I smiled to myself. Not yet.
Chapter Five
My dick was hard, and there was no way to adjust myself without my brothers knowing.
“Finley is right,” Duncan said in a grave tone. “There’s no out. You knew that the moment you took the vow.”
My eyes went to Finley, and hers met mine, our minds in sync for that moment. The night I took my vow, she was there. And then the night of her vow, everything changed.
Huxley changed the subject. “Finley hasn’t taken the vow.”
Finley bit her lip; she always did that when she was nervous. I used to think it was adorable when she did it as a child, but as she grew up, the feelings I got when she licked or bit her lips changed.
I couldn’t help but grin at my brother’s statement. She had taken her vow, and I had been there before and afterward. Sometimes I wished she had never taken it. We could all still be playing pretend. Per my father’s request, no one other than a chosen few, knew.
“When do you want to take the vow?” I asked because I wanted to talk to her. I missed the shit out of her, and having her so close affected me more than I would have liked. I still couldn’t tell her why she had to leave.
The fact that she’d confronted my father and wanted to void the contract and not marry Huxley, it did something to me. The little smirk she did when my father walked away told me all I needed to know. She had something up her sleeve, and I wanted to help her.
It’s not that I would keep her to myself, not when my brother was in love with her, but she didn’t fit into the idea he had for a wife. When my brother finally realized what we were and what we would always do, it would be too late. Finley wasn’t meant to follow; she was the type of girl that helped you lead.
“No one has pissed me enough—yet.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Maybe you could be my first.”
Chills went down my body, and my already aching dick enlarged. Finley blushed when she realized what she said.
Huxley’s chair flew back, and he leaned into the table. Moments like this, he looked less model and more psycho.
“Since we all value vows around here, then you are going to honor the marriage arrangement our fathers laid out for us.”
Finley watched my brother leave as she glared at him. When I looked down at my hands, I realized I had fisted them as he spoke. A part of me was glad he didn’t give us a reminder of why he was chosen.
I heard the flick of Duncan’s lighter as he sparked up. He took a hit from the blunt before he spoke.
“Fuck me,” Duncan said with a grin. “Huxley won’t want you when you’re damaged goods.”
I was about slap Duncan when he howled in pain.
“You fucking bitch, that hurt!”
Finley was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. It was nice to watch; she’d laughed a lot as a kid, then after her parents passed away, not so much.
“What did she do?” I asked.
“She fucking flung a rubber band to my cheek!”
An hour later, Duncan and I arrived at the club. Dad would get pissed we didn’t bring Huxley, but I knew my brother would appreciate it if we didn’t drag him into this mess.
I strode off my bike at the same time Duncan got off his. My brother smirked at Nate and the boys as he strolled up to them. I shook my head, trying to remind myself that I used to be a cocky little shit like him.
“Sorry to call you, brother,” Nate said grimly. We tried to keep our distance from the club as much as we could. It was why Dad stayed away, or at least that’s what I told myself, ignoring the fact that he and Gunner weren’t close as before. As for me, if people saw me here, I was going through a rebellious phase. Spoiled rich kids playing at being a biker.
“It’s all good.” I nodded. “What happened?”
“Someone broke into the warehouse.” Nate gave me a look, and I knew he instantly got paranoid like I did. It always led back to that fucking night.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “Did they take anything?”
The warehouse was where he stored our cargo before distributing it to our buyers. If they went there, nothing of importance should have been taken since we hadn’t had a shipment.
“They left something,” Nate replied.
I looked at him, at Andre, and his brother, Ace.
The only things that got left behind were bombs or bodies, and since I didn’t hear an explosion, I could only imagine it was the latter.
“Anyone we know?” Duncan asked as he lit a cigarette.
“Not us,” Andre answered.
Instead of telling Duncan to stop smoking since I knew it was hypocritical, I took the pack away from him and grabbed one myself.
“Let’s go check it out,” I told them, ready to get on my bike again.
“We brought the problem here.” Ace nodded toward the garage.
“How’d you get it here?”
“Called Chops to bring the cage.”
I snorted. “Did you tell him to keep a lid on it?”
Chops tended to run his mouth.
“Come on, we don’t know who he is, but based on the red bottoms and the Audemars Piguet, I’d say you might,” Andre told us.
“Brother, I didn’t know you knew your Walmart from your Armani.” I patted Andre’s shoulder while everyone else laughed. He was a tall motherfucker. The tallest out of everyone here. That’s why we called him Andre, for André the giant.
“Fuck off, Nash.” He pushed me away.
I wasn’t going to lie; that’s what I loved about the club. We were all family. This living between two worlds was bullshit—one foot in the underworld and another with the elites.
Both worlds were full of treachery and lies.
When we came to the garage, Ace opened the van, and right away, I knew the man came from money. He was wearing Christian Louboutin shoes. On his arm was a gold Audemars Piguet watch. The suit he wore was tailored to his frame.
Duncan threw the butt of his cigarette on the floor before he jumped on the van. He turned the man over. From my brother’s reaction, I knew we knew him. Duncan got tense and threw his head back with his eyes closed.
“Who?”
“Joel,” he said somberly.
My brother turned around and gave me a look.
I slammed my fist to the metal of the van door. Pain radiated through my hand, ricocheting up to my arm.
“You’re paying for that hissy fit,” Nate answered ever so calmly.
“He’s one of our board members,” I told him, and understanding dawned on him. We were having a board meeting
tomorrow, and one of the members was dead.
“Someone turned rat.” Duncan said what we were all thinking as he got out of the van.
“How does this affect tomorrow’s vote?” Nate asked, looking between the dead man, and my brother and me.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “He might have been against changing companies, and now we will be a vote short and lose the contract, or he might have been a message.”
Nate pulled his phone out to update Gunner while I told my father we needed to talk.
“Yeah, get them to start preparing. If shit keeps going like this, we are going to have to go on lockdown.” Nate finished his call, then put his phone in his back pocket.
“I feel it,” he said. “War is coming, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
Then I turned to Duncan, who still hadn’t fully grasped the severity of the situation.
“Not a word of this to Huxley and Finnie.”
My brother licked his lips and then pushed back the long strands of hair at the front.
“They find out we kept this from them, they’re going to be pissed.”
“But alive,” I said.
Duncan shrugged because he knew I was right. Until we knew who wanted to harm our family, we had to protect them. It’s what I had been doing for years. I was a pro at using my body as a shield for them almost to the point of killing myself with pain.
A bit later, my brother left the club with Andre and Ace, leaving me alone with Nate.
Nate and I understood each other. One day he would get the gavel, and I would take my father’s place, and he, along with my brother and Finnie, would call the shots of the empire.
“What are you going to do about Finley?” he asked as he rolled a blunt. Now that no one was around, I didn’t have to lie.
“Protect her. What else would I do?”
He gave me a don’t play stupid look.
“I’m talking about her marrying your brother?”
I shrugged. “Nothing, she’s his.”
“Bullshit,” he snorted. “You’ve had a hard-on for the bitch since you were seventeen.”
“She was a fucking kid,” I growled because Finley had been fourteen back then, way too fucking young.
“My mother had me at fifteen.” He grinned at me.
I cut him with a glare. “And look how well that turned out, Nathaniel.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” he spat.
Nate burned his joint, took a hit, and passed it to me. When he was mellowed out, he spoke again.
“You’re telling me you’re okay living in that mansion, knowing your brother is hitting that a few floors from you?”
My jaw was stiff, and my hand was fisted.
“Thought so,” Nate said triumphantly.
“He’s my brother. I can’t do that to him.”
Nate sighed, and then he grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it. “Brother, none of us here would do that to you.”
Chapter Six
I forgot how beautiful Crull Manor looked at dawn.
It felt like a fire was trying to overtake this place. The way the sun rose and rays reflected the lake toward the forest. It was beautiful. The only reason I knew this was because I used to climb outside and watch. Insomnia had always been a dear friend. Not one I tried to shake off real hard. My mind wandered at night, and I just let it.
Most of the time, I thought about my parents; other times, I thought about Nash—okay, a lot of times I thought about Nash.
Right now, looking at the lake, I thought about the time my father was giving me a lesson, and Nash freaked out. I think that was the first time my heart beat at a different tune for him. I was young—way too young to know about lust, but loyalty, that was something I knew well.
Since I was a kid, I knew I was loyal to the family—to my father, and then at ten, I became loyal to Nash.
“Focus, Finley!” my father’s agitated voice rang through the warehouse.
At his tone, I knew I needed to get out of this bind as quickly as possible. Most ten-year-old girls had their father take them to ballet classes, but not my dad. He said he loved me too much for the time he spent with me to end up being useless.
I didn’t know what that meant, but usually, our days together were fun—scary but fun. Except for today. I was more on the scary part.
“D-daddy,” I yelled because I wanted to hear his voice so I could pinpoint where he was coming from.
He had me blindfolded, my legs tied to a chair and my arms bound behind my back with zip ties.
“Four minutes.” That was all he said.
He gave me five minutes before he would let the dogs loose. I knew I didn’t want the dogs near me. There were two of them, and let’s just say they were vicious. We had five Cane Corsos in total that were lethal. The only interaction those dogs had was with their master, and that was my father.
The dogs were trained to incapacitate.
“Three minutes!” My dad was now pissed.
My bladder was full, and thus, I couldn’t concentrate on escaping.
The doors opened, and I could hear the dogs growling.
I winced, knowing that what I would do was going to hurt, but that was okay. Huxley and I got hurt way worse during baseball season.
I rocked my body to the left and then swung to the right with all my force, and with the impact, the chair cracked, but it didn’t break.
“Finley!” my dad yelled again, and I knew I was cutting it close.
My heart started to beat a little faster, scared more than anything to disappoint my father.
Now that I was on the floor, I wiggled my feet and caught a lucky break when I noticed the part that cracked was one of the chair’s legs. I swung my body to the opposite side, with force, and the leg broke off, allowing me to let my legs loose.
“Shit!” I heard the scream, but I knew I was down to seconds, so I ignored that for now.
“Go!” I heard my father’s command.
At this point, I was standing with my hands tied behind my back and the blindfold on my face.
My body was pressed up against someone, and I knew immediately it was Nash because Huxley wasn’t as tall.
I could hear how fast his heart was beating, and he was scared. This, I found surprising, because nothing scared Nash. Not heights, not the dark, not even when they taught us all how to handle firearms. He took it all in stride. Except for now, the way his heart was strumming, I knew he was feeling it.
Nash hissed in pain as he curled one of his arms around my waist and held me in a viselike grip. As this happened, I heard my dad whistle a command for the dogs to stand down.
I rubbed my head against Nash’s chest, pulling my blindfold down in order to see. When I looked up at him, I saw relief in his mismatched eyes, followed by pain.
“You okay, Finnie?” he asked through gritted teeth.
I managed to nod. I took a step back from him, and I saw blood. There was a lot, and it was dripping from Nash’s arm.
My gaze went back behind him, and I saw my dad’s dog growling at us. My father walked toward us calmly, but I knew he was pissed because I had not passed his test.
“What. The. Hell. Were. You. Thinking?” he spat at Nash.
“Finley—” he started to say even though I knew it cost him to talk.
“I wasn’t going to hurt my own daughter,” my dad spat. He looked at me and threw a knife by my feet. “Make sure he doesn’t bleed out.”
And at that moment, I knew he let Nash get bit so he could teach him a lesson. My dad walked out without looking back, the dogs following behind him. Meanwhile, I finished letting myself loose with the knife.
Nash was on the floor, shirtless, when I turned to look at him. He had his shirt wrapped around his arm, blood everywhere.
“Here, let me tie it,” I said as I grabbed the blindfold and tied it where I had seen the bite.
Nash gave me a small smile, and he still had it in him to tease me. “Ar
e you going to kiss my booboo?”
I glared at him. When I was four, I hated to see him get hurt, so every time he had scrapes, I would kiss them thinking I was magically healing him.
“God, Nash,” I whispered, freaked out of my mind because of all the blood. “Why did you do that?”
Nash looked at me, and I could see he was offended by my question. His eyebrows rose, and his eyes flashed.
He didn’t hang around me and Hux that much anymore because he was a teenager now or whatever that meant. Mom said it was because he wasn’t into kiddie games anymore. I couldn’t say Huxley and I were into those things either.
“Because you’re—”
But before he could finish his sentence, he passed out.
I always wondered what he was going to say. It wasn’t the first time Nash tried to protect me, but it was the last time he looked at me so unguarded.
“Shit, Finnegan, I don’t know how the hell you can stand to sit up here,” Duncan said as he held on to the frame and climbed out of my window.
There was a bit of a flat space before the roof formed a cone.
“I don’t think about the fall, and that makes it easier.”
He looked at me like I was crazy.
“Your dad fucked you up,” he mumbled.
I cut him with a glare.
“Like Axton didn’t do the same.”
“Yeah, but your dad took it too far.”
Duncan was agitating me, as did Huxley, whenever they talked about my father. They made it seem like he’d mistreated me.
I hugged my knees to my chest and continued to stare at the horizon.
“My dad didn’t raise me to be a damsel. He raised me to run our empire.”
Duncan didn’t speak more, and I was okay with it. We had the board meeting today, and I was a little worried about how the vote would go. Since Riley didn’t show her face here this morning, I imagined she would make a grand entrance. So like her to want attention.
“Get out,” I told Duncan after we climbed back into my room. “I got to get ready.”
He smirked at me. “Is that an invite?”
