PROLOGUE
KROSS
The girl screams again—a raw, wet, ugly sound—sand smeared across her face as she crawls like a busted crab across the beach.
Kade exhales behind me, all irritated and calm, like she’s delaying his schedule.
“Jesus, would you fucking run,” I tell her, nudging her ankle with my boot. “At least make this worth the cardio.”
She scrambles up, legs shaking, babbling nonsense—how she’ll doanything, how she didn’t mean to piss us off, how she’ll “make it up” to us if we just let her live.
They always go there.
“Sweetheart,” I laugh, “if you’re gonna offer that shit, at least sound confident about it. You’re killing the mood.”
Kade steps forward—quiet, precise, the colder twin through and through.
He grabs her by the hair, yanks her back just enough, and the blade kisses her side—shallow, more of a lesson than a wound.
She shrieks, knees him in the balls, and bolts.
Kade folds with a low, murderous groan—the kind that promises she’s not making it to sunrise.
Then I absolutely lose it.
I double over laughing, hands on my thighs, mask glowing like a deranged Valentine slasher come to life.
“Oh my god,” I wheeze, “shegotyou. Bro, she actually got you.”
Kade straightens with murder on his shoulders, jaw tight under the mask.
“She won’t get far,” he says, flat, cold, and lethal.
Then he moves with that clean, controlled speed he’s annoyingly good at, and I jog along beside him, way less graceful but twice as fucking thrilled.
“Fucking love when they fight back,” I say, breath puffing in the cold air. “Gets the blood pumping right to my cock. Plus, she’s fast. Think she does track?”
“Focus,” he mutters.
“Bro, Iamfocused. I’m literally focusing on the bitch sprinting away from us.”
The girl darts between washed-up logs and beach chairs, screaming like it’ll help. It won’t.
Her legs are shaking; she’s about to fold. I’m already picturing how she’s gonna taste when the blade gets?—
She suddenly veers left.
Kade slows, no doubt still feeling the sting of her knee in his nuts.
But I don’t.
“Where the fuck is she?—”
I skid to a halt at the edge of the dune.
Bright lights and bass so heavy my ribs vibrate.
And a whole swarm of drunk, glitter-smeared idiots pouring into a warehouse on the beach.
