Page 159 of A Vicious Love

If Kingston was stationed in Villain after Darlington, he would spend the first four years after academy learning Villain territory, customs, contracts, syndicate structure, and law.

Marcel paced and then pointed at it. “He should be learning Harlan customs debt codes, casino law, blood routes. Harlan families!”

I shut the file.

My mind betrayed me with the memory before I could stop it. The casino at family dinner. That was the part no one understood unless they were there. It had not happened with weapons already out and guards shouting.

Family dinner.

Our mother had worn cream. I'd hated that color for the rest of my life. Seven months pregnant. One hand resting on her stomach because the baby kicked whenever our father laughed too loudly.

Our father, had been at the head of the table teaching with Marcel about port staffing.

Harrison was feeding pieces of bread to a guard dog under the table.

I had been irritated about something stupid enough that I no longer remembered it.

Kingston had fallen asleep in our father’s office earlier, with a stuffed crow.

Mom was in the middle of discussing travel plans to go to Villain. It had only been two weeks since our Aunt Abigail’s funeral. Our father didn’t want her travelling pregnant. He also wanted her to let the staff take down the baby shower decorations. Two days before our Aunts death she hosted our Mother’s baby shower at the estate.

Our mother refused to let anyone decoration be taken down.

Then the doors opened.

I remembered the sound before the sight.

Cutlery striking plates.

A glass falling.

The first shot.

There were not many things I could not stomach.

I had walked through rooms where bodies had stopped looking like people. I had seen everything, and committed things just as awful.

But my mother⁠—

Seven months pregnant. Cream dress turning red. One hand still trying to cover the baby as if she could protect it from bullets after they had already found her.

That image still lived behind my eyes.

My father crawled to her. Half his chest gone. Blood under his palms. Dragging himself across the polished floor because whatever was left of him knew only one thing.

Her.

He reached the hem of her dress. Touched it. Then they put the shotgun to his head. That sound never left the room.

Or for any of us.

And the next day, Harlan came for us.

Our parents were barely cold before the council placed ledgers into Marcel’s hands. Men twice his age called him head of Harlan while blood was still on the casino floor. They looked at an eighteen-year-old boy and saw a chair that needed filling before rivals smelled weakness.

I stood beside him because there was nowhere else to stand. Seventeen years old and already becoming the second blade.

Harrison was fourteen with a gun under his pillow.