Page 20 of Revenge of a Queen

She laughs at my scrunched-up face before answering, “Yeah, something tells me I am not ready to ride that Rebel rollercoaster. I’m not really into one and done, yanno?” She says shrugging her shoulders.

I place my hand on her arm so she looks at me, “Trust me, in a town like this one, the Rebels are the last thing you should be worried about.” She frowns, giving me a look like she wants me to say more but she knows me well enough to know I’m done.

“Okay, one more shot and we hit the road. Your boys will be here any minute.”

She doesn’t hesitate to throw it back before adding “Fuck, it hurts my throat.”

“That's what she said,” Jace’s voice cuts into the room and we both jump.

“Jesus fucking Christ, pretty boy, didn’t anybody teach you not to sneak up on two girls?”

“How did you even get in here?” Taylor adds.

Jace gleams at her slowly taking her in from head to toe and I can see her blush from his appraisal, “Oh, I am a man of many talents, sweetheart.”

Lincoln walks in behind him, “You girls ready to go?” He asks, in his always serious tone.

I take the both of them in too and see they are both dressed casually smart and looking as hot as ever.

“Damn, princess, I knew that outfit was made for you,” Jace cuts in making me look at him, “Marcus isn’t gonna know what's hit him.”

Taylor replies, “Me, if he doesn’t fucking man up,” and I have to laugh at her feisty attitude inside a 5ft 2 package.

Jace crowds in close to her, “Oh, I like a girl who knows how to fight back,” he teases, before reaching behind her to grab the bottle of tequila and knocking some back before offering her a wink. The sexual chemistry between the two of them is practically visible so I cut into it and suggest we get moving.

The boys ride in the front so I sit in back with Taylor and finish off the bottle of tequila. I wish I could say I was just having a night as a typical teenager but, in honesty, I need the liquid courage for whatever tonight may bring.

Chapter 11

ASHER

Iam clouded by darkness and cloaked in death. That is what it feels like every time I step foot into my father’s house. No, the devil's house, built on bodies and coated in the blood of the innocent. I don’t call it home, it isn’t. The only home I know is the one where my daughter lives. My sweet, innocent baby girl. Too pure for this world. The stuff I would do to protect her, the stuff I have done. It is limitless. There isn’t a person in this world that I wouldn't kill to protect her and her mother. The only two people I genuinely care about in this fucked up thing I call a life.

She has that pure innocence in her, children always do. They don’t know the depths of evil until it is thrust upon them. I used to be innocent just like her. Innocent and unaware of the horrors happening in my own backyard.

My father, for all intents and purposes, appears to be your perfect upstanding member of society. People know him as the face of business and hefty donations, not the leader of an illegal sex ring or a gun and drug dealer. He is a King in both his public and private life. By day, people adore him and tend to his every whim. By night, he is feared, and he meets his needs with blood and pain, just not his own.

My brother, Greg, is the worst of the worst. Calling him a rapist and a murderer doesn’t do justice to the crimes he’s committed. Everyone fears him, even my father sometimes. He is a loose cannon, a wild card drawing unwanted attention. People in our circle are always watching him, worrying about what his next move will be. My father has men keeping tabs on him, always ready to clean up his next mess.

Where Greg is a wild hunter, I am a stealthy predator. His loud and brash actions, the perfect cover for my quiet and controlled ones. Greg and my father hunt little girls. But me? I hunt them. Stalk them in everything they do. They don’t even realize that when they invite me to the table, they are dining with a traitor.

A killer is what was needed to take them down, so a killer is what I became.

I changed that night. The night I don’t name. The night I don’t even try to think about. Thinking about it is just dangerous. The rage that courses through my body when I remember the blood on her, well it doesn’t bear thinking about. When I do, I think about how it will feel when I coat myself in my family's blood. I want to drown in it as I watch them choke on it.

I sit at the table in my father’s den perfectly prepped for another one of his meetings. It’s a large circular black table that has gold veins intertwining around the legs. The top is glossy and smooth, it houses three chairs around one side and four around the other. This is where his true business occurs. The only people in here are the ones he trusts. I sit to his left playing the dutiful son as Greg sits on his right, the place of our father’s heir. I sip the smooth clear liquid from my glass that is the only vice I allow myself. Something to take the edge off and allow me to be here and remain calm. I sit silently. Watching. Listening. Assessing.

We aren’t alone here tonight. Across from us we have his band of loyal followers.

Steven Baizen, Rolland Atkins, Joseph Kavanagh, and Carter Fitzgerald. All of them, like my father, are upstanding members of society housing dark and dangerous secrets. Baizen is Captain of the Hallows Police who has a liking for underage boys and illegal contraband. Atkins runs a pharmaceutical company and happily provides the drugs to help my father subdue his victims. Kavanagh is a criminal lawyer which, I think, speaks for itself, he is always on hand to dig these men out of any mess they might make. And Fitzgerald is your typical double-crossing politician, high up on the food chain and low on morals. Safe to say there are a lot of powerful men around this table. Men who look at me as just a boy. A boy sitting in these meetings to learn the ropes of his father’s business, to one day be by Greg’s side as he takes over. They have no idea that this boy is the last face they will ever see.

I know everything about all of them. Where they live, where they work, what they like, and what makes them tick. Who they are married to and who they spend their nights with. Every aspect of their life is under my microscope. I have spent the last three years watching their every move and every mistake. Cataloguing it all for my own future gain. When we decide it’s time for them to pay, they will be dead before they even breathe our names.

“What did your boys find, Cap?” Elliot’s voice booms across the table to the Captain of Police.

“The explosion didn’t kill your men, they were dead before it happened,” Baizen replies, scrubbing at the scruff of beard on his face. He’s a disgusting fat bastard who I will take no remorse in killing.

“How?” My father grits through his teeth at this new information.

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