Page 6 of Cruel Lies

"That doesn’t make me want to do it more," he quipped, cracking an egg into a nearby bowl. "But you’re the boss. If you say we take it, we take it."

He hummed to himself, back to making breakfast as Nashplopped down sideways in the armchair. "Sounds to me like a fun time. Been awhile since I got to carve up a pretty girl."

He palmed the heel of his boot, where I knew he stashed his favorite blade. Sojourn, he called her. Fucking whacko named his blades. Who names a weapon?

My stomach turned at the thought of him mauling some girl. I worked with him, and damned if I didn’t love my brother, but fuck me, some of his habits really turned my stomach. Slicing up every girl that reminded him ofherfelt like the biggest injustice ever. But we all healed in different ways, so who was I to tell him how to cope?

Nash took a seat in the nearby armchair, pinching the bridge of his nose with a groan. "Fuck me, I ain’t sober enough for this shit." His eyes rolled sideways, and he glared at me pointedly. "Thought we were gonna get a break before the next gig?"

My shoulders shifted as I crossed my arms, the two of us locked in a standoff. The eldest child and the youngest.

Nash never wanted to be in charge of us. I’d offered the position to him countless times in the past, but he wasn’t one for responsibility, nor was he one for organizing shit. He didn’t like to plan and didn’t have any interest in delegating jobs. He was perfectly content to sit back and let someone else pilot this ship. Angel wasn’t a leader, which left the job to me.

It was a good thing I was born to do this.

Okay, so maybe not born to kill, but I was born to organize my brothers into a semblance of a functional unit. To the outside world, we were the Skeleton Crew, not quite old hats, not quite newbies. Our team was efficient, execution flawless, and we always delivered.

We had a reputation, yeah. And it was pristine.

The sizzle of frying eggs hit my ears just about the same time as the smell assaulted my nostrils, and I grinned as Nash closed his eyes and gagged behind gritted teeth.

"Want some hair of the dog, brother?" I taunted, enjoying theway his skin turned a lovely shade of green a few seconds before he jolted up and made a beeline for his room. "Looks like Nash won’t be joining us for food this morning, Angel."

Our middle brother’s tinkling, melodic laughter was like a symphony as it echoed around the kitchen. "Oh well. Sucks to be him. That just means there’s more for us."

As hungry as I was, I could probably eat a fuckinghorse.

After breakfast, I slipped into my favorite leather jacket and reached for the handle of the door leading to the rest of the asylum. I tossed a pointed look over my shoulder at Angel, quirked a brow, and marched out into the chaos that was the Guild in the daylight.

The Port Wylde Insane Asylumwas home to about ten crews in all, some just two-man squads, a couple that were solo operations. Most were like us, though—three or four guys with a shared past or a shared love of the kill, working in a city that welcomed the most fucked up of her citizens with open arms, trying to make ends meet. Rent was cheap, and if you could stomach our line of work, it was good pay. You got to enjoy a certain level of freedom when you burned the insignia of our Guild in your skin, and many of us were lifers. Hell, the job came with risks, and a lot of guys over the years I’d been here had either fallen in their line of work, let their addiction of choice take them to oblivion, or they broke one of Lilly St. Clair’s house rules.

Lilly was a no-nonsense kind of woman. She didn’t have many rules, but when dealing with a bunch of criminals, there was a particular element of chaos you had to contain in some manner, to keep everything from falling apart. So Lilly did what any den mother would do when managing a rowdy bunch of what amounted to borderline psychos—she made The Rules.

There were only a few, but you were expected to follow them to the letter. She didn’t allow for any sort of leeway or fuck ups. If you broke one, depending on the severity and the consequences, you’d have to pay. And sometimes, the cost was your life.

I’d only seen her off a few guys in our seven-year tenure here for breaking the rules, and all of them deserved it. Angus, a Scot with a nasty limp and a disgusting necrophilia kink, and some jock boy from another crew whose name I never learned were the first to go. Then, two years later, a butch chick named Peanuts thought she could step up and change the rules. She challenged Lilly. And of course, she lost.

Nobody stepped up to Lilly St. Clair if they valued their lives.

Speaking of . . .

I found myself across the ward and on an entirely different floor, staring at Ward A, Room Three. Home of the Rebel Scots—or what was left of them, anyhow. With Angus and Jack gone, their remaining members had banded together and formed a new crew. They didn’t take much work these days, considering they hadn’t worked their kinks out yet. But I wasn’t here to make small talk. A certain someone owed me a favor, and I was here to collect.

My knuckles rapped on the hard surface of the metal door, still stained with the blood of an absent-minded handprint. I didn’t have to wait long before a weary, bedraggled man wearing sunglasses indoors answered the summons.

His fingers tipped the shades down on his nose so he could scan me from top to toe. "Wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you, but we both know it isn’t." His lips curled into a frown of disapproval as Fergus O’Leary shoved him aside and grinned widely, such a contrast to the moody asshole who’d opened the door.

"Oh." His grin faltered a teensy bit as he looked over hisshoulder in the direction of their couch. "Dean, it’s for you. It's the Jamaican jackass from down the hall."

He swung the door open, a blatant invitation, and dared me with his body language to step into their den, unarmed, alone, and willing.

I guess it was a good thing that these fuckers didn’t scare me. I strode in like I owned the place, taking a seat on their sectional like I was one of the team, and this was just another Sunday brunch meeting.

My eyes swung around until they found the man I’d been looking for, hunched over a copy of the daily paper. "Dean."

He didn’t lift his gaze from the sports section. "Rowan."

"I need some intel, and I need it fast. And it just so happens that you owe me."

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