Page 64 of From the Ashes

I step up the hill, and when I reach the top, all eyes are on me.

Kovu, Kaos, and Crew are kneeling in the grass, their stoic faces not showing any of the emotion I can see in their eyes, while Bishop is being escorted toward them with his arms held behind his back and his glare set on me.

Oh, I’m definitely in trouble, but so are they.

They thought they could lock me up until it was safe for me to come out? I don’t fucking think so.

I’m about to show them why my father trained me to be his successor rather than Michael or Scott. Because I’m infinitely more capable than I look.

I take careful steps down the grassy hill, because slipping on my ass definitely isn’t the look of defiant power that I’m going for, until I’m standing opposite Caleb with just a few headstones separating us.

“This is very theatric of you.” I gesture around us, allowing the amusement to bleed into my tone. “I didn’t peg you for the kind of guy with a flair for the dramatic, but then again, you did fake your own death, so I guess I should have seen this coming.”

“You have quite the mouth on you.” He glares at me, and I feel his men begin to surround me. Which is exactly what I expected them to do.

There are only a few ways these situations play out, and so far, this is exactly what I was expecting.

My eyes flick to Bishop as he’s shoved to the ground beside the others, and I push down the panic that sets to life in my stomach. I could lose them. I could lose them so fucking easily right now if I don’t play my cards right.

When I look back at Caleb, he’s giving me a smug look that makes me want to lift one of the guns in my hand and unload the entire clip on him, but I manage to tamp down the urge. Just barely.

“You gonna tell us why exactly we’re in the middle of a cemetery at one in the morning?”

He chuckles and moves toward where the guys are kneeling, their heads held high with their eyes locked on me. “Do you remember when we saw each other here?” he muses.

I nod, my stomach rolling at the thought of him seeing me at such a vulnerable moment as I said goodbye to my father months after his funeral.

I didn’t get the chance to be there on the day because I was recovering from Charles’s men almost killing me, but the fact that the moment I did have is forever tainted by him makes my stomach roll.

“Do you remember what I told you I was doing here?”

I force myself to think back through the fog of emotion I felt that day, but when I lock onto it, I look around at the headstones around us. “You said your girlfriend died, that she was buried here.”

Crew’s eyes lock with mine while the others look around and lock onto the one directly in front of them. Jesus, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said this guy has a flair for the dramatic.

“Exactly. You see, Bianca and I were together for years. I met her at one of Davenport’s strip clubs, and we just clicked. Not long after we met, we took our positions in the Syndicate, and while doing spot checks on some of the clubs, we saw each other again. We got to talking, and it was only a matter of days before I moved her into my apartment.”

That gets everyone’s attention, with Kaos staring at him like he’s a complete stranger rather than the man who raised him.

“Things were good in the beginning. I was able to manipulate things without any of you noticing, but when the five families finally found their routine and stopped pushing the boundaries, it became obvious when something was out of the ordinary. The shipments that went missing couldn’t be blamed on the other families as they had been in the beginning, there was no trafficking in and out of the city, which meant it was harder to make the extra money I’d become accustomed to.”

Crew’s face contorts with anger and it’s only a matter of time before he loses his composure, no matter how carefully constructed it may be.

“That’s when Bianca and I came up with a plan that would see us take the whole Syndicate for ourselves. I planted her as your girlfriend, and you all fell for it hook, line, and sinker. She made you believe she had real feelings for you while she was distracting you from the cracks that were beginning to form.

“Crew was always worried that a woman would distract you from what was important, and he was right to be worried. Everything I did happened right under your noses, and you were none the wiser to any of it.

“But things started going astray when Bishop caught the tail end of a transaction Davenport and I were doing through the cash that exchanged hands. I always made sure the extra money I made came through the Syndicate, so it didn’t seem suspicious, but I took a larger cut than the rest of you.

“You see, Davenport was dealing organs on the black market. He had quite the operation going that none of you knew about, with a little help from me of course. Every time you got wind of something happening, I was the one to check it out and report back that it must have been a stupid rumor.

“But this time Bishop wanted to check it out himself, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

“So you decided to have Bianca shoot you?” Kaos asks, his voice even despite how confused he must be. Hell, I’m confused, and I didn’t have to live through any of this.

He nods. “Yes. All of you were supposed to be out on jobs that day, I made sure of it, but then Bianca got cold feet. We were supposed to rig the security system to make it look like someone had broken in, but she didn’t want to go through with it. She always knew that was a possibility, that all she had to do was shoot me and call the doctor, but instead, Crew heard the gunshot and came running.

“And then I had to watch as my own son killed the only woman I ever loved.”

---