Page 243 of Vile Boys

But I have made my choice now. There’s no going back from here.

“Ares,” my father grits. “Come. Here.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” I say, glancing at him over my shoulder. “I said no.”

Kai makes a tsk sound. “Ares, c’mon. It’s not that hard.”

“Just because you have no shame who you kill doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“If you don’t do this,” my father warns, pausing midsentence, “If you won’t kill for me … That’s it. That’s the end of it. Ofeverything.”

I know what’s at stake here.

But I’ve already made my decision, and I’m sticking to it.

“Jesus, Ares. It’s just one kill,” Kai scoffs.

I refuse to become the monster he wants me to be, and if this is what it takes to be the manIwant to be, then so be it.

“The killing of an innocent man. I don’t murder innocent people.”

“Fine. You want to betray your family? Have the moral high ground? Then stay there.”

My father snatches the knife off the ground, and my eyes widen.

I rush toward the man. “Wait! No—”

Too late.

My father jams it straight into the man’s heart, and I stop halfway there.

Fuck. I didn’t think he’d actually do it.

The man howls in pain … and then nothing.

“This is what happens when you don’t do your duty to your family.” My father marches at me and grips my shirt. “You just losteverything. My trust. My love. My fucking company. All of it.”

The look in his eyes is murderous as he shoves me away.

“Kai. Get in the fucking car. We’re going.”

Kai throws me a worried glance, but I brush it off as I waltz toward the man and hover over him, watching the light slowly dim in his eyes. I push my index finger against his neck and feel. No pulse.

Fuck.

I should’ve let him run when I had the chance. Maybe then he could’ve escaped this fate.

“Your death is on my hands,” I say as my fingers curl around the blade.

I tug it out, but the man is already lost, his heart no longer pumping blood.

This fucking man … didn’t deserve to die. But I know the cost of his life will be great.

I glare at the car being started in the distance, the car lights like a cop’s flashlight beaming onto my crime.

“Ares. Come,” Kai beckons me from the window.

Sighing, I get up and tuck the knife into my pocket while my eyes happen to connect with a pair of green eyes in the distance that strike me so much I stop breathing for a moment. They’re hauntingly beautiful and riddled with death.

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