Bastian’s grandfather had brainwashed him. He didn’t know about our sexual desires, but he saw our relationship as wrong. We didn’t conform to what Fitzy considered the norm. We were too close for his comfort. And so Bastian saw us as something dirty and disgusting—a secret we needed to hide from the world.
“We leave in the morning for initiation,” I whispered. “I need to be with you before we go.”
There was no time for doing the usual post-graduation shit. No senior week or vacation before we started college. Our family wasn’t like others and had a duty to The Devil’s Knights.
“D, it’s over.” Bastian sipped from the highball glass. “Luca is keeping Alex.”
“No, I’m not,” Luca said, appearing beside us with a drink in hand. “You want her? She’s yours.”
“You claimed her, and we’ve backed off since then,” Bastian hissed. “And you wait until our last night with her to change your fucking mind?”
Luca smirked. “I’m a dick. What can I say? A little celibacy will do you good with us being trapped on Skull Island for the next two months.”
He did this on purpose.
To fuel our rage.
To turn us into weapons.
All Knights must train on Skull Island before being admitted into the organization. We would endure the nine circles of Hell and hopefully live to tell about it when it was over.
“What the fuck, Luca?” Bastian’s nostrils flared. “The last few months of school were all bullshit, weren’t they? A fucking game to mess with our heads.”
He shrugged. “I did it more to fuck with her head. But sure, if you want to take it personally, go right ahead.”
My blood felt like it was boiling inside my veins, and I was ready to snap my brother’s neck.
Luca was a lot of things.
An evil mastermind.
A genius.
And one day, he would lead our family. I respected him, but right now, I wanted to grab my hunting knife and cut out his black fucking heart.
“You were jealous, weren’t you?” I asked him. “That day in the bathroom set you off, and you haven’t been the same with Alex since. You didn’t just play her. You played us, too.”
“I don’t get jealous,” Luca said with venom in his tone. “But make no mistake, that girl is mine. She will marry me and give me an heir.”
“Whatever,” Bastian interjected. “But we had a deal, you jealous fucking prick.”
“And I intend to keep it.” Luca took a sip from the glass, tugging on his tie. “She’ll be my wife in name only. You can have her when I’m done. Or if you prefer, we can share her.”
I wanted to kill him.
He made us believe she was off-limits. Neither of us had touched her since. She probably thought we didn’t want her anymore, when that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Bastian sneered at Luca, then grabbed my arm. “Let’s go, D. I need some fucking air.”
We exited the ballroom and headed toward the back of the house. On the veranda, dozens of people drank and smoked at tables. I ignored everyone and bolted across the pavers, seeking my favorite grassy spot at the cliff’s edge.
It was where Bastian and I went when we needed to leave the house. When we first became Salvatores, we felt suffocated all the time. Arlo was always trying to teach us new things. And before Evangeline died, she was horrible to us. I hated the sound of her voice. And the way she looked at us.
Once we had Arlo to ourselves, he taught us how to become men. How to handle our finances. How to shoot a gun and how to fight. He even showed me how to kill without getting caught.
My adoptive father understood my dark desires and helped me to embrace them. But there were moments in our childhood when we wanted to run. We wanted to return to Bel Air, where we lived with our parents.
Our parents let us do anything we wanted, but not Arlo. There were rules from day one. He had schedules for us to follow and specific tasks we had to complete each week. We are better men because of him, but it felt like torture back then.
