Page 182 of Devious Knight

This is what he meant.

I cock the hammer on my gun and walk over to Parker and Nikoli.

“You are scum,” Nikoli spits.

I ball my hand into a fist and slam a punch in Nikoli’s face. I hit him so hard he falls to the ground. I had to make use of all that training with Thorne in some small way.

Nikoli tries to get up but I shoot him in the head. “That’s for taking my family captive and stealing the last three years of my life.”

I look at Parker next. He heard what I said.

“I know they’re alive,” I say and his eyes go wide. “That’s the only reason I’ll allow you to live. To find them. Then you can be executed in front of everyone.”

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t have to.

I’m not interested in anything he has to say.

My parents were picked up from an old army base in Moldova the next day. Two days later, after the doctors reviewed them and checked that they were

okay, they were flown back to Boston.

They have a house here that we used when my father was on Knights’ business, so I’ve been staying here.

I’m sitting in the living room waiting. They should be home in the next few minutes.

Part of me still can’t believe this is happening. I keep having to correct my mind every time it drifts back to their funerals and to the night of the attack in Greece. It’s going to take me awhile to wrap my head around the truth, but I will.

Parker came clean with everything. He was taken to Aleksander and there he confessed all. That monster had been responsible for fifteen murders including Isabelle’s mother.

He didn’t kill my parents because they were more useful to him alive because of the money he had tied up in their investments. He kept them captive instead and even carried on business as useful with my father signing various checks that no one thought to question.

Nikoli got involved at first because of the art collection. He and Parker had an elaborate scheme set up to sell on the black market. They used my father’s resources to do so and fund other illegal activities.

It’s over now. All of it.

I hear the click of the front door and I sit up straighter.

That’s them.

I stand and listen, waiting to hear their footsteps. I could always tell them apart.

My heart stills when the sound fills my ears. Dad’s sure, confident steps and Mom’s light ones following in line with his.

I walk out of the living room. And there they are.

Right there in the foyer. They stop and look at me.

The three of us stare at each other. Them looking at me as if I’m real and me looking at them in the same way.

Dad has more gray hair than he did when I last saw him. But looking at him is like staring at an older version of myself. Mom looks thinner but she’s still so beautiful and the Greek goddess with her long raven hair and bright blue eyes that mirror my own.

I feel like I’m in a dream again. This time a good dream. The kind that comes true.

“Kade,” Dad speaks first and hearing his voice, a voice I never thought I’d hear again breaks me.

I rush to them and they hold me, then we hold each other.

---