Chapter 26

“Then I guess what I did doesn’t matter.” My smile grows, a spike of unhinged madness shining. A piece of me, I try to keep a leash on. “And I don’t have to entertain your tantrums anymore.”

Doyle’s face turns pale, and the puddle under his hand grows larger, staining the contract.Good. “Is this how you treat family?”

Grabbing his suit, I pull him close, rage imbuing me with strength I shouldn’t hold. I could toss him across the room due to his fuckingaudacity.

“Family?” I scoff. “Family is who has your back when the world is against you. Not who stabs it when you’re not looking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I wink. “You sold my mother—yoursister—to my father for power. You think I didn’t know that?” I shove him away, and he groans, the flesh of his hand sawing against my sharp blade. The ripping of tendons and skin is quite fascinating.

He huffs. “It was business. We’re half-siblings—she wanted to come to America?—”

“And you sold her like fucking cattle going to slaughter.” Not surprising. My father got his bride, not out of love and devotion like Sloane’s childish memories say, but out of pure greed. My mother was a miserable woman who was forced to marry a man she detested—then birthed him four children against her will.

Doyle is the only reason she was given a shred of decency. Because one wrong word and she could have ended my father’s career. It was the only small ounce of power she held, and God, did she use it to get pretty things, to have her tea parties, and her clothing.

Unfortunately, she went to her grave hating her children. Collins was too smart for her, and Briar was a boy who preferred my hugs to hers, and she doted on Sloane because she wished to be her—free, untamed. Me? She’s rotting in Hell, cursing my name because her firstborn daughter is more like her abusive husband than she would’ve liked.

I can’t blame her. Her life was shit.

“You think you can own Sloane—ironically, the only daughter who looks like my mother—out of some stupid tradition.” I throw the contract to the floor, laughing. “What does that say about you, Doyle?”

Murray clears his throat. He holds out a black envelope, visibly shaking when my eyes fall on him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pissed himself. “They’re offering a truce, Ace. If you give Sloane to Doyle, finish the arrangement, they’ll call off the hits.”

I take the message, holding it between two fingers. “I’ve yet to be touched.”

Killian makes a noise beside me, glaring. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

Murray’s eyes widen. “They’re out there. They’re hunting for you. You might not have been touched, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Give me Sloane,” Doyle pants. “And the hitmen are called off. Call us even.”

“Hmm.” Tapping the card to my lips, I look over at Hayes, and his lips quirk. When I look at Killian, the Reaper’s face is grinning his psychotic little smile that warms my belly. The kind of smile that used to remind me I’m not the only monster in the world, and my darkness had a home with him.

“You’ll never touch them.” Gripping the hilt, I pull it free, the arc of blood flying over the room, a holy halo. “Not while I’m alive. Consider this my declination.”

Doyle shrieks, falling to his knees, blood seeping all over his pretty clothes. Murray jumps up, running for the door, the scared rabbit not wanting to stay around the wolves much longer.

Killian calls for two soldiers, who lift Doyle to his feet, but he staggers. “Jesus, calm down. It was just a little stabbing.”

“You’ll regret this,” he growls, chest heaving with each word. “You don’t know who I am. What I’m capable of.”

I gesture for the men to get rid of him. “And you don’t know whatI’mcapable of.”

KILLIAN

TWELVE YEARS AGO

“Take this,” Ferguson says, handing me a black velvet bag. The clink of metal piques my interest, and I tear it away, revealing dual, black, curved knives. The gunmetal reflects the street lamp behind me, and the edges are wicked. Pressing my thumb to the end, I don’t feel it slice through my skin.

Licking the blood, I grin up at my mentor. “What’s this for?”

“Your birthday is next week,” he mumbles around the cigar at the corner of his mouth. “Technically, I’m supposed to wait until you’re twenty-one, but I figured nineteen was good enough.”

My heart thuds painfully in my chest. “A decree?”