Page 276 of Entangled

“Youareloyal to me, aren’t you, Eden?” he asks with gentle interest.

My heart throbs in my ears. In my chest and my throat. My angry storm feels like the tantrum of a petulant toddler next to Alastair’s authority. He has this, I realize. Whether we die or not, Alastair is a master of survival. He has the room read, his strategy set, and before we even stepped into the courtyard, we were already outmatched.

I press my palms against my stomach to stop my hands from shaking. “Y-yes, Alastair. We’re loyal. You know I am.”

Dom’s golden gaze burns the side of my face, and my eyes fill with real tears at the questions I feel in it. The trust. He still thinks this is my ruse, and maybe it is, in part, but my lies will break him before it’s done.

Alastair’s stare is intense, and I know what he’s calling for. Heather couldn’t do it, and neither could Dom—their pride wouldn’t allow it.

But I’ve spent my life being humbled.

I bend my head andgrovel. “I’m sorry, Alastair. I’m so sorry, I tried. I tried to get away, and to send you a message that we were here, but there was no opportunity. I thought if we just came here anyway, we could still help—that you could still use us.”

Dom stiffens beside me, and I feel ill to my stomach. In my soul. I might not have done all of this, but I did enough.

“That was a mistake,” Alastair tells me, then glances around at his men. “But we all make them. I’m not like Sam, Eden. I don’t like killing when there’s no need... people tend to be far moreusefulalive.”

Aaron’s body is still in a gruesome heap at his feet, but I try not to look at it. The courtyard is quiet, captivated as they watch him.

“As it turns out, I didn’t need you. The Sinners solve their own problems. Don’t we, men?” Alastair asks with chilling calm, and there’s a roar of approval so deafening that I shrink.

Alastair pauses until they’ve finished, his expression unchanging. “Why don’t we show our friends here exactly what the Sinners do to their enemies?”

There’s another roar, and then the sound of doors bursting open around the second level. The men around the heavy concrete inner balcony pull away, and there’s the sound of scuffling and grunts. My breathing comes faster as I strain to see what’s happening.

And then, one by one, men are lifted and forced over the edge of the balcony. One by one they fall, hard, fast, and then jerk, caught by the rope around their necks. Several necks snap with a brutal crack, but many don’t. I count ten before I stop, freezing in place as, all around us, men strangle to death, hanged over the courtyard walls like a battle mural.

Their gags and gasps and grunts fill the air as they claw at their necks. Everywhere is flooded by bulging eyes and heels kicking against walls, and the vile smell of bowels releasing in death.

Then a final body is lifted toward the balcony, this one behind Alastair. It screams, thrashing wildly.

“No! No, don’t. Don’t kill me.Pleasedon’t. I’ll do anything, I?—”

They throw him over, and Sam’s neck breaks clean, cutting his sniveling cries off mid-shout.

I cringe.

I remember him standing on a rock, bellowing about the new world he was claiming. Sam who terrified me with his stupid, belligerent rage. Sam who Bristlebrook has been planning against and cowering from for weeks. Now his weathered face is slack, and his blue eyes are staring and blank. All that evil potential, just dangling there, dead at the end of a rope.

I swallow back my nausea.

Alastair nods, like a music conductor who’s heard the final note. “Sam won’t be bothering any of us anymore.Iam in charge now.” He pauses, then looks at me. “Despite how things unfolded, I should thank you. I owe you my life after all. None of this would have been possible without you.”

My eyes squeeze shut for a moment as I see it coming; it flashes in front of my eyes.

“No.”

I force my eyes open. This isn’t something I can hide from. Not anymore.

Heather’s casual pose has vanished, and she’s pulled up onto her knees. I can’t look directly at her. “You didn’t, Eden. You wouldn’t have.”

“Eden?” Dom asks in a low, raw voice. He’s starting to see it now. That this isn’talla ruse.

Ihavebetrayed him. Something violent and toxic stabs me in my chest, and I know this will mean a slow, painful death for me.

Alastair shakes his head at Heather. “Eden is a good deal more pragmatic than you are, death wish. She dealt with the men in the camp who were problematic to me—you saw how they reacted to Sam’s speech. They were no good to my cause.” He raises a brow at her. “What do you think she and I talked about every time she tended my wounds? Why do you think Mateo and I didn’t have any soup? We were in this together all along.”

Alastair gestures to me with his rifle and adds the final, piercing nail to my coffin. “And then, of course, she set me free when you held me captive.”

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