by Amo Jones
I shake my head. “I can’t. I don’t know who owns it. Instruments are sacred to their owners.”
Tillie waves me off. “Well, don’t worry about anything haunting you. You’re not just a Vitiosis, but you are Bran’s. You are untouchable. And on top of that, your brother is a big bad wolf, and well, your sister is pretty badass, too. So, play something!” She shoves the guitar toward me again, and I finally reach forward to take it.
“Fine, but just one.”
Tillie flashes me a full-tooth smile and leans on the teacher’s desk.
I take a seat on a chair in the front row and run my fingers through the strings. “It’s tuned. Weird.”
“Literally the least weird thing about this world. Trust me.”
My mouth opens and I softly sing the opening to “I See Fire,” the version from the movie The Hobbit. Hitting Ed’s notes has always been easy for me. My fingers move across the strings as I start, influencing the sound in a pattern they’re so used to moving to. As I continue to play, a smile remains passive on my stretched lips. Even when the guitar picks up in the original song, I jam it out. My voice gets a little louder when I have to hit the higher notes Ed does in this particular verse of the song, but I continue, eyes on the ground so I don’t lose focus. When I bring them up to Tillie, her mouth is open in shock, but her eyes are glassy. I laugh a little around my singing as I push through the song fluently.
I love this song so much. It was one of the first covers I played after that night with Brantley showing up with blood on his body. I heard it on the radio and the words hit me in places that only Brantley had stamped his name on. The next day, I found a YouTube channel that broke down the notes of the song. I knew how to play it that same day. Ever since then, it has always been the first thing my body gravitates to anytime I’m near a guitar.
“Fiiiireeeee…” I belt off the end of the song. Tillie unleashes a loud squeal, covering her mouth quickly after, like she’s embarrassed she even exposed such a feminine side.
“Oh my fucking God!” She swipes the tears on her cheeks. “I swear I’m not usually this emotional. The hormones…”
Placing the guitar on the floor, my smile splits into a full-blown grin. “That song actually—”
Tillie’s eyes go over my shoulder. “Did you hear that?”
I spin around and catch Brantley, Bishop, and Eli at the door.
Eli’s lips are curled between his teeth as if he’s fighting not to say something smart, and Bishop’s mouth is curved upward.
It’s Brantley that’s making me uneasy. Again. His mood swings make my brain fuzzy. His eyes are on mine. “That’s cute.” He nudges his head. “Come on, we’re going.”
“Bran Bran!” Tillie scolds him. “Rude, much? Eli, what did you think, baby boy?”
“I think—” Eli says boldly, a smile on his face. His eyes go to Bran and that smile instantly fades. “I think I really like my pretty face, so I’m not going to say jack shit.”
“You’re real cute, too, Little Terror. Nate!” Brantley calls over his shoulder. “Come get your woman before she finds herself lost again…”
Tillie flips him off. “Ouch, asshole. You know I’m a hormonal mess.”
“Not my fucking problem.” He shrugs. Tillie’s shoulder bumps him when she strolls past. Brantley points to the guitar. “Bring it.”
I shake my head. “I can’t take this! It belongs to this school!”
His jaw flexes. “Nate owns this fucking school. Take the damn guitar.”
I do, wrapping my fingers around the neck. When I’m almost toe to toe with him, I tilt my head. “What do you mean he owns this school?”
He folds his arms in front of his chest, running his hand over his chin. It is a strange gesture. I say strange because Brantley doesn’t usually fidget. He doesn’t have nervous habits or traits. “His mom’s family owns it. It will be his once Bishop takes the gavel. He and Tillie will be taking over once it reopens.”
How strange that these people who can’t be more than a few years older than me own extravagant things. Big things. Like a damn school.
We’re walking back through the hallway and down the stairs when Brantley takes a turn to the right, heading for the large room that is behind the reception area. “Are we not leaving?”
He shakes his head. “Unfortunately, not.”
We’re near the glass doors when I notice burned orange flames roaring roguishly through the dark of the night. Music spills out beneath the cracks of the doors as he reaches for the handle.
He pauses just before his heavy boots hit the outside. “To be clear, I didn’t want you here. This is Bishop’s plan to have you be a part of this.”
“Part of what?” I ask, keeping my eyes locked on his as I pass, my shoulder brushing against his chest. The patio is long and wide, stretching out far enough to hold multiple tables and chairs.
“The cafeteria for Riverside Prep,” Brantley says.
The chairs and tables are made from white marble, all carefully placed around the room. Something tells me there’s a certain pattern as to why they are placed the way they are. There are emblems on each tabletop, but I can’t make out the pattern or what it is. People are scattered down on the field that’s behind the patio, around a roaring bonfire that looks to be hovering dangerously close to being illegal. Music is playing from somewhere, a temporary bar set up to the side. How’d they manage to set all of this up while Tillie and I were in the classroom?
Brantley follows my line of sight to one of the tables. His mouth kicks up, his finger tracing the pattern. “This? Is so everyone at the school knows their family lineage. You know.” Brantley leans on a chair. “So no one fucks their cousin or anything.”
“What is this school?” I ask, my eyes finally coming back to his. I’m locked into him. He refuses to let me go, his grasp so strong I’m willing to be crushed by it. I find myself wondering if there has always been a forbidden intensity between him and me and I had just never pegged it. The stirring in my belly starts any time he looks at me, and that feeling doesn’t happen when I’m simply looking at anyone else.
Why Brantley?
Why someone so dark and illicit? To touch him in any way other than what is considered platonic would be a complete betrayal of my own soul. Brantley Vitiosis was not put on this world for anything soft, and that includes me.
He doesn’t get a chance to answer, because Bishop is jogging up the stairs, his focus on me. “You right?”
I turn just as he offers me a drink. “It’s juice.”
My fingers wrap around the Solo cup. “I don’t mind champagne.”
Brantley’s head jerks back, his mouth in a snarl. “And how the fuck would you know what champagne tastes like?”
“Tillie gave me some.” I shrug, sipping on the cold juice and licking the residue off the edge of my lips.
“Of course she fucking did,” Brantley growls, shaking his head.
Bishop laughs, pulling out one of the chairs tucked beneath the table and slowly lowering himself down, while his focus never wanes. “You wanna ask me anything?”
“Um.” My lips curl around my teeth, as if I’m afraid that if they’re free, my words will be as well.
He seems at ease. His legs are spread wide, his shoulders loose. I take this time to slip into one of the other chairs around the table, resting my cup on the top of my thighs with both hands around the cold plastic.
“How?”
Brantley is between us, leaning backward on the table. His arms momentarily distract me every time the veins pop from him squeezing the tabletop. The air among all three of us is tense, the angst potent enough to poison our hearts if we’re not careful.
Bishop leans back in his chair, swirling honey-colored liquid around in his glass. “My father, Hector, is your father. Your mother is Tillie’s mom.”
Walking into information you don’t know about is a little like walking into a room with no lights, and when people keep secrets from you
, it’s a little like figuring out the lights don’t work. Then you’re in this dark room, with no vision, and you don’t know how to find your way back to where there was light. I don’t want to be in a dark room with no lights.
“There’s a lot you will come to learn about Hector and Katsia, none of which I think you will particularly like.” He shakes his head, taking out a pack of smokes from his pocket and placing one between his lips. He gazes up at Brantley. “Go grab her a bottle of champagne for this conversation.”
Brantley tilts his head back, the muscles in his neck tightening. “Fuck no.”
“She’s here with us, what the fuck you think is going to happen, and you damn well know that everything I tell her is going to be heavy.”
Brantley presses his thumb and index finger into his mouth, whistling out loudly.
Bishop laughs, shaking his head while flicking the ash off the tip of his cigarette. A young boy around my age jogs up the few steps to us. “You need something?”
Bishop grins. “Yeah. Abel, this is Saint. Saint, Abel.” Bishop turns his head to face Abel. “My half-sister, which makes her your half-sister.”
Abel stills. “What? How?”
Wait, what!
“I will need the champagne.” I press my fingertips to my temples and rub them in circles.
“Not for you to know right now, young pup! Go get her a bottle of Moët and hurry back.”
The young boy, Abel, turns and hurries down toward the bar. He’s handsome, too, with features still fresh enough to call innocent, though borderline on the scale of hardening. There is a resemblance to Bishop, too. Obviously, Hector’s genes are strong. My father was a problem. How many kids did he have?
Bishop tilts his head up to Brantley. “Are you going to stand there throughout this conversation, or are you going to sit down like a civilized human?”
Brantley finally pushes away, rounding the table. The sound of rubber scraping against timber vibrates beside me as he drops onto the chair. I ignore him because Abel is back with a metal bucket filled with ice and the tip of a bottle of champagne sticking out of it. He places it onto the table with a frosted flute wine glass. I take the bottle out of the bucket, pour the champagne and watch as the bubbles turn to foam on the top before pouring more.
“Thank you,” I say to Abel, who smiles at me before leaving. I set the bottle back into the bucket and take the first sip.
“Brantley told you a little about The Elite Kings Club, yes?”
I nod my head, my finger grazing the liquid off my lips as my eyes find Brantley’s. He pins me to the spot. Intense. Crazed. Possessed. Addicted. “He did.”
Bishop remains still, his shoulders tight and his eyes passive on me. “Hector, our father, and his father, and his father’s father have been at the table since the beginning of time. It was our great-great-great-grandfather who formed The Elite Kings. I could have you read Tacet a Mortuis…” Bishop pauses, the corner of his mouth curving in a half-smile. “But I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“So you’re a cult?”
Silence between the two of them. Bishop leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. I’m momentarily distracted by the cuts on his jeans. “No, not exactly. More like a… society.”
“Like a secret society?” I sip on my champagne between answers.
Bishop shakes his head. “Eh, actually, it’s more of a lifestyle. Traditions. Something we’ve all been raised around.” He pops a cigarette between his lips, lights it, and takes a long pull before blowing out the angry cloud of smoke.
“And this lifestyle, what does it entail?” I look around the area. “Aside from owning schools.”
“A lot,” Brantley interrupts, glaring at Bishop. “In short, every family has a job to do in order to maintain the dynamics of The Elite Kings. We have people in the White House, the CIA, in the mafia, MCs. Where there is power, you will find a King.”
“What do you do?” I ask Brantley.
Finally, his head turns until he’s face-on with me. “What do I what?”
Bishop’s chuckle is loud enough for me to look back at him. “What?”
“Please do tell.” Bishop smirks. “Tell her what the Vitiosis family provides…”
Brantley flips him off, his fingers wrapping around the metal bucket that houses my bubbles, pulling it away from me. “Enough of that shit for you.”
“So, my mom and your dad?” I say to Bishop. “Where are they?”
“Well, your mom is dead, but your dad isn’t.” There’s an eerie silence that stretches among all of us.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me from the start.”
“With power comes enemies. When you have power, there will always be people who want to take it away from you, but those who need to take it, burn it out fast. If it gets out that Hector has a Swan, it wouldn’t end well, and aside from that, it would put you in a dangerous spot. In essence, us telling you has just put a target on your back, which is why you’ve probably noticed one of us is always with you, and security has leveled up.”
I learned quickly what happened after I got the wrong answers. Which were the right answers, but not the ones that they wanted to hear. There was a light, a phone recording, and a knife.
Blood. So much blood.
Brantley leaned down and ran his tongue over the blunt side of the blade. “Every time you get an answer wrong, my dick gets hard. Keep going.”
Brantley
The foundation of this house was built upon the carcasses of our enemies. That was why it was haunted. If you peel back the wallpaper, blood would spill. It was, and remains, the house that never sleeps.
Nine years old
Lucan kept his promise. He never laid a finger on Saint. Not ever, not once. She was the trophy we kept on our mantel, pretty to look at but never to be held. He liked it that way, too, I was sure. But that meant one thing… he needed me more. It was two weeks past the night he had Silver and me on the bed together. Two weeks since the final crack inside my already doomed soul shattered completely. I never wanted to revisit that night. The night I took her virginity, all for what? Some sick old fucks to get their rocks off from a video. I was dangerously close to snapping at my father. So fucking close. But I had to be patient.
We walked down the same hallway. Door after door. Red so loud I could hear it pulsing through the veins of the house. We stopped outside the one that read Vitiosis on the front. The same gold plate over the same crimson door.
I hated this place. I didn’t care for fucking anything anymore. When you’re fed rage all your life, you refuse the taste of peace, so I needed it. The feeling of undiluted anger to stream through me. I needed it to get me through. Fuck peace.
My lips were flat. I wondered if my uncles knew about this, since I never saw any of them here. This didn’t seem like Elite Kings’ business. Kings were venomous outlaws, but this was something else. They killed, meddled in illegal trades across the board, but rape? Never.
Lucan pushed open the door, placing his foot in front to stop it from closing. “Inside, Brantley.”
I went. I took the three steps it was to enter the familiar room. A single camera. The bed made up of simple white sheets.
White. Sheets.
My eyes searched the two girls who were on the bed. They had to be around my age, maybe older. Bile rose up my throat. I turned to face my father. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Lucan leaned down, shutting the door behind us. The click of him locking it would haunt me for years to come. That sound. Click. The only click sound I’d ever want to hear after this would be from my gat. “If it’s not them, it’ll be Saint. You make that decision, Brantley.”
I gritted my teeth. “I mean, I don’t want to do this ever. To anyone.”
Lucan didn’t speak. His eyes held mine. “You don’t have a choice.” He shoved me toward the bed. “So what will it be, Brantley? Will it be them, or will it be Saint?”
I turned to fac
e him over my shoulder. “It will never be her.”
Present
I squeeze my eyes closed as I come to, rubbing the sleep from them. My sheets are on the floor, my body slick with sweat. Rolling off the bed, I lean over, gripping one of the posts of my bed. The memories flick through my head in 4k clarity. I suck air in my lungs, then hold, before exhaling. My mind is a contortion of dark images. Scenes and scenarios.
Thirty-seven girls and boys. Sometimes older, sometimes younger, other times the same age.
Thirty-seven and I remember every single one of them.
I spin around to head down to the gym, but freeze when I see Saint at my door. My eyes flick to the clock on my bedside table. Three a.m.
“What are you doing awake?” I rub the sweat off my chest, caught off guard by what she’s wearing. Little white shorts that are honest-to-God too short to be considered anything but underwear and a simple white camisole that rides up to show a sliver of her belly.
She steps forward, her platinum hair falling around her shoulders in natural waves. “I had a weird dream.”
I step backward. “This isn’t the place to come for comfort after a nightmare, Saint.” Why the fuck is she still moving toward me.
“I heard you scream,” she further says, and now she’s too close. Her little body directly in front of mine.
“Like you haven’t heard it before.”
“That’s the thing,” she says, and her head tilts so she can look up at me. It’s dark in the room, with the only light coming from the hallway that’s spilling through the crack of the door. “I haven’t in a while, and this time was different…”
“How?” I growl, searching her face. Fuck, but she’s beautiful. Everything forbidden, too pure for this world.
Her fingertip grazes my stomach and I tense. Blood rushes straight to my cock at the connection. “You screamed my name this time.”
Fuck.
“What are you doing?” I snatch her finger into the palm of my hand.
“I don’t know,” she whispers, her eyes on the tattoo over my chest. The only ink I have. The angry Elite Kings’ skull carved into my flesh with the word Vitiosis over the top of it. “But I’m going with it.” She leans up on her tippy toes, her small fingers around the back of my neck.
