by Amo Jones
Then it’s just us. But Hunter and Cash come and grab Eli, and Nate and Tillie call it a night, leaving just Brantley and me. Alone. For the first time in what feels like ever.
He stands, tossing his bottle into the trash beside him. “Do you remember much about your life before Lucan took you?” The music is still playing in the background. I think it’s an Eminem song.
His question knocks me out of focus, because out of everything that I was wondering, that was not one of them. “No, not a single thing. Why?”
I stand beside him when he doesn’t answer, my hand on his arm. “Brantley…”
His lips curl between his teeth as he finally faces me. “There’s a whole world that you don’t know about, and I’m hoping it doesn’t know about you.”
“What do you mean?”
He sits back in his chair, shaking his head. “Said I didn’t want to do the secrets thing, since Bishop went theatrical with his bullshit with Madison and it ended up ruining them both.” I can sense he’s not finished, so I don’t interrupt.
One second.
Two.
Three.
After a few seconds of silence, he opens his mouth. “I’ll start by explaining The Elite Kings Club.”
“Okay,” I say, taking the seat beside him.
He starts talking and I remain silent. I absorb all of the information he tells me, even the parts that are hard to follow.
“You have commandments?” I ask, and I don’t know why that’s the first thing I want to ask, but I do.
He nods. “Yeah. They’re engraved into the Vitiosis tombstone in the graveyard. We take them seriously.”
“Tell me one of them.” I’m fascinated by the story that he told me. How from generation to generation each last name has a legacy and a meaning. Bishop Hayes, Devil. Eli Rebelis, Rebel. Nate Malum, Evil. Brantley Vitiosis, Cruel or Vicious. He went on to explain the other last names, like apparently Madison’s real last name is Venari, Hunt. All of their last names stem from Latin, the dead language, which is the original tongue of their ancestors. It’s all confusing and hard to follow, but I think that’s what makes it all the more magical. I’ve always loved fantasy and fiction. It opens the human mind, spins the mundane and basic into worlds that we could only ever visualize in our dreams.
Harry Potter, for one. As a fellow Ravenclaw, I rewatch the movies and reread the books any time I need to be reminded that I’m home.
I look to the Slytherin.
Slytherin chuckles. “All right, but the first thing you have to know is that nothing in our world makes sense to commonfolk.” His finger is teasing his upper lip, his eyes remaining passive on mine. “Fourth commandment. What is yours is your brothers’, unless a King calls red.” Brantley pauses, leaning his elbows on his knees while never disconnecting. The flames are dying down now, but the music is still playing. The night is as dead as the corpses that are not ten feet behind us. “Do you know why they called it ‘red’?”
I shake my head. I’m not sure I want to know, which is ridiculous because it was me who wanted to know everything to begin with. “But I don’t understand the yours is your brothers’ part either?”
“It means that if one of us likes the other’s girlfriend, wife, fiancée, whatever bitch we have warming our cock at that time, then by EKC law, she is still free game.”
“You mean, she can sleep with you both?” I ask, cocking my head.
His eyes narrow. “Yes.”
“But, not many girls would want that, right?”
He doesn’t answer, and when I chew on my bottom lip in an attempt to calm my nerves, he reaches forward and catches it with his thumb. Electricity buzzes through me, followed closely by warm liquid that turns my bones to mush. “You would be surprised how easy it is for some girls.”
“Have you?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I’m not so sure I want to know. “Shared, I mean.” Seems like I’m still asking…
He releases my lip and reaches forward for another beer out of the cooler, flicking off the cap and tossing it in the trash. “Not interested in having a girlfriend. Ever. But yeah, it happens often.”
“Who was your last?” Seriously, Saint.
He pauses, his bottle to his lips. “Tillie.”
My head whips around to him, my eyes wide. “Tillie and Nate? That Tillie?”
Brantley shrugs. “Never went the whole way because Nate’s a fucking pussy, but yeah.”
“Humph,” I wonder out loud.
“What?” Brantley asks, resting the bottle on his knee.
I tuck my hair behind my ear. “I don’t know, I was just thinking…”
“What?” he snaps, his tone edgy. Syllables spill from his lips and slip into my veins like a shot of fluid through an IV. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
“Well, I don’t know. I mean.” I clear my throat and lower my voice. I’ve always been comfortable around Brantley, even when he’s turning my insides into puree. I’m relaxed around him. “I’ve never had anyone, you know…”
He tosses the now empty bottle into the trash, smashing the ones that are already inside of it. It wasn’t an angry throw, but it was clearly forceful. “Won’t happen.”
“Well, yeah, I figured. But I’m just saying.” I wave my hand in the air.
His eyes connect with mine and I’m paralyzed from the neck down. His dark orbs slide over my neck as my pulse thickens. His tongue flicks out and runs across his teeth. “And if you did, would you let another guy fuck you?”
I shrug, because I truthfully don’t know the answer to that. “I read in a book once that your sexual appetite isn’t awoken until you’ve had sex. So I don’t know.”
His mouth slams closed. “Anyway. We have six commandments. Hayes is always the alpha of the pack, or as Bishop likes to say, god of the pack. Nate, his elected right-hand man, and I’m third in line. There are only ever three at the top. The rest that fall after, drop in ranking, but the loyalty is the same.”
“Okay.” I nod my head. “So, Hayes, Malum, and Vitiosis are the main lines in The Elite Kings Club? And what do you all do, what is your duty?”
Brantley’s full lips curl in the corner. “And that’s something that never leaves our circle, but in short—” He pauses, his eyes locked on the burning embers in the pit. “We own this fucking city.”
“Brantley?” He doesn’t answer me, so I reach forward until my fingers are on his ring. It’s black and silver and heavy. “How come I don’t remember all of my memories when I was younger?”
He stands from his chair. “That’s normal, and in your case, it’s probably better you don’t. Come on, that’s all the explaining I’m doing tonight.” And although he says the words, I know what he has told me is not even scratching the surface of what this world entails.
We both walk up the staircase, then split into our rooms. I shut my bedroom door behind me with a gentle click, closing my eyes and resting my head against the wood. I felt too many things tonight, and all of them began and ended with Brantley.
The breeze from the open doors of the patio brushes against my skin, as I finally push off and make my way farther into my room, turning my bedside lamp on.
Turning around with makeup wipes in my hand, I jolt in shock when I see Bishop snoring on top of the covers of my bed. Well, that’s not fair, he’s not snoring, but his mouth is parted, an arm covering his eyes and he has one leg hanging off the bed. His chest rises and falls slowly. I think about my options while glaring at my two guard dogs on their beds in the corner. I can’t be mad at them. They clearly know Bishop, and dogs are a good judge of character. I still flip them both off because what the hell?
Moving quietly through my room, I open the top drawer and take out a pair of boxers and a loose T-shirt, before bringing everything with me to the bathroom. It takes me fifteen minutes to change, wipe my makeup off, brush my hair and teeth, and apply my seven-step skin routine. I make sure to turn off my bathroom light before opening the door to not wak
e him, dropping my clothes into my dirty hamper and blowing out my freshly brushed waves. Before climbing onto my bed, I turn on Medusa’s lamp, plug my phone in to charge on my bedside table, and pick up my eye covers from my bedside drawer. Peeling back my covers while slipping the mask on my forehead, I slide into the cool cotton sheets, wriggling deep into the clean covers.
I can’t help it. I know I should go to sleep, but I’m too intrigued by Bishop. I think I always have been from the minute I first saw him. The way he carries himself isn’t charming like Nate, or cold and distant like Brantley, it’s heavy. My heart swells in my chest. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such pain like I do when I think of Bishop.
“You can stop analyzing me,” he murmurs, his voice heavy with sleep. Slowly, he lifts his arm above his head, sliding the hoodie off while doing it. His full face is in view now. His sharp profile and pouty lips. The two beauty spots he has on his cheek and his floppy brown hair. “I must have crashed. Sorry.” He goes to push himself up from my bed, but he winces, falling back down. “Fucking hate beer.”
“I can’t relate.”
“You’re weird,” he murmurs, but rests back on top of the bed.
“That’s not insulting to me.” I slip my hands beneath my cheek on the pillow. “You can stay.”
He kicks off his shoes, removing his hoodie until he’s in a white tee with rips in it. I can see all of his tattoos now. So many tattoos. I really like them. While he’s reaching for the throw that sits as decoration at the end of the bed, I try to focus my eyes on the art that’s skillfully inked into his skin, thanks to Medusa’s light allowing me to do so. I love any form of art. Tattoos are no exception.
He’s lying back onto the other pillow when he rolls to the side, his eyes colliding with mine. “She wasn’t supposed to leave again.”
My brows furrow and it takes me a second to catch the meaning behind his words. Madison. “Again?”
Bishop chuckles, shaking his head. “I don’t even fuckin’ know why I’m talking to you about this. I don’t talk to anyone about her.” He pauses, catches his breath before whispering, “Or maybe I do know.”
“She always leaves you?” I further pry, snuggling into my warm covers.
“She’s a runner.” He yawns, his jaw clenching. “Every time shit gets hard, she fucking runs.”
“And you don’t like that?”
“I don’t fucking need it. I’m taking the gavel in two months. I need her to be strong, or vulnerable, or whatever, but it needs to be beside me.”
“Just because she runs, doesn’t mean she’s not strong, Bishop.”
He studies me closely. Too closely. He searches my face like he’s trying to solve a crime. “How so?”
“You are obviously in love with each other.”
“Eh, I’d call it an obsession—”
I glare at him.
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we are, but it’s toxic.”
A soft yawn escapes my mouth. “Doesn’t matter. Love doesn’t care who it destroys to get what it wants.”
“Back to what you were saying.”
I yawn, my eyes feeling heavy. “Well, not many people have the strength to run away from someone they love.”
“You don’t know the full story.” His voice is distant, so distant I almost think I imagined it.
“Lucky we have a full lifetime for you to tell me.”
There was cocaine lined out on a glass coffee table. Deftones “Changes” blasted through the night, while a bonfire licked warmth all over my skin. I was in a daze, grabbing the hundred-dollar bill from the guy who drove, who I now know is Bishop, and brought it to my nose, sniffing the line down in one go. I flopped backward onto the three-seater bean bag that was behind me, Brantley now with the leash.
I turned to face him, but he hooked his hoodie up over his head and leaned back on the sofa, his eyes going to the sky.
I handed him the rolled-up dough. “Want a hit?”
He didn’t pay me any attention, not even a glance, or a simple acknowledgment. As if I wasn’t worthy of him. Which admittedly, I’d come to feel I wasn’t. In my town, I felt on top of the world. I ran that shit. These boys were so far beyond all of that.
“I don’t fuck with drugs.”
Another guy passed me, snatching the funnel off me and bringing it to his nose. “Brantley doesn’t party, party…”
I turned to face him more, resting my fist on my cheek. I was intrigued by him. I thought that much was painfully obvious. Bishop was on the other side of me, puffing on a cigarette. “What are you into?”
Finally, Brantley turned his face to me and suddenly I felt like I shouldn’t have asked. “You’ll find out soon enough. The night is still young.” Laughter clapped out around me, but it wasn’t coming from Brantley or Bishop, it was from the rest of the guys who had joined our circle. Suddenly I realized how fucked I might be. I was alone at a party I didn’t know with people I didn’t know.
My eyes flew up to the rest of the party that had spilled out over a basketball court. “I might go find a drink.” As soon as I was on my feet, Brantley tugged on the lead and I was falling back onto the bean bag.
He wrapped the chain around his wrist until there was none left and tugged on it, bringing my face closer to his. “Just to be clear, you shouldn’t have put my dick in your mouth tonight, but you really, really shouldn’t have jumped into Bishop’s car.”
Brantley
Past
“Son, you know what to do,” Lucan said from somewhere behind the camera that was clipped onto a tripod. The room was the same as always. At the same place. I knew Lucan didn’t run this, that someone bigger was behind it. Someone sick and demented and someone who needed to be put down.
I shook my head. “No. Not her,” I growled, my teeth cracking under the pressure. “You will not touch her.”
Saint sat in the corner. She was nine years old and this was the first time she had come with Lucan. He was distracted before then, because of the little Swan, but now he wanted Saint, and he wanted her bad.
“That can’t be done.”
My fists clenched in my hands until crescent moons were splitting open my skin. “Not. Her.”
Lucan moved out from behind the camera, a cigar in his mouth. He dropped to my level and bile rose up my throat. I should tell Uncle Hector about him, but Lucan had made it clear no one would believe me. No one. Not Hector, not my brothers, not one single person, because he was Lucan Vitiosis, and not one single person ever wanted to cross paths with him.
But I would.
For her.
I was sure of it.
She annoyed me. I hated her. I couldn’t stand her. But I was okay with those feelings, because I was in control of them. I didn’t like not being in control of anything to do with Saint. She was mine, not Lucan’s. I didn’t know where she fit in my world, all I knew was that she belonged there. Here. With me. I must protect her.
“Why?” Lucan asked, and I hated looking at him. Not because he resembled me, because he didn’t. At least I didn’t think so, but because every time I looked into his eyes, I’d see my memories being played back. I couldn’t cope. It made me weak. I had to harness my pain to make me stronger.
“Because. Not her. Anyone else but her.”
“What will you give me if I agree to this?” I knew Lucan didn’t agree to me keeping Saint for the sole purpose of filming. He could get any young girl or boy and toss them in with me. I could offer him something, though.
It’s something he’d wanted since he started on me.
“You’ll have my compliance.”
He chuckled, standing to his full height. “Deal. Clean her up and we will take your precious child home.”
“No,” I roared, and the feral tone that came out of my body didn’t match my age. “I need your agreement that you will never touch her. Ever.”
He flipped the camera closed and turned on the light. “You have my word.”
Present
> Loading up more weight on either side of the barbell, I lie back down onto the bench and flex my fingers around the bar. Marilyn Manson’s “Say10” drowns out the noise inside my head as sweat drips down my temple and lands on the floor. I raise the bar above my head before lowering it to my chest and arching my back to drive it up again.
I showed her the tip of the iceberg last night, and all she wanted to do was dive right in and see the rest of it. Saint has always been an unusual character. She talks when she shouldn’t and doesn’t when she should. She dresses like she’s been around fashion her whole life some days, and others she could look homeless, yet with all styles, she’s always confident. Her fucking eyes. They’re wolf-gray with dark rings around the edges. She may not be the first girl you look at in the room, but that’s not because she’s not obviously attractive, because she is. It’s because she’s the type to sit in the corner and do some weird shit then get drunk and make noises like Tillie and Madison. After we killed Lucan, I hardly ever came back. I maybe saw her three times in all of that time; otherwise, I had workers fill in the gaps for me. In that time, she practically took ownership of Hades, too. Because that’s the witchcraft she possesses. She’s able to snatch the soul out of you without you even realizing. Dogs included.
She and I always worked because I have no soul.
Bishop’s head pops up over my bar and I tear my pods out of my ears, standing from the bench. “Thought you went home last night.”
“Slept in Saint’s room,” he announces easily, yawning while moving around the bench.
“What?”
He’s wearing no shirt with his jeans unbuttoned as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.
