Wolf begins to walk first. Mihai right behind him.
I pass by Ruin, who’s looking at me intensely—eyes burning with something I can’t name. I don’t want to, but it looks like a fiercer version of what I identified as fear in Wolf.
Shaking the thoughts, I focus more on the facts at hand.
My useless, broke-as-shit mother tried to sell me. Fact. Someone I didn’t know wasn’t my father, saved me by swapping me. Fact. My original buyer’s brother is currently beaming at me with a maniacal energy. Fact. And the man I refuse to see as family is the only one who can probably save me. Fact.
The moment I enter the room, I feel it. There’s an aura to the madness in front of me. The large wooden table in the centre is worn with decades of history. I scrunch my nose at the stale smell of cigarette smoke and leftover beer.
The three ashtrays lining the table’s edge are filled to the brim with ash and cigarette butts. A few spilled on the wooden surface.
I heave a ragged sigh, compelling my muscles to move enough so I can take a seat before my knees give out.
Everyone quickly spills in, while Mihai examines the room like a forensic criminologist.
He looks over at Wolf, who hasn’t taken his gaze off of him for even a moment. Mihai’s smile widens under his glare. “No windows,prieten bun?”
Wolf sneers at him, but says nothing.
Mihai simply shrugs, flicking his suit coat before plopping onto one of the chairs dramatically. His fingers drumming the wood with a maddening rhythm.
Each and every brother in the room is on high alert, scowling at him. This man has absolutely no fear, even with the guns glinting in everybody’s hands.
He takes it a step further, signaling Wolf to take a seat in his own Prez’s chair, like it’s his damn invitation to bestow.
He grunts lightly, gesturing at all the others to take a seat, their weapons slowly clicking as they turn their safeties off. Followed by dull thuds of them being propped on the table like a threat.
“Charlotte,” Wolf says, his tone pleading. “Sit here, yeah?” He nods at the seat beside him, while Ruin is on his other side as the VP.
Once we’re all settled, Mihai looks around the table, smirking. Two fingers placed on his chest, he rumbles. “Me? I start, yes?”
I swear I can hear the collective eye roll everyone is suppressing.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Scar supplies dryly.
Mihai’s grin falters for a fraction of a second. His face tightens, like something unpleasant crossed his mind.
“Ghost Reapers, gone,” he says slowly, the words clipped. “Nomad Warriors, destroyed. And Hell’s Army recently took all your toys.” His eyes sweep across the table. “Correct?”
No one answers, but the silence says enough. It doesn’t seem to bother Mihai. If anything, the quiet encourages him.
The smirk fades from his face entirely now, swallowed by something darker. The shift is so abrupt it feels like I’m looking at a completely different man.
“When I was five,” he says flatly, “I was shoved into a meat freezer in our basement and locked there for seventeen minutes.”
My lungs forget how to work. Because… what?
“At thirteen,” he continues casually, sliding a massive ring off his middle finger, “my finger was almost severed. Apparently it was… impolite to use it the way I did.” He flips his hand over so everyone at the table can see it. A thick scar circles the base of his finger, beneath the knuckle.
Christ.
“Once,” he adds smoothly, leaning back in his chair, “when I was twenty, this same person chose to drive a knife into my heart while I slept. Missed it, though.”
The room is dead silent.
“It was the same night,” he finishes, “my father had named me heir apparent. Successor to the Rosca family.”
I glance around the table, trying to make sense of what I’m hearing. None of it connects. The suspicions running in my head seem too… impossible. Judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, no one else wants to presume where this is going either.
