Page 53 of Savage Knights (Princes of Devil's Creek 3)

“Me, too,” Aiden chimed.

“C’mon.” Marcello clutched my hip and guided me toward the door. “You and the baby need to rest.”

Before we left the room, I knew I would never see my mother again. I stopped to look at the woman who had haunted my nightmares for years. A pleading look spread across her face, like she thought I would help her.

Not a chance.

I squeezed Marcello’s hand, my eyes on her. “Goodbye, mother. May you rot in fucking hell, where you belong.”

After we spoke with Carl, he confirmed he had to increase his security detail because of his issues with my grandfather. We had the upper hand for now. Fitzy didn’t know we captured, tortured, and killed Savanna and her boyfriend. That she told us all of his dirty secrets. With that bitch out of the way, we had to dispose of another unnecessary family member.

Damian sat in the passenger seat beside me, his fist clenched on his knee, jaw set hard. He hadn’t spoken a word since we got into my Porsche. Visiting the last place on earth we wanted to go had both of us on edge.

“D,” I said when we were down the street from the house. He turned to look at me, and I continued, “It’s going to be okay. You hear me?”

He nodded.

“We’ll get in and out. Marcello will disable the security system. No one will even know we were here.”

Another nod.

“Don’t let him fuck with your head,” I fired back. “He’s not allowed to win. Do you hear me?”

Damian had gone full-blown mute on me. Not the fucking time for him to get lost in his head. I needed my brother to be on his A game with my grandfather. You could never lower your guard around Fitzgerald Archibald Adams IV. He would sniff out the weakness and use it against him.

The vein in my neck throbbed as we approached my grandfather’s mansion in Sagaponack. I wanted to kill him. Wring his fucking neck for conspiring with Savanna to kidnap Alex. That old bastard was ruthless and only cared about one thing—money.

For a brief period after our parent’s deaths, Damian and I came to live with him. It was the worse month of our lives. We went from living in Bel Air with our parents, doing whatever the fuck we wanted, whenever we wanted, to being treated worse than rats.

That month with Fitzy changed Damian.

Something inside him snapped by the time we went to live with the Salvatores. I blamed my grandfather for turning Damian into a monster. He beat us, tortured us, locked us in the dark basement without food for days. Refused to send us to school or even let us shower.

Alex didn’t know how well we understood her pain, how much we could relate to her panic attacks. We’d lived in the dark for so long we might as well have been born in it. That was the sad part. We got used to it being just the two of us, only needing each other.

It was one month.

But enough to change us.

I couldn’t even imagine years of what Alex had endured at the hands of her mother.

After the month was over, Fitzy decided he was done with us. He made the deal with Arlo Salvatore, and we started our new lives. The first six months while Eva was alive was pure fucking torture. She didn’t physically hurt us, but the daily threats to call child services had us living in fear constantly.

When Luca found her dead on the floor in her studio, we both considered that our lucky break. We could stay and be Salvatores. No more moving around, no more abuse from my grandfather. At one point, I thought Damian had killed her until Arlo had her blood tested. A drug produced by Wellington Pharmaceuticals was in her bloodstream.

From that day forward, Arlo put all of his time and energy into the four of us. We were his top priority. Sure, he was cruel and punished us, but he taught us everything we knew.

How to be men.

How to kill.

How to hunt.

He showed us how to make money, how to build real wealth. When we were older, we learned how to intimidate people so we could maintain our power.

We became Salvatores.

No one ever treated us like we didn’t belong with Arlo and his sons. The five of us clicked from day one. We were all alike in different ways, hardened by the cruelty of the world. While Arlo grieved his late wife, he toughened us up, showed us the importance of securing our legacies.

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