He doesn’t answer.
And that silence… that silence slices deeper than anything Becki ever said.
I turn and walk away because if I stay, I’ll shatter.
The rec room seems too bright.Too loud.Too full of eyes.I push through the back door onto the porch.The Kentucky heat slaps me in the face, thick and humid, humming with cicadas and secrets.
A couple of the club girls, bunnies they’re called, Candy and Tawny, I think, sit at a patio table smoking and gossiping.
No, Kandddy, with three d’s, I remember as I can’t help but notice.Those are bigger than triple, but crude bikers don’t know better.Ladies, if you can call them that, quiet when I step out.But not before I hear my own name.
I raise a brow.“Want to say that shit louder?”
Kandddy flicks ash off her cigarette.“We just said it’s funny.”
“What is?”
She leans in, voice dropping.“How Becki’s daddy always gets what he wants.Even here in Hell.”
My throat goes tight.“What the hell does that mean?”
Tawny shrugs.“People say the Reverend’s got something on the Kings.That he’s blackmailing someone.”
Remembering the file the Reverend had, I bark a laugh.“The Kings don’t get blackmailed.”
“Maybe not all of them.”Kandddy lowers her gaze.“But the older ones… they made deals back in the day.And Reverend Crowley keeps records.Files.Secrets.”
The porch feels hotter.My pulse thumps in my ears.Because I’m not the only one that knows.I’ve seen Crowley play puppet master.He blackmailed my father.He’s a holy man the way a butcher is a chef.
Girls go missing.Girls who were part of his flock.Girls who trusted him.Girls he kept close.And Becki, his golden child turned rebel, is right in the center of everything.And Legend got on one knee and made a promise we’d figure things out.But he’s let the woman who tried to kill me live.
I walk back inside before they see me break.
Hours pass like slow poison.I drink more than I should.Pace until my feet hurt.Each shade here seems off.Every whisper seems like it’s about me.Legend finds me again near dusk.
“She’s staying,” he says his brown eyes firm.
I laugh, but it sounds like something dying.“Of course she is.”
“Just until Royal gets what he needs.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”I ask, stepping close enough he can feel my fury.“Is that what he’s doing when he stares at her like he desires to drag her into the dark and tear her apart?”
Legend doesn’t deny it.
He doesn’t say a goddamn thing.
The betrayal stings worse than if he’d touched her.
I shove past him and don’t look back, because if I do, I’ll see the guilt on his face, and it’ll break me clean in half.
Becki Crowley walks into a room and everything starts to rot.
If no one else will do something about it, I will.
Even if I have to burn every inch of this kingdom down to the bone.
The hallway spins as I shove past Legend, my pulse thundering in my throat.I need air.Space.Something that doesn’t have his odor.But he follows, of course he does, his boots pounding behind me like he owns the floors, the walls, the very breath in my lungs.
