Page 7 of Wicked Revenge

Holy fuck.

The balls on her are unbelievable. It makes me wonder why they listen to her. What happened in the last five years that makes her untouchable?

I want to ask her, but I won’t. Not yet.

Ella is different than she was before. She is no longer the pretty teenage princess who never spoke an unkind word. She is now a woman with more balls than every man in this place.

Even still, she doesn’t need to be dragged into this right now. It’s clear she can hold her own, but I am cautious because I don’t know how she is associated with them. I think it’s best if I leave before she sees me.

Before I can slide my ass from the booth, she starts walking in my direction. Fuck. Maybe she won’t see me here in the shadows.

That wishful thinking is dissolved quickly as she saunters right up to my table.

“What can I get for you?” Ella continues looking down at her notepad, without seeing me.

I might as well eat since slipping back out is no longer an option. I am starving.

“I’ll just have the Twisted Special,” I say, keeping my head down and my eyes hidden beneath my black hood.

She gasps and drops her notepad and pen to the ground.

Her reaction has my head snapping up and when she locks on my eyes, I nearly burst into tears.

She remembers me.

“Rae,” she whispers in a shocked tone, tears immediately filling her eyes.

“Ella.” My own tears build at the emotion behind our childhood nicknames as I hold my finger to my lips.

I don’t want anyone else to notice me. She immediately understands, looks around, and grabs my hand, pulling me from the booth down the dark hallway, and into the office at the end.

I don’t even have time to look around before she crushes me in a squeezing hug.

“I thought you were dead, Rae. You just vanished. When they found Grams in her cottage, we assumed you were dead too. Where the fuck have you been?” Her words are rushed as she sobs.

“El, calm down. I’m okay. Also, I can’t breathe,” I say to her with very little breath left in my lungs from her crushing hug, “I haven’t seen you in five years, Ella. Let me look at you.” I grab her arms to push her back enough to see her tear-streaked face, “I’ve missed you so damn much.”

I pull her over to a couch across from the room and take both of her hands in mine. I don’t know if I can tell her everything right now. Even though seeing her has cracked my black heart open, I don’t know what she is to him or his men. I have to protect myself.

“Ella, why did those Kingsmen listen to you? Why didn’t they punish you for threatening them?” I look into her eyes when I ask to see the truth her lips might not say.

Please don’t be involved with them.

A smirk forms on her face that reminds me of the badass who just put my mark in his place out in the dining hall. “Twisted is protected by the Shadows.”

That is not what I was expecting.

“Who are the Shadows?”

“No one knows, not really. We only know that once their protection has been established, no one goes against it, not even the Kingsmen,” she says, sighing as she pulls her legs onto the couch under her before continuing.

“Last year, after my father died, the Kingsmen came in and tried to re-offer us protection for a price. I’m not stupid. I know the deal my father made for them before he knew that the only protection we needed was from them.

“My mother was still so stricken with grief over my father, to the point she couldn't function, let alone run the tavern. So it’s up to me to run and take care of Twisted now. I promise you that I will protect it till my dying breath.

“The Kingsmen thought they would drag me out in the street to set an example of me when I told them to fuck all the way off. They didn’t even get in the first swing before they were laid out on the ground and tied up. Three men wearing solid black were standing there. They said they were the Shadows, and that I was protected by them, and Twisted by extension. Since then, the Kingsmen won’t touch me. If they do anything I can’t handle on my own, all I have to do is call the Shadows.

“I might have gotten a little cocky in there today, but I don’t take kindly to disrupting my business. It's just me now. My mother hasn’t been able to come back here since this was Dad's place. So I can’t have the Kingsmen scaring off my paying customers,” She explains while I sit here and take in all the information she just dumped on me.

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