Page 69 of King of Depravity

I hear the begging. “I said forever, Chloe. I’m never leaving you.”

“Promise?”

Her hand is squeezing mine, her eyes pleading. “I promise. I’m your monster remember?”

“And you’ll keep all the other monsters away?” she whispers. But I know Triston hears it.

I fucking brought the monsters right to the door tonight. “Baby, I’m going to slay every one of them. And that is a promise.”

She burrows into me again, her body folding so small, she kills me as I kiss the top of her head. “We’ve got to go.”

“Where?”

I’ve got a few safe houses in this city. Places with no name and no record. We’re going to one of those.

“You can take Mason up on his offer,” Triston offers.

I scowl at him. For all I know, Mason just tried to kill me. I wouldn’t put it past him. His mouth twitches and I think he understands.

“You can get me on the burner if you need me,” I tell him and then I sit Chloe on the bed, slipping a pair of sneakers on her feet. “Call our mother and tell her I love her, would you?”

“You want me to call mum?” Triston asks, his eyes bugging out.

“Yeah.” I can’t go into why, but I hope she understands.

Triston’s mouth is opening and closing even as I head for the stairwell. I won’t use the main entrance, and I won’t take my car.

We’re disappearing into the shadows.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

Triston

I watchmy brother disappear into the stairwell and I have this feeling like I might never see him again.

And it would be my fucking fault.

I never take Killian seriously enough. It’s the simplicity of his intentions or the way he just says what he thinks without lifting his head and being aware of his surroundings.

But tonight, I fucked it up. Because if there is one thing I know about Killian, it is that when he sets a course, nothing alters it.

And he knows how to move without being seen. He’s able to do shit I could never do. And I pushed him away with all that shit I just said about Chloe. How I didn’t trust him or his feelings.

So instead of trusting in me, he’s going to fade into the dark and I might never find him.

Something happened when we were kids that totally changed him. One day he was happy Killian. The happiest kid you’ve ever met, and the next, he went dark. I’m six years older than him and I watched his change. I don’t even know what caused it. He never said, the very fact that a ten-year-old never shared what happened is fucking crazy.

But I should know that Killian is iron. Unbendable. Unshakable.

And then there is Chloe. If I’d forgotten how set Killian can become, what I didn’t understand is that Chloe returns every one of Killian’s feelings. There is no gray.

I’ve only watched one other woman in a crisis cling to her man. Gris’s fiancé Arabella wrapped herself around Gris like her life depended on it. It did. But Gris didn’t appear burdened. Not at all.

He rose like a soldier. No. Like a god of war, fighting for his woman with every muscle in his body.

I wonder what it would be like to feel like that. To have a woman you wished to be your strongest self for.

I push that thought away. I’m not that kind of man.

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