Page 3 of Cruel Knots

I gesture toward the three young men writhing on the ground before us. “Give us your clothes.”

Denver glances between his injured friends and immediately starts taking off his clothes. He’s lost all his bravado in the face of three unrepentant killers staring down at him.

“Give it to them,” Denver pleads, forcing his friends to part with their clothes as well.

Soon, Trevor, Cooper, and Denver are stripped down to their boxers.

“Thanks,” says Leon with a bright grin as he hauls their expensive tuxedos and trousers in his arms.

“Can we go now?” Trevor asks in a pathetically small voice.

“Nope,” I command. “We don’t want anyone ruining Lucia’s evening.”

“Are you going to kill us?” Cooper asks, gingerly wrapping an arm over the slashes across his chest.

“Damien already said we can’t kill you guys,” Mikhail huffs. “I think it’s better to silence you guys forever. What if you give us trouble later on?”

I look Cooper in the eye and watch him flinch away. “Will you give us any trouble?” I ask in a slow, clear voice. Leaning closer, I whisper, “Will you tell anyone about us?”

The three boys shake their heads furtively.

“Good,” I say, feeling satisfied. “Bind them up and leave them behind those dumpsters.”

A cacophony of desperate pleadings rings out in the night as my brothers wrap plastic ties around their wrists and tighten them until their circulation is almost blocked off.

Kneeling before the cowering young men, I add, “You never saw us.”

They nod emphatically.

“It’s better to lose a memory than your entire head, right?”

More nods.

“Good.”

Just as their expressions are about to relax, I add, “You’ll never go near Lucia again.”

“I’ll never even look at her!” Trevor whimpers. “Happy?”

“Very.” Flashing a quick grin, I get to my feet and gesture toward my brothers to follow me.

We walk back into the shadows, content to be away from prying eyes.

“Can you believe our luck?” Mikhail says, digging his elbow into Leon’s side. “We’re going to prom with Lucia!”

“I know! I feel like fucking Cinderella right now.”

An amused grin comes over me. My brothers and I never attended a regular school. The fact that we’re assassins was bored into us since the moment we were born. We were taught Math and Grammar alongside using a knife to gut a man.

We aren’t immune to love and loyalty despite the blood coating our young hands. There’s an unshakable bond between me and my brothers. We just never expected to have the same connection with someone else after we were tossed out into the cold, dark streets of Ashville.

Lucia Baldwin truly appeared like an angel, promising us a safe and warm home. She forced her father to give us jobs as kitchen helpers and became the sweetest friend to us three brothers.

She’s younger than us. Even though her designation as an omega was revealed last year, we knew she was our mate from the moment we met her. We took one whiff of her sweet caramel scent and knew she was meant to be ours.

Lucia doesn’t realize it yet but she’s just as attached to us as we are to her.

She loves baking cookies and sharing them with us. She loves to read and always seeks us out to read out her favorite passages to us. The first thing she does after coming home from school is to look for us.

---