“Yeah, I do. This war ends tonight, Tink.”
The sounds from the rest of the house have gone quiet. His men finished. The house is his and he knows it and I know it. We are both standing here anyway.
I take one step toward the door.
He doesn't move to stop me.
I take another.
“You know we have Kellan’s phone,” I say it without turning around. I don't know why I say it. Maybe because knowledge is the only currency I have left to spend. I turn. “He's going to crack it open. Whoever was helping Kellan, is going to know what you did. They’ll find out.”
He already knew before the library that I had betrayed him, made a deal with Kellan to help him. He knew Kellan was working for the CIA, he killed him for it. All this time I thoughtI was learning and making power moves, only for Xaden to pull the rug out from right under my feet.
Something happens to Xaden's expression then. Something that isn't quite surprise and isn't quite fear and moves so fast I'd have missed it if I hadn't been watching. He looks at me with those gray eyes that I have never been able to read as well as I need to, and I see it, the calculation, the re-evaluation, the thing that looks almost like he's seeing me clearly for the first time.
Good.
Let him look.
“Time to reunite with your daddy and brother, Tink. Your lips will finally be mine by the end of the night.”
I walk out of the bedroom and down the hall and out the front door with Xaden right behind me. I don't look back. I don’t need to. I can feel his shadows shrouding me and drawing me into his darkness. I keep walking until the cold air hits me and the night swallows the sound of the house behind me. All I have left is my own heartbeat and the phrase I have been repeating since I was a girl with nothing.
To teach is to learn. To learn is to excel. To excel is to thrive. To thrive is to live.
Caspian stands beside one of the Suburbans like a loyal guard. I shoot my old friend a dirty look as he pulls the back door open. As I climb inside the car, I pause at the sight of my brother, cuffed and gagged with blood smeared across his face. His eyes are wild with hatred as he glares at me. I shoot the pathetic asshole a scowl.
“You brought this upon yourself,” I mutter as I move past him and sit in the very back. I expected Xaden to claim the seat beside me so he could taunt me some more, but it’s Cas who claims the seat beside me. Another one of Xaden’s men climbs in the back and sits next to my brother, Xaden climbs into thepassenger seat as one of the guys I recognize from school climbs behind the wheel.
I stare at the house and feel sadness wash over me. That place was my sanctuary, it was the place where I grew strength and formed bonds with five guys I never expected to grow to care so deeply for. I pray they reached the medics in time and Carn is okay, I can’t face the thought of losing him.
“To the warehouse, boss?” Chance asks. Xaden nods and he drives us away from my home.
“Tink?” I grit my teeth and refuse to look away from the window as I answer.
“What?” I snap.
Xaden chuckles at my angry tone, which just pisses me off. “I reunited your dear friend Kellan with his father. That fucker tried to put up a fight and I didn’t have time to waste, so Cas took him out.” I snap my head toward Cas and stare at my old friend like he’s a stranger. He keeps his gaze ahead while twirling his phone in his hand. “Turns out, Frank was brought in by your dear brother here, that fucker was trying to undercut Steven and Lorenzo and use Frank’s connections with his shady clients to help him break into the Hollow Hills market and overthrow both our dads. Such a greedy one, aren’t ya, Masey boy?” Xaden sounds unhinged, I’ve never heard him like this before and I’ll admit, I’m fucking scared.
Masen struggles in his restraints but it’s useless, the guy beside him pulls a gun and presses it into the side of his temple, rendering my brother still.
“Carlos, I want that cunt alive,” Xaden snaps.
“Yes, boss.”
The car falls silent for a few minutes.
Outside, everything slides past in the dark, familiar streets and closed store fronts, the skeleton of a town I grew up afraid of and came back to tear down. I watch it pass the way you watchthings from a moving train. Already past the point where you could stop.
I press my temple to the cold window and close my eyes. I do the arithmetic the way I've learned to do it, fast, without flinching, without the luxury of hoping the numbers come out differently than they do.
Carnage is shot somewhere behind me with a field dressing and a twenty-four-hour window.
My father is in Xaden's hands before I ever got close to him.
The house is gone. The Kings are scattered. Every plan I built over the last two months was heard through a phone I carried like a lifeline, into ears I thought were mine to outwit.
And Xaden is four feet away in the front seat, still breathing, still winning, and I am still, somehow, also breathing. Still thinking. Still here.
