AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Grim’s mercenaries aren’t here now. It’s just us,” I retort, my teeth clenching.
“Don’t!” Arden’s fingers curl into my thigh. He knows me too well, understands where this is heading, and in my own sense of grief and guilt at having Cyn taken from me, I let my anger bubble dangerously.
“I’d listen to Arden, mate,” Beast pipes up, watching our exchange.
I ignore him.
“You forget we’re the keepers of secrets, we exchange truths and lies like fucking currency,” I spit, turning my attention back to The Masks. “We’re millionaires when it comes to you motherfuckers. We know what you are, and weknowwhat went down at Ardelby Castle. Cyn detailedeverything,” I continue, relishing the shocked looks on The Masks’ faces.
“Andweknow that you tied Cynthia to a tree when you were teenagers,” Konrad adds, quiet until now.
I stare at his face, at the scar that cuts across his features that’s not so dissimilar to mine and hate that he knows something so personal about Cyn and our past.
“She’s our friend,” Konrad continues, holding my gaze. “You think she kept something like that a secret from us?”
Truthfully, yes. I did not expect Cyn to have that kind of intimate friendship with The Masks, where she opened up enough to share the things in her past that hurt her the most. It fucking kills me that they had that relationship and we didn’t. It pisses me off that we wasted so much time hating on her when we should’ve embraced her, protected her.Lovedher.
“You did what?” Beast asks, his nose wrinkling as he cuts the three of us a disgusted look.
“Then you let your peers rip her clothes from her body,” Konrad continues, refusing to let this go. “And encouraged them to write names over every inch of her skin just because her father happened to be friends with ours. Perhaps the men wewereare not so different, huh?”
Beast scowls. “That’s fucked-up.”
“No more fucked-up than the Masks keeping Christy prisoner. Do you even know what happened to her whilst she was at the castle?” I accuse, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to back down. My own guilt making me turn on Beast. I realise that I’m being a cunt, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “What we did to Cyn when we were kids was nothing in comparison to what those arseholes did to Christy as adults. These men Grim calls family are no better than the Skull Brotherhood.”
“Then you’re all fucking wankers,” Beast says, turning his disappointment and anger onto The Masks now. “I know Grim has already laid down the law when it comes to how you treat Christy, but I’m just gonna say this now so that we’re all on the same page. You mistreat that beautiful woman ever again and I will strip the skin from your bones and use your innards as a fucking necklace. Got it?”
A muscle in Jakub’s jaw flexes. “I would expect nothing less, but you don’t need to worry, Christy is everything to us and we would rather flay the skin off our own bodies than hurt her again. She saved us. She made us whole again. Weloveher.”
“Good,” Beast nods, before focusing his attention back on the three of us. “And you three need to get your shit together, especially you,” he says pointedly looking at me. “Cyn sounds like a first-class woman. So here’s a piece of advise, when you get her back, don’t fuck it up.”
“Don’t patronise me!” I snap, pushing to my feet and stepping into the aisle.
“Then stop acting like a prick,” Beast retorts, rising from his seat too, meeting me toe-to-toe. “You hate The Masks, we get it. They don’t much like you three either. Just fucking deal with it.”
“You’ve no business telling me to do a damn thing,Beast,” I goad, feeling myself lose all sense of control as my nostrils flare and my fists curl.
Fuck this shit. Fuck all of it.
I want to cause some damage, and I don’t give a fuck if that means having it out with Beast. I need to fucking vent. I need to rid myself of some of this pain. I need to hurt something.
I. Need. To. Hurt.
Let him beat me for being a cruel, heartless bastard. Iwantto feel his fist slam into my face for refusing to see that she was always ours. Iwantmy stitches to split open and run with blood for allowing those cunts to take her from me.
Ineedto be punished.
“Don’t tempt me,” Beast snaps.
“Carrick. You’re done here,” Arden warns, his fingers gripping my upper arm as he tries to intervene.
I shake him off, too far gone now.
“Have you forgotten what you owe us?” I ask Beast, my voice low as I remind him that we already have history.
Not too long ago Grim and Beast sought the assistance of the Deana-dhe for their friends the Breakers, and then later to find Christy. As such, they each owe us a debt just like the majority of the criminal underground do. That makes him in our pocket, not the other way around, and he has no business talking to me this way.
“And here’s me thinking that was squared away given I’m here helping you, you ungrateful cunt,” Beast retorts, his own fury revealing itself.
