HAIDYN
Istand outside the room, giving her a few minutes of privacy to let her mind wander. She knows I’m going to see her naked. The gown is just a false sense of security.
Pulling my cell phone out of my pocket, I give it a quick look before I go back in there. I’ve had it on silent since I arrived at her place.
I have a text from Kash.
Call me. It’s urgent.
Grinding my teeth, I hover over his number but am reluctant to press call. He answers on the first ring. “Make it quick,” I say in greeting. This is the first time I’ve spoken to him since I left Carnage.
“We found out a few things about Benny,” he informs me.
Glad I took the call.“And?”
“He was a Lord.”
“Was?” I ask, wanting him to get to the point. I’m not in the mood to play guessing games. I have the toy I’m going to play with behind the door I’m leaning on.
“Yeah. He never made it through all the initiations. Failed sophomore year.”
Running a hand through my hair, I growl, “Then how did he know so much if he wasn’t a fucking Lord?” We had looked for a Lords crest and hadn’t seen one, but there was no reasonable explanation for that. And Ashtyn was seeing him while she lived in Vegas. No way would she have willingly dated or fucked a Lord when she was on the run from them.
“We know he was working with Laura and Ashtyn’s mother four years ago, but we think he’s connected to someone else…”
“Who?” I bark out, hating that he’s not willing to give me information. He’s the one who said to call him.
“Our guess is Costello.”
Like a gunshot to my chest, I stop breathing at the mention of the name. I begin to pace the hallway. “No?—”
“It’s the only plausible explanation,” he growls. “Saint and I have gone round and round on this for days now, and it makes perfect sense. She spent time in Carnage. She knew the system?—”
“But Benny had raped Ashtyn before the vow ceremony our senior year with help from Laura and her mother.” I interrupt him. “Costello wasn’t at Carnage until after Ash ran…”
“That we know of,” he snaps, getting irritated with me. “Who knows how longshehad access before our training.”
I sigh, not wanting to believe him but also knowing I don’t know enough to argue any of it.
“Look.” He softens his tone. “I don’t want to believe it either, but what if our dads had something to do with it? We know that Ashtyn’s mother was part of Ash being raped because she was trying to make sure that Ashtyn didn’t become Saint’s chosen. And Laura…” He trails off. “That bitch is fucking nuts. We all know how far she’ll go to get her way. And Laura had access to Carnage before our training. So if—a big if—it wasn’t our dads,maybe Laura helped Costello get into Carnage after our dads were killed.”
“The question is, how did Costello know our fathers were dead?” They weren’t even cold, and she was already there.
Senior year at Barrington
I pacethe hospital hallway at Carnage while Kashton sits in a chair up against the wall, bent over with his hands gripping his hair. “Saint’s going to be okay,” I tell him.
His head snaps up, and his bloodshot eyes meet mine. “She shot him.” Getting to his feet, he steps into me. His chest bumps mine, and I can feel his anger at how much he’s shaking. “Ash?—”
“Calm down, Kash.” I place my hands on his trembling shoulders. “We don’t know what happened.”
His watery eyes widen. “Are you fucking serious?” he snaps, taking a step back. “She broke my fucking nose and kneed me in the fucking dick! Then she shot our brother.”
“Devin is going to take care of him. He’ll be okay.” He doesn’t even mention the fact that our fathers are also dead. The only person he cares about right now is Saint. We carried him up here from the morgue, where Kash found him lying in a puddle of his own blood. Devin just took him back for surgery. Now, it’s just a waiting game.
“She’s his wife!” he shouts. “What the fuck was she thinking?” He goes on, not expecting me to answer. “And where the fuck were you?”
Saint had called me saying there was a code 26 and that it was for Ashtyn, I pretended to be asleep as if I wasn’t the one who helped her run. “I?—"
