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The Four Dark Horsemen never lie to each other. We might have spectacular dramas among the four, but we never lie to each other as it’s an unforgivable sin in our eyes that threatens our unity.
One of the reasons I’m dreading Santiago finding out about Florian and Jimena is because he won’t understand our stance.
While we never picked sides or betrayed his trust, all this time, we protected Jimena from being forced to end up in the war between their families that was as inevitable as the sunrise.
The Cortezes’ and the Prices’ patriarchs might accept a lot of things, but not anyone harming their cubs.
“We weren’t thrilled you lusted after a cop, but we don’t interfere in each other’s private lives unless we absolutely have to,” Santiago speaks up next. “However, by calling the feds tonight, she left us no choice but to interfere.”
“So we have to ask.” Florian lights up his own cigarette. “Is she simply bait to catch the son of a bitch who's been hunting us for over a decade and blamed his latest massacre on you?”
“Or is she a bride we guard and protect as our own because she’s an extension of you and therefore of the Four Dark Horsemen?”
“More importantly, does your future wife know that she owes her life to you? Since you were the one to save her on that fateful day?”
I still at this, studying their blank expressions as they hold my stare, and realization hits me. “How do you know?”
This was my one deep secret I hid from everyone because its heavy burden was supposed to be my price to pay for freedom, and my friends who helped me out didn’t deserve to carry the guilt.
The Church Killer sent me a special invitation two weeks after we killed my stepfather, promising to expose us all if I didn’t comply with his invitation, so I had no choice but to go to that wedding.
A massacre.
So much blood pouring from bodies and smearing the floors.
So many dead people with horrified expressions permanently etched in their faces.
So much misery.
And among them all was one girl hammered to a wall with her hands above her, blood dripping from her forehead as she barely breathed because a piece of wire was wrapped tightly around her throat.
The minute I stepped foot in the church, I knew it was his plan all along to blame me as a punishment for putting our crime on him. I barely had time to remove Isla from the wall and cut off the wire, allowing her to breathe before the cops arrived, and then I escaped.
They said she was lucky because two more minutes and she wouldn’t have survived.
The images are so vivid in my head that I could never step foot in a church without drinking again after that. I tried searching for her to keep an eye on her, but they hid her, and I had no skills or money back then to do my own research.
The idea of her death unsettled me and filled me with so much guilt. Her gray eyes haunted me for years until I saw her again, and my world tilted on its axes.
Beautiful and brave, calling to the darkness inside me craving to possess her for her mere presence, reminding us about the boy I used to be.
Who dreamed about other things than becoming a murderer, yet my darkness saved me, so I won’t ever betray it.
Instead, I want to smear her in it so she wouldn’t be so out of reach.
Mine and only mine.
“Thirteen years ago, we all got the invitation.” Santiago snaps me out of my thoughts, bringing me back to the conversation at hand. “We spoke about it before graduation, but you never said a word. That’s when we knew you wanted to go alone and face our consequences on your own.”
Ah, my best friends.
They don’t miss an opportunity to remind me that no matter what any of us ever do, they will always be our sins.
“We decided to go without telling you, following you in our car and helping you in case you needed backup.” Remi winces, taking a swig from his whiskey bottle. “We didn’t expect the fucking hell that greeted us.”
“The rest is history,” Florian concludes, puffing on his smoke. “So I repeat again. Who is Isla to us? Does her betrayal change anything?” A beat passes. “Bait or a bride? Make a choice, Octavius, but do so with the knowledge that whatever you pick…there will be no coming back from that.”
They all nod while I look at my best friend and frown. I can read between the lines well.
