AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Payton rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“Anyway, neither of us were the norm. Used to be you had to be a blood relative to join, but as the years passed, and the families spread out, they were forced to relax their rules. Hence how a kid like me got in. But King wasn’t some orphan. His family was well off, parents still married, at the time. But he was bored and brash and found himself joining, same as me. So even though we were supposed to be enemies, we”—I lift a shoulder—“connected. Became friendly. I was always a little jealous of him. Having that cushy life to fall back on. But over the next ten years I watched his grandparents die, his father get murdered, his mother abandon him.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “My life was hard from the start, but I was used to it. Didn’t have a rug under me to be pulled out.” I squeeze Payton’s knee again, because I know she gets it.
“You guys were kinda like Romeo and Juliet,” she teases.
I bark out a laugh. “Please tell King that next time you see him.”
“You were star-crossed friends.”
“We would’ve, and did, deny it. But yeah, we never really fit in under the old rank. So, the few times a year the families would play nice, we’d end up gravitating to each other.”
“I heard once that soulmates aren’t just for romantic relationships. You can have friend soulmates.”
“I don’t know anything about soulmates. And King might be my brother. But you are my life.” I rub my palm up her thigh. “No comparison.”
She presses her lips together, and rather than making her respond, I keep going.
“It didn’t take us long to realize there were rats in both families. Only the idiots thought they could use us to pass some secret code bullshit. Except King and I aren’t idiots, so we cracked the codes and decided to make it work in our favor.”
“This sounds like a movie.” Payton cradles the mug to her chest.
“Except in movies everyone is beautiful. You should’ve seen these old guys. They were hideous, inside and out. The leaders of both families were corrupt, vile people, who stood for nothing. They’d never had to work for what they had. Never had to claw their way out of the gutter. Never even killed a man unless he was already being held down by three others. But when we figured out what else they were doing…” My anger bubbles back to life, thinking about it so many years later. “They were bringing in women from their home countries. Stealing them. Selling them.”
“Human trafficking,” Payton whispers.
“They hid it well. Only certain members were even aware of it, which is where the rats came in. Two guys thought maybe they could break off, join forces and build an empire on the backs of women. That’s when King and I got dragged into the mess.” I take a breath. “I wasn’t lying when I said I did bad things. I do. But we don’t do that. We don’t sell women.”
“I know.” Payton doesn’t flinch. “You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t,” I repeat. “And we wouldn’t let them either. So, we planned. We brought in only the men we trusted, recruited some more from the streets, and when everything was ready… we slaughtered them. As many as we could get our hands on. In both families.” Payton dips her chin, and I swear it’s approval. “We hit the same night, at the same time, with no warning. Most of them died. Some of them ran. And some joined us. And then together, we became The Alliance.”
“So, the Russians and the Irish are gone, and now you and King run everything?”
“Except most people think it’s just me. An organization like this is most effective when it looks like one man runs it all. People can’t think it’s a democracy. You can’t give them the chance to try and turn you against each other. So, it had to be one of us, and King didn’t want it to be him. By then, his dad was dead, but he still had sisters and a mom around. It was safer for them if King sank into the shadows. And considering any of the Irish guys who might’ve tried to out him died that night, it was easy for him to slip into the shadows.”
“What about the people he’d recruited? Wouldn’t they know he was kinda in charge too?”
I flip my hand over, and she laces her fingers with mine. “Most of those guys are dead now too.” She grips my hand. “In the months that followed there were a lot of people coming for us––me–– wanting to take the throne I’d created.”
“But you kept it.”
I grin. “I kept it.”
“And now King is like a silent partner that no one knows about.”
“Basically.”
She seems to think it over before accepting it. “And he’s close to his sister? The one that went with you last night.”
“If, by close, you mean is she constantly bugging him and making him do shit he doesn’t want to do, then yes.”
This gets me another, more subdued, laugh. “That’s good to know. I’ll admit I don’t really understand all the other stuff, but it’s clear King is important to you. And I feel bad for feeling so scared of him.” I open my mouth, but she squeezes my hand. “But, knowing he’s close with his sister makes him seem more… normal.”
“King is far from normal,” I deadpan. “But he’s one of the few people I would trust your safety to. So please don’t be scared of him.”
