Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 114936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
King steps in the middle, nudging his head to the door. “We can talk about this back at the hotel. I don’t know, but this place will be wired up hotter than hell.” I follow behind King when he leads us out, but I don’t believe him when he says he doesn’t know. The way they all look between each other before answering me is a red flag.
Keaton’s slightly behind me, and Kyrin and Lilith behind him. So close. We came so close to finding Eli and bringing him home all for what? To be shown a memory that the boys never told me about?
And what else are they not telling me? A part of me is hurt. That deep part that always trusted them without question is now at the surface of my mind, scratching, teasing, like a warning.
I shouldn’t have given them that trust so easily.
Being in Prague wasn’t ideal now that we knew Eli wasn’t here, so we packed up and gathered everyone back onto the plane. The questions were annoying, but nothing I couldn’t brush off. We needed to get back to familiar ground so that I could separate Mayhem from Kiznitch. I didn’t need to drag a couple of hundred people around the world as a disguise anymore now that all cards were out on the table. We still hadn’t spoken about anything. I knew we were all waiting until we were back at The Village.
Once we were back, I met with the boys in their bus sans Perse since she was kicked out for this conversation and sulking outside.
“By the way, Perse already hates me. She’s going to even more now that she knows I’m in here when she’s not.”
“You’re the fucking CEO,” Keaton snaps, baring his teeth slightly before dragging his rage onto King. “And she’ll either respect that or fucking learn to.”
King’s finger taps against his own thigh. “She will. I just have to talk with her about it. She doesn’t hate you, Cartier. She was the first to like you out of the new girls.”
“She was the first one I met out of all the new girls,” I correct, but honestly not caring how much she hates me. I just hate that King is in the middle of it.
King snickers. “There’s something about Dominic Stranger that you need to know.” Behind King is Killian, smoking on a joint, and beside him is Kohen. I haven’t seen Kohen much lately, but I know he and Dove have been seeing each other. I can see it in his eyes. He’s not as frantic as he is when he hasn’t been around her. They’re Harley and Joker, absolutely crazy over each other. The kind of crazy that will kill them one day.
“Well, I’m here, so tell me.”
“And me.” Lilith raises her drink beside me, and I reach for the filled whiskey sour that’s sitting on the table. I actually may need it.
“For a long time, he has been a connection between Kiznitch and The Elite Kings.”
“Okay…” I say, leaning back on the sofa. My head hits a pair of hands on the edge and I peer up from below at the perfect jawline of Keaton, who has his eyes directly on Kyrin when he speaks next.
“He has come to tell us something that has given us a reason to re-evaluate our own backyard. For a long time, he wanted to ruin Midnight Mayhem.”
“Hear, hear,” I sigh, massaging my temple with my non-alcoholic hand. “He can get the fuck in line.”
“No—” King shakes his finger. “Not like that. He is an Elite King.” He searches my eyes. “Well, was the brother of a King, a Vitiosis, to be exact.”
“What? What the hell does that mean?” I take the first sip of whiskey. It explains why Eli hated him. There’s obviously bad blood between the two sides. I hiss when fire touches the back of my throat and travels down to my stomach.
“He lost his daughter not long ago apparently. Some explosion at one of their houses. I don’t know, Eli spoke about it briefly, but—”
“Bailey?” Lilith whispers the name, mainly to herself.
Kyrin nods, rounding the couch and picking Lilith up from beneath her arms and sliding into where she sat, placing Lilith on his lap. “Yeah, Bailey.”
“That tipped him even farther over the edge that he was already on. He killed his wife and opened The Connoisseur of the Dark. The only part we can’t figure out is how Eli fits into this…” Kyrin’s voice drifts out, and his tongue sneaks out and catches the corner of his lip. The first time Kyrin ever did that I was ten years old. It was when I asked him if our dad cheated on our mom. He said no, right before his tongue caught the corner of his lip.