Clamping down on my teeth, I idly toyed with the signet on my finger, eyes zeroed in on the parchment in front of him.
Our relationship was far from that of father and son. Adopted at fourteen, I’d long forgotten how to form bonds and attachments. He was just another body forced into my hellish life by means beyond my control. Kai and I had made plans to run. We knew how the system worked and what awaited us. Young as we were but streetwise beyond our years, we knew damn well a wealthy man would only take an interest in teenage boys for nefarious reasons.
Interestingly enough, we weren’t wrong. But those reasons were far from what we could have imagined. Ronan hadn’t just adopted us.
We’d been fucking recruited.
Through the years, he fed the demons he’d seen reflected in our eyes and turned us into depraved monsters with no moral compass. We’d been bred to kill, the fiery tendrils of hell shackling our souls, keeping us chained and bound to this existence and the next.
I knew it was only a matter of time, but I’d take Ronan with me.
Reaching over his desk, I poured myself a glass of scotch, and the usual reel of horrors played through my mind as they seldom did in his presence. One day, just like James, he’d feel the heat of my blade shear through his fucking heart and tear it from his chest. And that was a goddamn promise.
“She’s not important,” I said, the words surprisingly bitter on my tongue.
“Oh, I know she’s not.”
Ronan’s scrutinizing glare speared through me from behind a haze of smoke. And I briefly toyed with the idea of shoving the goddamn cigar through one of his eye sockets. How loud would he scream until it seared all the way through?
While he had been the man to lift me from despair, to pull me from the clutches of abuse and desolation, he was the worst devil of them all.
His gesture wasn’t selfless. The motive clear. He needed Kai and me.
Two unlovable, broken bastards to fulfill a sole purpose. His methods brutal and unhinged.
I was thrown into a world where an oath of blood was the currency of death. A debt collected by entities so obscure, so deeply entrenched into the underworld of the global population that few men had ever been in their presence, let alone knew of their existence. The Six, coined after the original ancient Greek Pantheon, were the ultimate puppeteers of society. The black robes behind the scenes, ruling the masses, doling out punishments—Playing God.
Even Ronan, as powerful as his hand was, was merely another player in the game of stolen souls.
“Your silence speaks volumes. But I know you. Get her out of your system. Fuck that whore, if you must. But be done with her, and get your head back in the game.”
He dropped the envelope directly in front of me and pulled an engraved blade from the drawer, running the steel through the flame of a candle. He motioned for my hand, and I obliged, offering my palm as I’d always done. Our eyes locked as he brought the knife to my flesh, piercing the skin. Only this time, the cut was deeper than necessary. I clenched my jaw, pain biting across the wound, but I’d be damned before giving him the reaction he was seeking.
A punishment. This was personal.
But why?
Blood trickled from my now-closed fist onto a metal spoon full of crimson wax pellets. Ronan gripped my wrist with more pressure, pulling me close to his face. “Lies are dangerous, son. Tread carefully.”
If there was one thing I knew about the man, he never made an empty threat. And he seemed far too aware, too curious of Evangelina, despite not knowing her identity. Or had he somehow found out? Did he know her ties to Franco?
“If you have something to say, say it,” I countered, tugging my hand from his and wrapping it with a handkerchief.
“I suggest getting that taken care of by the good doctor.” Again, he held out a hand, and I dropped my ring into the middle of his palm as I attempted to decipher the meaning behind his suggestion. “Though you probably want to give him a few hours. Heard he had a late call last night,” he added, lifting his amused gaze and gauging my expression.
Oh, he fucking knew.
“Did he now?”
“Two Russian bastards. One didn’t make it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know this?”
He chuckled as he held a metal spoon over the flame. “Kiernan was nursing a possible torsion in his balls, courtesy of your lady friend. You can imagine how much a Bratva asshole will talk with too much happy juice in his system. And what asmallworld. The good doctor received a call while icing a sore dick, and would you know, his lock screen is of a picture of his daughter.” He peered at me again, enjoying this charade far too much for my liking. “Imagine poor Kiernan’s surprise when he sees the face of the woman who nearly castrated him.”
A myriad of emotions passed through me at once. One way or another, Ronan would fuck this up for me, and I wasn’t ready to let go of Evangelina just yet.
“Small world indeed.”
