Page 35 of Cold Hard Truth

An initiation if I want to become a Twisted King.

With my gun out, I quietly make my way around the corner and am met with the dim light in the basement. A man is standing on one side with his back to me, and I can’t figure out how he didn’t hear me until I spot the headphones tucked in his ears. He’s rummaging through packages on a table.

He’s not wearing a cut, which isn’t surprising since the Satan’s Reapers often use lackeys to keep the target off their back and make sure shit doesn’t get tied back to them. And he doesn’t know I’m here yet.

The basement’s no bigger than a twenty-by-twenty cement cell, and it’s too dark to make anything out clearly.

But I don’t miss the blood.

It paints the floor and hangs in the air. Thick enough to taste it. The room reeks of sweat and piss, and as my stare locks on the opposite wall, my stomach plummets.

Two girls are buried in the shadows, but even with barely any light, I can tell they’re not in good condition.

One of them is lying in a wet pool that might be water, blood, or bodily fluid, and her dark hair is matted over her face. She’s not moving. Not so much as a hint of a breath inflating her chest as I stare at her.

The other girl is curled in a ball rocking back and forth.

Back and forth.

Like a pendulum that’s going to live in my nightmares until the end of time. She sobs on every rock. Her face is buried against her thighs and her jet-black hair hangs messy over her bare legs. It paints a trail of ink over her pale, blood-splattered skin.

She’s stripped down to a thin T-shirt and underwear, and her legs are covered in bruises.

My fingers grip the gun tighter as I watch her run her hands over her skin. Like she’s searching for pieces of herself that are now missing.

And that’s when I see it, the silver ring that lives on her pinky finger, and my eyes move to the girl on the floor. To the matching band on her unmoving hand.

The air is sucked from the room. It’s vacuumed from my lungs. And I have no vision, only rage.

How the fuck could Kane not tell me?

Some moments happen so fast that they feel slow. Everything shifts at once. A picture flipping from one to another. It’s so quick, but so gut-wrenching, you see every fraction of a second.

I’m still processing the silver pinkie rings when a gunshot rings out upstairs and the girl pauses hermovements. I don’t know if it’s Lyla or Ellie, and I can’t think about it as her breath hitches and the room gets silent.

My gaze darts back to the man who had his back to me.

He spins around and freezes. And that’s when I realize he isn’t a stranger at all. It’s Nick.

A Twisted King.

A member of the council.

A traitor.

His hands frantically reach for anything he can use as a weapon, but he’s not fast enough.

A fraction of a second.

I’ve already pulled the trigger—and it doesn’t matter how much blood I’ve mopped up in the past year, I’ve yet to spill it myself. The bullet pierces his chest on the left. The right. The center. I empty my chamber in his ribs like it can ever be enough.

Nothing is enough for what he’s done.

He betrayed his club.

He took her.

Between each shot, the sobs ring out. My ears are numb. A piece of my soul is sliced off.

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