by Amo Jones
“Right,” I mutter. “But what—Puer Natus?”
Gabriel stills. “Not now.”
Nate shifts around just as the SUV comes to a stop. I look up and notice we’re at Bishop’s house.
“Hector is home. I suggest you get this done, thoroughly.”
I glare at Gabe. “Haven’t you failed your job?”
Gabriel smirks. “So quick to jump to the next conclusion.”
Nate swings open the door, grabbing onto my hand and dragging me out.
“Will be here, son…” Gabriel says just as Nate slams the door closed.
Nate drags me up the stairs, through the front door.
The lights are out, and even though I’m well aware that the sun is going down outside, it seems darker in this house. Twin stairs lead up to the second floor, a crystal chandelier hanging above our head in the foyer where black and white checkered tiles lay beneath our feet. Nate pulls me behind him, leading us through a high archway where I can see flames flickering, throwing light around the dark room.
“Well, well, well…” Hector says smugly, and we both turn to find him reading a book on a single sofa. “I did wonder when I would come face to face with you both. Didn’t think you’d be bold enough to confront me in my own house, though.”
Nate takes a seat on the sofa opposite him, unfazed. “Really? Because I’d say that you should know exactly what I’m capable of, Hector, since you know… you’ve seen me in action.”
Hector twists his cigar around his mouth, grinning. “True, son. Very true.”
Nate hasn’t taken his eyes off him, and when I don’t move, his hand finds mine instantly, yanking me down beside him. “Is it true?” he asks Hector.
Hector seems to ponder over his words, like he’s tossing up whether or not he’s going to answer honestly or dance around in lies. “Yes and no.”
“Elaborate,” Nate seethes, his lip curling around his teeth. He looks feral, like he’s about to pounce on his prey and rip it to shreds.
Hector leans forward, reaching for his whiskey glass. “I want to show you something, and then you can decide what that means and what you want to do with it, but let me warn you both, not because I have to, but because I look at you like a son, Nate… under any killing of a Hayes, especially me, there is a bounty out for one-hundred million dollars to whoever kills the person who killed me, and then extra for the head of their loved ones. The duty will not be done lightly. If they catch you, they will make sure that the people you love, or persons.” He grins, his eyes flicking to me. “Will be tortured while you’re alive, for you to watch.”
Nate stills.
“So be very wise with how you continue this plan. You’re not a juvenile. Tillie is smart, I trust you will both make the right choice.”
Nate’s jaw clenches. “Just show us what you need to.”
Hector picks up a remote control beside him, as if he knew we were coming. That bitch Scarlet. He pushes a button and the large TV that’s hanging on the feature wall ahead of us turns on.
The screen is blurry at first, like someone is wiping the lens, and then it’s on my sister’s face, like it’s turned around.
“I hope you can see this!” Then it turns and a click sounds, and suddenly I’m facing everything that’s in front of her.
“Call Hector…” a female voice says, and I recognize it instantly.
It’s silent, and then my sister murmurs. “We’re here. The camera is set up, we’re about to proceed.”
Silence, and I see the front of Khales as she stands in front of Peyton.
“That makes no sense….”
She must hang up the phone because now Khales looks confused. “What!”
I see that they’re in the driveway of Nate’s house, and it makes my stomach curl.
“I don’t—”
“You don’t have to watch it all,” Hector interrupts, his eyes cutting to me. “But you will watch enough.”
I gulp, my eyes flicking back to the screen.
“We have to kill her.”
“Her as in Tillie?” Khales asks. “Done. Hate that bitch.”
I snicker.
“No,” Peyton mutters. “Not Tillie. Micaela.”
Khales silences. “I don’t know… are you sure?”
“Yes,” Peyton says. “Go. I’ll meet you in ten at the front of the room.”
“Peyton. I’m not a baby killer. That shit is too dark, even for me.”
“Tough!” Peyton snaps. “You will do as I say, or I will take back that island.”
Khales submits, like the little bitch that she is and ducks away. When the crunching of stones disappears into the distance, the camera turns back around onto Peyton’s ugly face.
“Sorry, Hec. Change of plans. See, your son and his friends killed my lover. They killed him. Does Tillie know how much it hurts to lose the only person she has ever loved? I don’t think my piece of shit sister does and let me tell you.” She chuckles maniacally, her eyes coming to the lens. I can see her looking right at me. “As much as she loves Nate, I know she will never love anyone as much as she does Micaela. So no can do. I won’t be stealing her baby like you asked me to do. I’ll be killing it instead. Peyton fucking Stuprum over and out.”
Nate stands, picking up the coffee table and throwing it against the TV. “Why the fuck did you trust her!”
Hector doesn’t move.
I sit in silence, tears pouring over my face. “What does this mean?”
“Where is she?” Nate’s enmity is reaching new heights, and I don’t want to be the person he takes down with him when he falls.
“Do we understand each other?” Hector throws back, looking at us both.
“Question.” I turn to face Hector. “Why? Why were you going to steal Micaela?”
Hector watches me closely. “I don’t think you’re ready for that answer. Not yet.”
“Enough with the fucking half-truths!” I yell, frustration pouring out of me. “Just tell me!”
Hector shakes his head, placing his glass back on the table and bringing his dead eyes back to me. “I don’t answer to you, Stuprum. I’ll see you on Perdita. She still defied my orders, and that’s punishable, but I am a patient man.” He stands, winking. “I hope you’re not queasy at the sight of blood.”
He exits the room, leaving me and Nate standing in a bubble of mess.
“Nate.” I blink, and he drops down beside me.
“What?”
“What do we do now? Why does he have an infuriating way of not answering questions.”
He chuckles. “What we do for every fucking war. We pile up the jet and fly to fucking Perdita.”
I don’t ask why Perdita. I agree and let him take me back outside.
Bishop is outside, leaning against his car.
Nate flies forward, his fist clenched around his collar. “You knew?”
Bishop doesn’t flinch, and he doesn’t fight Nate off. “Not until after. I overheard him ordering people to find Peyton and the rest of what she did. I was going to tell you. I didn’t find the time to do so. Peyton went ghost and he only just found her.”
“What the fuck do you mean you didn’t have the fucking time?” Nate roars in his face.
“When!” Bishop yells, his hands going up. “When you were both so fucking broken that you had to bury your daughter, or when Tillie was seeing fucking dead people? I didn’t want to fucking open new scars until I fucking had to, Nate!”
“Madison knew…”
Bishop flinched. “She knew when I knew, because she heard too. I kept her quiet. She started to hate me for it. She couldn’t han—Listen! It’s a fucking long story. What we need right now is to get the fuck to Perdita.”
“Why Perdita?” I ask, sick of the fucking fighting. I trust Bishop. I know Nate does too.
“Benny will meet us there,” he says, his eyes going straight to Nate.
Nate laughs, shoving Bishop away. “That’s why Benny was sniffing around? Because y
ou were utilizing him?”
Bishop shrugs. “Of fucking course. But you know Benny doesn’t do anything for anyone. You know that there’s no cost to what he does. He hacks, seduces, and lures in people because he fucking wants to, not for money… he fucking liked Tillie. I mean, shit, it took him the second time seeing her to realize he was going to do it, but he did it, nonetheless.”
“What is going on!” I scream at the two of them. “What has Benny got to do with all of this?!”
Nate’s jaw is working. “Get in the car. Both of you. We will talk on the way to the airport.”
“Good,” Bishop says. “Because the rest of The Kings are meeting us there.”
I slip into the backseat of Bishop’s Maserati and he pulls out of the driveway with Gabe following behind us.
When I can’t take the silence any longer, I start. “Okay. Talk please. What does Benny do?”
“Benny is the fucking cloud in the sky. He’s one of the most notorious hackers in the twenty-first century. He is part of the reason why The Kings are so untouchable, and before him, was his dad and so on…”
“But he’s a Vitiosis?” I question as Bishop drives us toward the airport.
“Yes,” Bishop murmurs. “Brantley’s cousin. Bailey’s brother…”
“This is so messed up,” I mutter, leaning my head back. “Tell me more.”
“Have you ever heard of the seductress?” Nate asks.
“Yes.”
“Well, Benny is that in male form. He can make every woman fall to their knees from his charm, and men too, which he does. Often. But everything is calculated with him. He’s like The Riddler and The Joker all in one. He has no heart, a big cock, and the scent of sex to lure people in. He’s an assassin, but of the highest caliber. He can find anyone within seconds, kill someone without being present, and do so without batting an eye.”
“Sounds deeply disturbed…”
Nate scoffs. “You have no fucking idea.”
“I wanted him to get Peyton because no one could find her. He wouldn’t do it at first. Said he didn’t want to fuck with a Stuprum. He had a lover who was a Lost Boy and your mother killed him. Long story short? He hated Stuprums. I said you were different. You had depth and heart. He still didn’t believe me, so I brought him to the ball. He was taken with you instantly, but said he recognized something within you that was similar to him…”
“What’s that?” I ask, hypnotized.
“Your charm and charisma and sexual aura—his words not mine, obviously. Weird motherfucker.”
I clear my throat. “So why did he come for me the second time?”
“Because he’s not stupid. So far on the other side of that spectrum, you have no idea. He knew not to trust someone who was similar to him, so he wanted to meet you again. I don’t know what you did that second time, but it moved him. He found Peyton instantly and had her shipped to Perdita.”
I smirk. “Take me right to Perdita.”
On the plane, one of two, we’re almost landing on Perdita when Nate glares at me, his jaw clenched.
“What?” I whisper. “Stop looking at me like that.”
My skin shivers, probably from all of the torment.
“Like what?” he asks.
When I don’t answer, his hands come to my knees and he spreads my legs apart. “I need you.”
“No,” I snap, gazing out the window.
“No?” he questions, smirking.
“No.”
“I’ve got too much anger for this kill. I need to let some out.”
“I can’t go into this broken and battered with a sore ass, so deal with it,” I snap, still angry at him over what happened at the cabin.
“You’re angry at me…” he announces, but his voice is like silk, brushing against my skin with tender syllables.
“I’m not.”
“Hey!” His voice is soft, but I don’t answer.
His hand comes to my chin and he forces my eyes to his. “We will talk after this.”
“About what?” I search his eyes.
“Us.”
I bark out an ugly laugh. “There’s nothing to talk about and I’ve come to peace with that.”
He squeezes my chin and I flinch, my eyes going to his. “Fuck your peace.” His thumb presses over my bottom lip. “You’ve done good, baby.”
I feel my insides warming to him again, the problem is that my thermostat is faulty when it comes to Nate. “How so?”
“We’ll talk. Okay?”
I hesitate.
“Answer me, Tillie, or I will fuck you in the back room and make the pilot circle until we’re done.”
“Okay,” I whisper, exhausted. “We will talk.”
We land, and Nate takes my hand as we all move off the jet. We didn’t need an army like the last time, because apparently, I do own this island. I’m still not comfortable with that fact, but I don’t bother to fight any of them on that front anymore. I’m focused, and here for one thing. Once that’s done, I can think of the others. Like why Nate wanted me here in Perdita to begin with and what the fuck is with Daemon’s book. What is he trying to tell me? I can feel his thoughts inside my head sometimes, and when it happens, I feel like I’m going crazy. I’m terrified to go to sleep at night, just in case nightmares meet me there on the other side. Where does our mind go when we’re sleeping? Pretty sure mine visits hell, judging by the people I see in them. A dark limo is waiting for us and we all pile in. Bishop, Nate, Brantley, Cash, Eli, Ace, Hunter, and Jase in ours, while there’s another two SUVs behind us, waiting.
“Is Hector in that SUV?” I ask, not meeting any of their eyes.
“No,” Bishop announces. “He’s letting you handle this. Anything you need to know that he knows, he said will come to light through the mouth and revelations of others. Typical, people do his dirty work constantly.”
I don’t even bother to answer because I don’t know what to say.
“You okay, little terror?” Brantley asks across from me.
My eyes find his. “I don’t know. Should I be?”
This all feels too fluid, too smooth and easy. Something itches in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t trust them. I’ve trusted them at times that I thought I could and where did that end up? In many different places in very questionable positions.
“This time?” Nate mutters, his eyes going out the side window as we make our way through the jungle of Perdita. “Yeah, you should be.”
We pass through the jungle, bumping our way until we’re at the high gates of the entry to the small town that I’ve come to know quite well. This time, when the gates open, I take in all the things I don’t normally consider. Like how there are a couple of people who seem to be patrolling the area during the day, even though their kind live at night and sleep during the day. I notice the shops seem smaller than the average ones you’ll find in our “world.” Miniature versions without looking cramped. There are lights that line the main road we’re driving down, and I know that at the very end of this road is the mansion.
I turn to face Nate. “Where are their houses?”
Nate nudges his head to the side. “Everywhere. Their homes are built randomly through the forest. There are small footpaths that lead to each house, lit by solar lights. There are no streets, no roads, just dirt paths.”
“Wow,” I answer, leaning forward to get a look.
“You won’t see them. They’re hidden.”
I lean back, blowing out a breath of air. “Why did you take me here anyway?”
Nate laughs, but the rest of them remain silent.
“I’m serious, Nate!”
His jaw tenses and I have to fight the urge to either reach for him or punch him.
“You were supposed to run this island,” Brantley says when Nate doesn’t speak up. My eyes go to him as he carries on. “We didn’t take you, but Gabe had strict orders to get you onto Perdita for us. We said that we wouldn’t hurt you, and told him the plan, to which he agreed.
Being a Peacekeeper, he acknowledged the reasons as to why we would do this. As your right and all of that.”
“—only,” Nate adds, finally speaking up. “The second you said Daemon that all changed. We knew that you weren’t ready, and there was no way any of us were going to fucking force you to do it.”
“Oh, okay.” I roll my eyes. “Not force me but steal me and lock me in a cage?”
Nate turns to face me. “We took you with plans to teach you how to run Perdita. I didn’t want to see your fucking face, you being here was the obvious choice!”
I flinch at his words but remain headstrong. “So why didn’t you just tell me then and there that Daemon wasn’t real?”
Nate sighs, running his hand through his hair and tugging on my heartstrings while he’s at it. “Because I didn’t let that side touch you.”
Blood rushes through my ears at the soft touch of his words.
“No matter how fucking much I wanted to scream at you that he wasn’t real, I fucking couldn’t do that to you. Until he wasn’t going away, and we figured we had to when other shit was coming up.” He gazes back outside the window. “Even though I wanted to fucking kill you for it.”
I don’t know how to feel about what he’s saying, and again, I have a hard time trusting him. It’s been back and forth for so long between him and me, I don’t know what to do during these times. I won’t be getting any time to think too much into that because the car pulls to a stop at the high gates where guards are standing at the front. When all of The Kings pile out, I reach for Nate just as his door swings open.
“Who will take over here if I don’t?”
His door slams shut and it’s just us inside with nothing but our loud thoughts and silent mouths.
“Someone has to. It’s how this always happens.” His eyes search mine, his hand coming to my cheek. “Do you want to be here?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t, I don’t know Perdita, Nate. I wouldn’t know what I was doing.”
He nods, reaching for my hand. “I’ll introduce you to someone later, after we’ve dealt with your sister. Everything is your decision, you know that, right?”
“I know,” I answer, though I’m not sure that’s entirely true. I can’t process anything because he’s so close, I can practically hear his heart beating in his chest.
