“Alive.”
My heart lurches into my throat.
“You not only knew about the party tonight, but you also knew the password that would get you through the door. Which means you were spying on my organization and stole information from one of its members.”
“I…I didn’t mean to?—”
“I’vekilledfor less than that, Evelina,” he murmurs against my ear, his breath teasing over my skin. My eyes flutter shut. My breath becomes labored. My head swims. The sounds of raw sex and wet thrusting fill my ears as my stomach knots.
“So,you’re welcome. Favor granted. And now, if I were you, and had any common sense in that pretty little princess head,” he growls, “I wouldrun, not walk, away from this place, never talk about tonight, never eventhinkabout it, and never oncelook back. Furthermore, I would do all of that exceptionally quickly, before I change my mind.”
That’s when I bolt from the room, the sound of wet thrusting and choked moans still echoing in my ears.
3
VAUGHN
“Mother.Fucker.”
Carson swears viciously, peering at his leg in the darkness of the garden outside the house.
Still crouched behind a low stone wall, I glance over to him. “What?”
“Just ripped my fucking pants on whatever country bullshit is littered about this hillbilly fucking place.”
Next to me, Sebastian sighs deeply, rolling his eyes and cracking his knuckles. “So?”
“So, these are brand new. And they’re Prada, asshole,” Carson mutters, shooting him a look.
Sebastian exhales again and twists to roll his eyes at me. “Why the fuck do we invite Ken to these things?”
“Bitch, I will fuck you like Barbie,” Carson hisses in the darkness, which makes Sebastian and me snort quietly.
“Dude, Ken doesn’t have a dick, and Barbie doesn’t have any holes at all.”
“Then I’ll cut new holes in you and fuck those.”
“Withwhat dick, Ken-doll.”
I clear my throat. “If you two are done, could we shut up for half a second so as not to fuck this up entirely?”
On the one hand, being friends with these two is like living with toddlers on a perpetual sugar high. Or especially manic, leg-humping Jack Russell puppies.
On the other, I know I couldn’t survive without them.
The four of us—Carson, Sebastian, Gideon, and me—came up through the Syndicate ranks together. We got our start in the same warehouse in Queens, as low-level nothings packaging Syndicate narcotics for sale.
The Syndicate has a way…or at least used to…of picking up strays like us at a young age. Technically, I think Seb was the youngest. They found him when he was six after he ran away from some evil fucking uncle he was living with. That's where his particular brand of malice and brutality comes from.
I was seven and, along with my younger brother Val, was also running from a broken home when the Syndicate found us.
Carson, manic prince of darkness that he is, came next, maybe a year after Val and me. His parents decided a kid with his “issues” was too much for people of their lofty social stature and had him committed to a mental hospital. He was there nine months before he got tired of getting the shit kicked out of him by sadistic adults and escaped, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Then came Gideon. As close as we are to him, not one of us knows his story.
And none of us, not even Carson, is crazy enough to ask.
“Okay, then riddle me this,” Carson sighs. “Where do baby Barbies and Kens come from if there are no dicks and pussies in the Barbie-verse?”
