PROLOGUE
“Choose,”a disembodied voice commands, the low monotone echoing off the stone walls of the crypt and rattling down to my bones.
I suck in a shaky breath, adjusting my grip on the hilt of the dagger with trembling fingers while my eyes ping between the three men kneeling before me. Their heads are bowed, the hoods of their black robes concealing their faces, but I know exactly who they are.
Weston Powers, the master manipulator who sunk his hooks in me.
Christian Ford, the psychopath without a conscience who reeled me in.
And Rafael Romero, my deranged stepbrother who ensured I could never escape.
Tonight, one of them will bleed.
It’s the only way this nightmare ends.
CHAPTER 1
RAF
The shadows are closerthan ever lately. Building, swirling, pressing in at the edges of my vision until they’re all I can see. I force myself to breathe, grasping for control and shoving them back where they belong. It works. For now.
The darkness has been with me for as long as I can remember. It was subtle at first, creeping in like smoke whenever my temper flared.
The crack of my father’s belt across my back.
The precision of his words as he catalogued my failures, one disappointment at a time.
It’d always come and go, but the first time I felt it truly settle into my bones was during my initiation trials, when I carried out my first kill order. The night I stared into a man’s eyes, pulled the trigger, and watched his light flicker out in an instant.
That was also the first time my father ever said he was proud of me.
Shame and regret tangled with triumph in that moment, fused so tightly they became indistinguishable. I learned early that pride comes at a cost not everyone can pay.
My mom knew something shifted in me that day. She found me in the dark, held me close, and told me to breathe. To think of the good things in my life. Told meIwas in control, not the rage.
She was wrong.
Now that she’s gone, the shadows never leave. They’ve come close to consuming me completely on more than one occasion.
The day we buried her.
The day my father told me he was marrying his whore.
The day Ava showed up on campus.
Anger is all I know anymore. It seeps into everything, slow and corrosive, until soon there’ll be nothing left– just scorched earth when the devil finally comes to collect his due and pulls me down to hell where I belong.
My phone alarm goes off for what feels like the fiftieth fucking time this morning, its shrill insistence cutting straight through my skull. I roll onto my side, exhaustion dragging at my limbs as I grab the device off my nightstand and squint at the screen.
Fuck.
I should’ve been up hours ago.
Typically, I’m far too disciplined to hit the snooze button, out of bed the second my alarm goes off to go for a run or hit the gym. This morning, I’m sluggish, still fighting off the hangover from the fight the other night and the aftermath that played out in our apartment.
I haven’t spoken to anyone since.
We skipped our usual morning routine yesterday because I wasn’t in the mood to play my part. Today, that excuse doesn’t matter– appearances do. One missed morning is nothing, but two is the start of a pattern. Patterns invite scrutiny.
