“Naughty little Spade,” a voice whispered, slick as venom against my ear.
My spine went rigid. I’d know that voice anywhere. Logan. He wasn’t supposed to be in my father’s inner circle, not here, not in this place that had always been tainted, but at least had belonged to blood. His breath ghosted hot across my skin. “What are we going to do with you?”
“Get your hands off her.” My brother’s voice cut through the air. Logan dropped me instantly, his hold falling away like ash through fingers.
I staggered forward and craned my head, catching sight of Alec skulking from the shadows. His scowl was carved deep into his face, arms crossed, jaw tight enough to crack. Relief flooded my chest in a single shaky breath.
“I won’t say anything to anyone,” I blurted.
“You’re damn right you won’t,” my father snapped. His voice was fire, molten and unyielding, and when I whipped my head toward him, his face was tinged a dangerous red. Anger radiated from him in smoldering waves. “You won’t get the chance to say anything.”
Cold fear cut through me sharper than the chill of steel. I had always feared him, but this version of my father—the calculating one, the executioner dressed in flesh—was something else entirely. My gut twisted, and before I could stop myself, I stepped back closer to Logan, as though his presence offered protection. But Logan would never save me. No, he would throw me to the wolves and smirk while they tore me apart, savoring every scream.
“Alec,” my father said, his voice low but commanding, accompanied by a harsh nod in my direction. My brother moved toward me slowly and purposefully. The sight of him advancing snapped something loose inside me, and I bolted. My shoes squealed across the concrete as I slid around a metal table, narrowly dodging grasping hands that shot out to catch me. My father’s voice rang out, ordering them not to touch me, but the words were muffled, drowned by the pounding in my ears.
I risked a glance over my shoulder, my hair whipping across my face, desperate to gauge Alec’s position. He wasn’t there. He had vanished from my line of sight. And then Iwas airborne. The ground ripped away beneath me as Alec’s arms caught me mid-run, hurling me like a rag doll across the bay. I slammed into a card table with bone-rattling force. Plastic cracked, buckled, and split beneath me before giving way entirely. The table collapsed with a deafening snap, and I spilled onto the floor, gasping, my ribs screaming in protest.
Groaning, I clawed my way onto my hands and knees, crawling clumsily toward freedom, but Alec was faster. My shirt tore with a sickening rip as he wrenched me up by the collar and slammed me against the hood of a car. The vehicle bowed in the middle under my weight. His grip locked my arms above my head at an angle so tight I could already feel pins and needles flooding my fingertips. I kicked, twisted, but his weight pressed down, crushing me into place. His forearm dug into my ribs, each breath harder to take than the last.
“No!” I screamed, my voice ripping from my throat, but it did nothing. Alec had me caged. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father approaching. He circled us like a hunter, the blade of a knife twirling casually against his finger. Each step was measured, deliberate, like a countdown as he circled the two of us. He stopped on my left, crouching low, and pressed the tip of the knife into the hollow of my throat. I swallowed against the blade, my eyes darting up to Alec’s face, searching, pleading for anything. To beg my father for mercy, for the love he should have been giving his children instead of this twisted version he believed it to be. My face begged for the brother I thought I still had to step in. But he refused to meet my gaze.
“I had plans for you, Emersyn,” my father murmured, his voice slick with mockery.
I focused on Alec’s freckles instead. Those scattered flecks across his skin, so faint you had to be close to see them. They had once made him look younger, softer, almost innocent. But innocence didn’t live in his eyes anymore.
“Just fucking kill me if that’s your plan,” I spat, teeth grinding through the words. At that, Alec flinched at my words. I tilted my head into the blade, welcoming its sting as I locked eyes with my father. My chin lifted in defiance.
“I mean, clearly all of this”—my gaze flicked to the drugs, to the men, to Alec’s hand restraining me—“is more important than your own flesh and blood.”
“Emersyn,” Alec warned, his grip tightening painfully around my wrists.
I snorted at his caution and bared my teeth at both of them. “DO IT!”
The hood rattled violently beneath me as I bucked against Alec’s weight, fighting with everything I had left, not caring anymore about the blade rubbing into my skin. But my father ripped the knife back at the last second. The edge kissed my skin, leaving behind a delicious sting. His eyes glittered with amusement as he leaned in closer, his breath heavy with smoke and rot.
“Maybe killing you would do me more harm than good, little Spade,” he whispered, the tip of his knife grazing my jaw now like a lover’s touch. “No. I have other plans for you.”
Alec Spade stood only inches away from me, close enough that I could see the uneven ridges of the burn scar stretched across the right side of his face. It was raw, angry, and still healing, but he was very much alive. Black streaks of body paint smeared around his eyes gave him the look of something feral, but when he plucked the blackout contacts from them and tossed them to the floor, it was just my brother again. My brother, with those same piercing blue eyes that haunted me. Tears stung at the corners of my vision as I forced the words out, my voice shaking but sharp.
“You didn’t go to Kaius to help me, did you? All of this…” I swallowed hard. “It was never about saving me. It was about tearing down the Knights.”
Before Alec could answer, a slow clap echoed to my left. Logan. The sound of his palms smacking together wormed under my skin like maggots. My teeth clenched. Without thinking, my hand reached behind me, fingers curling around the grip of the gun I’d kept hidden. In one motion, I drew it and leveled it at him.
Logan smirked, smug even with a barrel aimed at his chest. “What are you gonna do, Emersyn? Shoot me?”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “Yeah. Something like that.”
I lowered the barrel and pulled the trigger. The shot ripped through the air, the recoil jolting up my arm. Logan’s scream followed immediately, raw and panicked, as he staggered back, clutching at the blood pouring from his leg. He collapsed onto the dirt floor, scrambling backward on his ass. My legs were shaking, but I stepped over him until the muzzle of my gun hovered just above his forehead. He flinched when the hot metal grazed his skin, shrieking like a cornered animal.
I chuckled low, dark. “Want to try asking me another stupid question?”
The blood from his thigh wound spread fast, staining his shirt crimson. His eyes darted wildly, pleading now, lips trembling as he begged for his life. But I leaned in, pressing the gun harder to his skin, savoring the way he shuddered beneath it.
“You know, Logan, you’ve never been the brightest. If you had any damn sense, you would’ve realized something by now.” My voice dropped to a hiss. “The Knights are already waiting for my signal.”
His teeth chattered, breath coming fast. “W-what’s your signal?”
Before I could even form a word, pain lanced through the side of my neck. A sharp sting and then fire flooded my veins. My gasp tore out of me, strangled and desperate, as liquid heat rushed into me like poison. Alec’s hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back against his chest as the needle stayed buried in my skin. I could hear the faint hiss of liquid emptying into me. My brother’s voice was soft in my ear, too gentle for what he was doing, as if he were calming a child.
