“Oh good, I’ve finally got you both in the same room. Come and sit down, please.” A bit rich, considering she spends most of her nights jet-setting all over the world working on new movies, but whatever. I headed down and went straight to the living room, resting in the corner and kicking one leg up to rest on the couch while the other remained spread. I stretched my neck, running my hands through my hair. What the fuck was Madison playing at. I understood her anger. Finding out I had slept with her—who she had always assumed was her—mother, as my initiation process would be a hard pill to swallow, and then Khales. But she didn’t even fucking ask me why I did it. In her defense, she probably assumed I’d just keep it a secret like I had with everything else, but it wasn’t that at all. Khales was under my protection. I always had her under my protection, as kids, we were inseparable. Through me sleeping with Victoria Secret models to A-list actresses, she was still there. I fucked around on her a lot, fucked with her head even more, but I had never fucked up on Madison, yet, she still did me dirty. It wasn’t cheating, because we technically weren’t together, but fucked if it felt like it. If what Nate told me was true, they’d just trampled on my stomping ground, and there will be repercussions for that—as they will know it. This was a no trespassing zone, and you know what they say about trespassers…
My dad sat in his chair, which was the same as my mom’s throne—as she and I called it—but only where Mom’s was white, Dad’s was black. Both of them had high back pieces that wrapped around their shoulders and arms.
Mom started pacing up and down, one hand on her hip and the other over her chin. My mom was beautiful really. She had short brown hair that cut around her jaw and sharp, prominent features. I didn’t have much of a relationship with her because she was always on the road. “I don’t like this.”
“Like, what?” Dad rested his ankle on his kneecap, grabbing his cigar and clipping it. My eyes darted between the two of them.
My mom stilled, her eyes narrowing on Dad. Oh, this was about to get interesting, so I wiggled into the sofa more, resting my head back against the top of the couch, my eyes now directly on the ceiling above.
“You knew I didn’t like that woman, yet, you saved her? She was” —my mom faltered, and God, was that emotion in her voice?— “what she did, I will not agree with, Hector!”
“—you don’t agree because you have never understood this life, Scarlet.”
Their bickering died off in the distance until my mom’s voice snapped me out of my slumber. “Bishop!”
I sat up. “What?”
“Get that girl out of my house, too. I don’t like her.”
“Who, Khales?”
My mom just stared at me, or should I say glared. I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’d love that, but Dad was the one who invited her in.”
Mom snapped her attention back to Dad. “Get rid of her, Hector. I mean it.” Then she reached into her handbag, pulling out a set of keys. “I guess now’s a good time to do this, then…”
Dad stood to all his six-foot-three-inches. “Not now, Scarlet.”
She threw her hand up to stop him from talking. “Shut it. Since you like to go ahead and make decisions without me, I’m making this one.” She looked back at me and her angry features softened. She smiled a little, and then tossed a set of keys onto my lap.
“Congratulations, son. Happy birthday.”
I picked up the keys, looking at them in confusion. “Wait, what’s the date?”
Mom walked toward me and took a seat on the sofa beside me. “It’s not until this weekend, I know, but I figured I’d give you the keys now.”
I searched her eyes, and noticed for the first time how they looked tired. She had fine lines almost surfacing at the edges of them and her deep dimples looked more like smile lines. “Mom, I don’t think I need another car…”
“It’s not a car…”
My face lit up. “Wait, you got me my own jet?”
My dad turned his back on us. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Mom giggled, her hand resting over mine. “Not today, honey. It’s your own condo in New York City. Penthouse, because only the best for my boy.” Her hand came up to my cheek. My throat swelled, information floating inside my head.
“You bought me an apartment?”
She nodded. “Yep! The best one I could find that was close to NYU.”
“—If he attends college,” Dad’s interruption went unnoticed.
She pulled me in for a hug before I had a chance to thank her. “When am I going to meet this Swan girl? Color me intrigued…”
I let out a pent-up breath, relaxing back into the sofa with the keys balled in my fist. “Probably never.”
“What’d you do?” Her tone was accusatory, with good reason. She knew me and my father well.
“That’s the thing, aside from keeping secrets from her, I did everything right. Never cheated, never did any shady shit.”
“Keeping secrets is a big thing, son. And I’m guessing she has found out about Elizabeth and you, and also, the walking slut in the next room.” A laugh exploded out from me. Hearing a crass word come out of my mom’s mouth was humorous.
She stood, squeezed my hand again and looked to Dad quickly. “Whatever it is, give her time. But don’t let her make a joke of you.” She straightened her shoulders and carefully straightened her blouse. “Now, hate to love and leave my poster family, but I have to go back to LA where we’re filming.” Yeah, I bet. Just before she exited the room, I called out, “Hey, Mom?”
She turned to me. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for the apartment.”
“Bishop just texted me,” Nate announced, going for another plate. My mom wasn’t here for long before I said if she didn’t leave, I would.
Leaning back in my chair, I took a sip of orange juice. “Saying what?” I already started to feel confused about how I was beginning to be forgiving, even a little guilty about how irrational I had been with Nate. He wasn’t mine. Neither was Brantley, and Bishop had always said time and time again that if anything happened between me and another King, he’d take care of it and make sure consequences were filled. I lashed out. He slept with my fucking mom. This was beginning to get more twisted than even I cared to admit.
“He’s throwing the party since it’ll be his birthday this weekend.”
“Oh,” was all I could answer with, now that it was just Nate and I, I felt like I didn’t need to hide behind a mask. “What day?”
“June 20th, he’s having it at his new condo in the city.”
“Wait, what?” He got a new condo?” I sunk into my seat, now deeply regretting ever going near Nate and Brantley. I was being a brat, and it wasn’t fair. So what if I was angry with Bishop, I should have handled it another way, not this way, because in all honesty, I didn’t want anyone else’s hands on me. Now learning that it was his birthday soon, I needed to find something to get him.
“Don’t get him anything,” Nate murmured, reading my brain.
“Why?” I asked.
He shook his head. “He’s not with it. Hates it.”
“Too bad.” I swallowed my guilt. “But what do I get the boy who has everything?”
“Easy,” Nate answered. “You get him nothing like I said.”
I sighed. My thoughts were strangling me with the help of my buddy guilt.
“Kitty…” Nate whispered, sliding his seat beside mine. “I know. And it’s okay.”
I shook my head, wiping a stray tear from my cheek. “It’s not okay, Nate. I fucked up—again. Royally.”
“Hey!” His finger hooked under my chin, tilting my face up to his. “We mess around a lot, it was a given because we had chemistry. Bishop knew it, everyone knew it…”
“But I shouldn’t have with you, Nate.” My eyes met his. “You and I both know who we really want.”
His face sobered, and he leaned back in his chair, silence now stretching out. Nate didn’t silence easily, but one mention of Tillie and he woul
d clam up like a shell.
“Nate…” I urged.
His elbows came to rest on his knees. “There’s something wrong with her disappearing act, Mads.”
Mads, not Kitty. He was being serious.
I leaned closer toward him, my hair falling over my shoulder. “I know…”
He shook his head and then leaned into his chair. “I haven’t seen her since we were all out at the cabin. Feels like fucking years ago now.”
Wait. So he hadn’t seen her in that long, which means that when I saw her while I was in the hospital, he didn’t know. My eyebrows furrowed, and I pushed up from my chair.
“I need to, um, go for a second, I just need to see Daemon.”
“Kitty, you know he won’t see you.”
“I have to try, Nate. He’s my brother.”
I walked back into the house, ignoring whatever Nate was about to say and climbed the stairs, taking them two at a time. Heading down the long hallway, I stopped outside his door, resting my forehead against the cool wood.
“Daemon?” I whispered, banging my head softly against it. “I could really do with you right now.” Daemon hadn’t spoken to me since the incident out in the woods, and the handful of times I had seen him, he seemed distant, reserved, and confused. Even more than usual. I grasped onto the metal door handle, and just when I thought about twisting it and opening the door—basically invading his privacy, I exhaled, turned and rested my back against it.
“Well, if you’re not going to open for me,” I started anyway, sliding to the floor, still in Brantley’s shirt and booty shorts that I slept in. “I guess I’m just going to talk and tough if you don’t want to hear it.” I really shouldn’t be testing him. “It’s Bishop, Daemon. I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to anyone else about him because they all have bias views on him.” I paused, hoping that would have worked. It didn’t. I carried on anyway. “I messed up, he messed up, we’re both sort of just messed up, and I don’t know how to get through our bullshit. It seems whenever we finally start to get things back on track, something else interferes us, and we’re back to square one.”
A ball of emotion rose in my throat, threatening to surface. “I feel too much for him, but he doesn’t feel enough for me.” Before I knew it, a tear had dropped down my cheek. I swiped it away angrily, then chuckled. “So I found out last night that he had slept with my mo—Elizabeth”—I stopped, then corrected myself—“who I thought was my mom, as part of his initiation process, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I also found out that he had been keeping Khales alive all these years, for god knows what reason. I don’t even want to ask him because I already know what he’s going to say.” I sucked in a breath. “Secrets are weapons, and in this world—” Suddenly I was falling backward, my back hitting the floor and my eyes now in view of—“Daemon?” He was standing over my body, the door handle still grasped in his hand. I leaned up onto my elbows and pushed myself up.
“I—I...” Now I was the one rendered speechless. He looked more on edge than normal. His messy fine dark hair was scruffy on his head, his face showed a couple day’s stubble, the lines around his mouth were more indented than normal, and his eyes, so dark, so haunting, like the peak of midnight on a calm bleak night, looked—tormented. He wore a dark hoodie and jeans.
“Madison,” he slurred in his half accent.
“Daemon, I—” I launched toward him, my arms squeezing around his torso. “God, I missed you so much!” I didn’t even realize that tears were pouring out of my eyes, wetting his hoodie. His body was stiff, his arms refusing to reciprocate my hug.
“Adfui etiam…”
I didn’t have my app to translate, and I didn’t care what he had said, just that he had said anything at all meant a lot to me. Finally, an arm hooked around my waist and he buried his face in my hair.
“Sorry. So sorry, Madison.”
“Shhh.” I squeezed him tighter. Daemon hadn’t been a part of my life for very long, but as soon as I saw him, I knew. He knew. We had an instant bond and now I could never imagine my life without him. Probably had something to do with the fact that we were twins. “Nothing matters. It doesn’t matter. Dad is getting your charges lifted, and hell, I’ll lie on oath and say it was someone else that I didn’t see—just to get you out.”
I took this chance to look up at him. God he was beautiful.
“Madison, amore perit.” His thumb softly pushed away my tears, then he leaned toward my ear and whispered, “Love dies.” I really needed to take some Latin Classes If I was ever going to keep up with these boys and the language they all speak so fluently.
I sobered. “I’m starting to realize that.” I walked in farther and he closed the door behind me. Taking a seat on his bed, I drew my knees up to my chest.
“Have you…” he paused, searching for the word he was looking for. His lack of knowledge of English has warmed to me, and I usually just end his sentences now.
“Told him that I loved him?”
He nodded, his brows furrowing in worry.
“No,” I shook my head. “And I guess, he wouldn’t want to hear it now.”
“Why?” he inquired, walking toward the bed and taking a seat beside me. I lay back, my hands coming to rest behind my head. “I guess I messed up. I sort of kissed Nate—again, and Brantley, when I shouldn’t have wanted them all, all this time, and I haven’t wanted them, but there were times when I did want them all. But I love Bishop, and he’s irreplaceable in all sense of the word, but I also have so much anger toward him with this life, the secrets he has held from me, and for the love of God.” I sat up, resting on my elbows. “He knows something about Tillie!” I’m well aware my imbalanced brother probably didn’t give a flying fuck about my teen drama, but I also knew that he probably didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about.
He visibly stilled beside me, and I turned to face him. “Daemon?”
He shook his head and sighed. “She safe. For now.”
“What!” I shoot off the bed. “What do you mean? What do you know?”
“Too much,” was all he said, absently looking over my shoulder. He laid backward and curled into a ball, and my chest tightened. He was suffering so much, and I couldn’t do anything to help him.
Leaving him to get through what he was battling with, I left his bedroom and walked into mine. He knew something about Tillie too. I needed to see her. She needed to come home and keep Nate on a leash. Flopping down onto my unmade bed, I cringed at how it felt. The sheets felt like betrayal and the pillows smelled of deceit. I quickly flew to my feet and stripped my bed clean. I carried the sheets out my door and dropped them in the hallway, walking to the linen cupboard and taking out fresh pillowcases, sheets and then search for a blanket cover.
“Come on,” I groaned, flipping through the masses of linen but coming out with nothing. I sunk onto the floor, fighting tears again. I majorly fucked up.
“You ok?” Nate asked, coming toward me. “No offense, but you don’t look too good.”
I snorted, wiping my nose and swallowing through the swollen boulder in my throat. “I—I’ll be fine.” Then I move my eyes to his. “I need to go see Bishop.”
“Ah, I don’t think that’s a very good idea right now, just saying…”
Standing to my feet, I shove everything back into the closet and close it. “I’m going to see him, Nate. Whether he wants to see me or not.”
“Er, ok, well, I’ll take you.”
“Fine,” I huffed, scurrying to my room to change quickly. I slipped into some hipster white skinny jeans and a little black strap top that showed a slit of my belly. Obviously, Tatum had been rubbing off on me a lot lately. Speaking of—I swiped my phone from the bedside table and quickly typed out a text to her.
R u ok?
I hadn’t actually replied to her since the party before all this shit exploded. I didn’t even check on her to see if she got home ok. Panic started to set in my gut and my eyes darted around the room.
> “She’s ok.”
I turned around to see Nate leaning up against my door frame.
“Jesus. I’m a terrible friend, Nate.”
He shook his head, pushing off the door frame and coming into my room. “No, you’re not. It’s only been one day, and you’ve seen a lot of shit in that one day. Cut yourself some slack.” He flipped his cap backward and his eyes glittered with mischief. “Let’s ride.”
I really freaking wish I had spent more time on my hair and makeup instead of being rushed out the door by my own anxiety. I only managed to splash on some tinted moisturizer and mascara. I leaned up from the plush leather seat, grabbing my cherry lip balm out of my pocket and smothering some on, just enough to make my lips feel kissable. Stupid.
Nate’s matte black 2018 Audi-something pulled to a stop, just outside the front doors to Bishop’s home. I swallowed the memories that this house raised and reached for the door handle. Nate cut off the loud car, halting me with his hand on my other arm.
“Seriously,” I gritted. “How much did this car cost you?”
He shrugged. “Was a present, it’d be rude to not accept.”
“Trust fund brat,” I muttered, just as his door closed. I pushed mine open and got out, noticing Bishop’s matte black Maserati GranTurismo. “Did you make it this low and supped up? Like what is with all of you boys, you all ride in damn near half a million dollar cars and SUV’s, then you guys all modify them to look like something fresh out of Fast and Furious.”
I eyed Nate’s new car. It really was beautiful, even though it was extremely low to the ground. The wheels were splattered with gloss black and the windows were also black.
“Well, dear sister, first of all, have you forgotten we all race?” He quirked his eyebrow, closing my door. “Well, for shits and giggles mostly, and to run shit around town for Hector daddy boss.”
“No, I hadn’t forgotten, I’m just waiting for the time to bombard you all with my millions of questions. I figure if I ask you separately, you’re more inclined to answer me. Whereas if I push all these questions on you all at once, there’s a chance you guys will let a few answers slip and I may not catch them. I’m being thorough.” We were walking through the side gate now, heading straight for Bishop’s pool house. The architecture continued to render me speechless. His pool house was an exact replica of the main house, only smaller, and it was more like a two-bedroom loft, fitted with an open fireplace, a small bar, lush red marble counters, and the stairs that lead to his bedroom were built with glass. Nerves began to eat at me, and I stopped walking, silently freaking out. What if he was in bed with Khales? I couldn’t be mad at him, but I knew it would shatter me. Besides the fact that yes, I had handled things erratically in the past, I didn’t think I’d ever allow another man to physically put his dick in me—no matter how dizzy I may be at the time. Bishop, on the other hand, was a male. And he was—Bishop. Shit.