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A sadness I simply cannot shake.
And for the first time in my life, I actuallywantto.
Caroline and I are closer than ever on the surface, although it’s mostly due to the fact that, with no job and no inheritance—thanks to our father’s debts, gambling habits, and general hatred toward us—I had to move in with the newlyweds, and she’s neurotic when it comes to my well-being. More of a mother to me than ours ever was, but it’s sometimes smothering.
Forces me to keep secrets. Harbor ill-will.
To resent her and the immaculate life she’s trying to give me, as if it might make up for a lifetime of not being good enough in our parents’ eyes.
Worse than the Montaltos, according to theKing’s Trace Gazette, are the Ivers—an Irish-American family with a Maine lineage dating back to its colonization. They run a massive cybersecurity empire as a front for their dealings with various crime organizations throughout our city and neighboring ones. Stonemore, a township just slightly bigger and wealthier than King’s Trace, is where their biggest client exists, a gang rivaling the ferocity and business of the Montaltos.
No one really knows much about the family, other than what the male members like to do with their free time, and that the mother is sick, the older brother dead, and the youngest—the only daughter—purportedly normal.
The middle child, Kieran, has a reputation. They call him the King of Darkness around town, a moniker whispered and carried by the wind, polluting the air with its villainy.
He’s a murderer, an unhinged hermit that feeds on the souls of the innocent and the guilty.
But I don’t know if I believe them—he’s not sought me out, despite the guilt clogging my arteries; a weight so large and encumbering that it’s getting impossible to carry around without breaking down.
Every piece of online advice I’ve found says we carry our shame in different ways; some let it root physically so it takes a toll on our bodies, while others let it fester in their minds, a slow-acting poison, hellbent on utter destruction.
I exist in a mixture of the two, torn between missing my father and being glad he’s dead. Torn between hating how he paid attention to Caroline and being disgusted with the truth behind that recognition.
For the last year and a half, I’ve found myself at his grave, sometimes dragging along some poor, unsuspecting schmuck looking to get his dick wet, other times by myself, wishing I could vandalize the damn headstone the way I once let alcohol violate my liver or unworthy men leave me unsatisfied.
Tonight, though, as the stranger from Crimson—Elia’s nightclub, a place I’m not allowed inside of, but that I still poach suitors off the sidewalk from as they wait outside, glowing in its giant, red neon sign as they wait to be allowed in—pushes to his feet, my hand absently reaches for the heart-shaped locket I’ve been missing for several weeks now.
It’s a purely sentimental object, not worth mourning except that it solidifies the guilt swarming inside me, making me ache with misery. I can’t help viewing its loss as a sign from the universe that I’m doing everything wrong.
That I shouldn’t be here.
My stranger excuses himself, leaving the eerie graveyard with its myriad of headstones and monuments and ghosts, and I dig my heels into the dirt as I yank my pants up and flip onto my ass, sending a curse to my father in the afterlife.
Dominic Harrison.
An entire life lived, and only that epitaph left in his wake. Nothing about being a husband, father, senator, or associate to the mob. Just his name.
It was Caroline’s decision; I wanted to leave him unmarked, make it harder for me to find him.
Easier to forget.
Letting my face drop into my hands, I feel tears sting my eyes at the same time that familiar sensation washes over me; the one I get every time I come here, that keeps me coming back, even though the walk home is a pain in my ass.
It’s a tingle that starts at the base of my spine, slithering upward and spreading out to my extremities, that only accompanies complete darkness. Silence. An awareness only felt when you’re completely and totally alone.
The realization that, no matter what, you never actually are.
Chapter 1
Kieran
Boyd’s shoulder brushes against mine as he leans in to inspect my handiwork, and irritation at his micromanagement makes me grip the circular saw tighter. Shifting my weight into the task, I hover over the bloodless corpse, ignoring the way his dead eyes stare up at the ceiling.
The Montaltos justhadto remove his eyelids, as if they knew ahead of time that I’m haunted by the stony, defunct gaze of my brother Murphy. Now, I’m adding this man to my arsenal of nightmares.
It’s quiet here, almost eerie; my cottage sits on the desolate side of Lake Koselomal in King’s Trace, across from the elite housing strip where Elia Montalto and his perfect little family lives, and just far enough away from my family’s wretched mansion that I can come to escape the oppressive grounds.
No one else visits, besides Boyd and me. And Kal Anderson, but only because the doctor has a rap sheet filthier than mine. He’s not afraid of the darkness lurking here and inside of me, because his past is muddier, something you can’t outrun—though God knows he tries.
