Page 8 of Savage Reign

Stocken Isle was a crucial point for us. It was a private shipping port located in California, which made federal regulation a little harder to touch upon. It was the best point to get the goods out overseas. It was one of the reasons why we needed men like Gregory Perez and why we needed the Cadorna Famiglia, although I was probably one trigger away from destroying the entire organization. Gregory Perez was a different story.

I thought he made a better ally than an enemy.

I shook my head. “No, we don’t do anything to the man.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“Heed his warning. We need to get Mila back to us.”

And not just because she was the fucking glue that held us together. Not just because I had fucking fallen in love with her and realized I couldn’t fucking live in this world if she wasn’t breathing, but because Gregory just emphasized what I had already guessed. Sebastian Cline’s obsession with Mila went beyond his betrothal to her. There was something surrounding Mila that made men like Daniel Hayes keep her under lock and key for so long. And it had nothing to do with fatherly love.

4

KILLIAN

I could feelthe darkness coming back.

The kind of darkness that was so fucking heavy, it was suffocating me, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it or ask for help.

It was the kind of darkness that had followed closely behind me after Lilliana’s betrayal. It had been so heavy back then, especially when we were on the road, traveling to Las Vegas after the night of the massacre, and had to constantly watch our backs, afraid Daniel Hayes’ men had found us.

This was much worse.

So much fucking worse. I clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to get rid of the tension as I looked up at the building in front of me.

There had been reports of the old members of the Heartless Saints donning their cuts on full display. How arrogant those bastards had become, blatantly showing off a disgraced organization.

My brothers didn’t know I was here. I hadn’t told anyone.

Maverick wouldn’t approve. But then, Maverick hardly ever approved of anything we did in recent years. He had his head so deep in revenge and taking back our empire that he lost sight ofwho he was. Not that I could blame him. I had been right there with him. And perhaps focusing on that had been easier than seeing what the world had already seen when they looked at us.

Savages.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my older brother smile… until her.

But now, she was gone.

A week had passed since our little trip out to the pawnshop. We’d found traitors to the syndicate faster than this, but apparently, a five-foot-four wisp of a girl proved to be too hard for our men.

I shook away the tension in my hands and reached behind me to feel for the machete strapped to my back. Feeling the leather handle in my gloved hand was like a balm, calming my nerves. I wasn’t walking in the fucking building defenseless. I wasn’t suicidal, after all, but fuck me if I could keep finding a reason to live now when it felt like every day was a fight trying to swim out of the darkness, trying not to drown, only to fucking wake up and do it all over again.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

The night was quiet. No doubt it was because the fuckers learned a thing or two from the night of the massacre. They weren’t drunk or high out of their fucking minds. They were on alert, which presented a little challenge. Good fucking thing I loved a good challenge.

I moved to the side of the building, scaling to the second-floor window by boosting myself up with a metal trash bin nearby until I could hold on to the metal ladder attached to the wall.

The building was old and abandoned in the worst part of town. It might have been a brewery before, but right now, it was a fucking nest.

And I was about to push all the snakes out.

I shimmied open the broken window and hoisted myself inside. The second floor wasn’t really a floor but a metal walkway attached to the wall that looked out into the open space down below.

No one was nearby. They were all on the bottom floor, huddled together, sleeping. As if there really was safety in numbers for them.

There was no safety. Not when I was hunting them. My skin felt tight with awareness, and I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream. I pushed myself against the wall and waited until my eyes adjusted before I moved closer to the railing and got a closer look at the fuckers.

It was as the rumors said. Men wearing the Heartless Saints’ cuts as if it was something to be proud of.

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