Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
priest
L oving her is knowing she’ll take you out with the same hand she fed you.
I shove the sheets off my body, stumbling for the door as my phone blares on the counter.
“What?”
“Glad you got the dog back on its leash,” Archer says, and I hear shuffling in the back. “Was starting to second-guess your capabilities. Feel good to have him finally?”
I place the milk on top of the counter. “Fuck you. But yeah. It does. Though what happened shouldn’t surprise me the way it does. Dad should have never neglected those fucking tunnels.”
“In his defense, he didn’t know what it would entail. Need help?”
“Never,” I mutter into my glass.
He laughs. “Thought so.”
“The messy shit between her and her sister threw things off a bit.”
“The one you killed?”
“The very same.”
“You sure you killed her?”
“This the second time you’ve insulted me in less than thirty seconds. You second-guessing my skills, Thorn?”
He chuckles. “No one is doing that. It’s just you guys have been known to stash things and people away until they become useful again.”
“Yeah, well…” I shove my hand into my sweatpants. “Not this time.”
A piece of paper slips over my fingertip. After Archer once again says that it was a dead end and that the Huntress was most likely paranoid, I disconnect the call and pull out the piece of paper. It’s folded in perfect lines and edges to form a small envelope. I start unwrapping it slowly, but every time I undo a corner, agitation grows.
Flicking out the final edge, Moose stops at the threshold, clearing his throat. “We have a—” His words disappear as the writing takes over in her voice.
Priest.
I wish I could say that I had thought about this moment many times over the years, but I hadn’t. Simply because I thought I wouldn’t make it this far. There are some things that you need to know. Last night meant everything to me. I want you to know that. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’d wanted this, what I feel like we finally started to have, for so long now. I kept things hidden, as you know, because I was never sure of your intentions.
Well, now it’s my intentions that I have to come clean with.
The first thing I want you to know is that I love you. I loved you since the very first time I saw you. I loved you when you didn’t, and I’ll continue to love you when you don’t. Because by the time you finish reading this, you won’t. You won’t love me, and I’ll be yet another girl with her final words being scribbled over your wall of collections.
One, Corbin is gone. You won’t find him.
Two, the final hit on my list wasn’t so easy to grab. I know you thought it was Corbin, but it wasn’t. The problem is, I still don’t know who he is, and the only lead I have is the deadweight currently crying at my feet.
Three, I’m sorry. I know you’ll never understand my logic on going after someone out of pure emotion. But here’s a story that I wish wasn’t true.
I spent my first seven years beneath the busy streets, not knowing that this world existed. I didn’t talk. I was mute until I met you. Mmmhhmm. Bet you didn’t know that, huh? You were the first person I ever spoke to.
There were three men. Danny Dale, Jeremiah, and Moses Dale. He was but a few years older, but he was used as a tool, and he enjoyed it. As you know, I killed them.
But there was one more on my list. The one they answered to, the one no one saw. The one who sat behind his desk and allowed it all to happen. The Minister. He may not have directly played a part, but he allowed them the space.
I’ll be home once the job is done. And you can hate me then.
I love you.
Forever your Madness.
The piece of paper crumples in the palm of my hand as I fall against the wall.
“I take it that note just told you what I came to say.” Deacon rushes in, his hair a mess all over his head and his clothes half-on.
“How’d she get him out?” I deadpan, refusing to look at him.
“She tripped the system.”
“Fuck.” I toss the note onto the floor and punch the numbers into my phone.
“Fuck, it’s about to go down, isn’t it….” Deacon mutters in the background.
I bring the phone to my ear, climbing the stairs two at a time. Pop answers on the third ring as I open my door and head for the closet.
“What is it?”
“She let Corbin go and she’s going after the Ministry.”
“What?” Pop snaps over the other end, closing a door in the background. “How did that happen?”
“Oh fuck, I don’t know, maybe because I fucking let her?”
Pop pauses. “I’m about to land back in Riverside. Priest…”
I tie the final lace on my boot. “What?”
“It’s time.”
I shake my head. “No. No way.”
“Son…”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well you’re going to. I found out some information while I was away, from a slippery mouth in Rome.”
“I’m listening.” Barely. I shove a shirt on and grab a hoodie and jacket.
“There’s something that you don’t know about a deal your father, Nate, and Brantley made with Luna while they were still Kings.”
“What?” I jerk in surprise. “What? How?”
“I want to say around the time that she came back for the ritual. She made a deal with them. A favor. They’re trying to chase this same person, and used her as a way to help that, knowing her background.”
I stare off into the distance. Since I was a young boy, I didn’t have to balance two lives. I thought I’d reign well because nothing would ever mean as much to me as the EKC.
Turns out. I was wrong.
“It’s time everyone knows.”
I gaze back at the old painting hanging on the Watch Tower wall. I knew that this was coming, either way, I just figured that I’d have more time to gather everything, learn about it, and at the very fucking least, clean house.
“Must be bad…” Halen’s eyes widen at me when she lowers to her chair before the rest follow suit. Dad, Nate, and Brantley are in separate areas of the room, with Pop not far from my shoulder.
“Before I start, you all need to know that I don’t give a fuck what you think about the decisions that I’ve made. I don’t do shit for your approval; I do things to continue our legacy and to keep us exactly where we belong. On top. So before you think of opening your mouth and complaining about my lack of moral compass, know that I don’t give a fuck, and I simply don’t have one. Moving on…” I flick the ash off the end of my cigarette, watching when the burning ember swallows the trunk. “I know about the favor you made with Luna before I took the gavel.” I don’t bother looking up at my father. “I don’t see what you did as a betrayal, nor am I mad that you did it. You had the gavel and made the choices, which I respect. So now you’re going to do the same for me.”
Dad’s leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window. He nods.
“Why did you willingly drop her into the tunnels?”
Dad works his finger and thumb. “Because she was the only one who had a foot in that world and, for lack of a better statement, that was our way to penetrate yet another organization without putting our entire foot into it.”
I stay silent, blinking. The picture directly opposite me is my favorite: a charcoal swirl of shadows and lilac. It reminds me of a simpler time, a time when none of this mattered.
“Interesting. And you didn’t think it was dangerous for her?” Even as the words pass through my throat, my fist clenches, and the veins in my neck hammer against my flesh.
“Which brings me to my next confession…” Nate adds. “Perdita and the tent.”
I choke on my laugh. “Slick. I’ve got to say, I wasn’t shocked that you took her back and dropped her in the one place where you knew she couldn’t be touched by me.”
Perdita has a rule and the only rule that’s ever mattered. Our people are safe there for a reason. The island works because we have rules, and we’ve always stuck by them. One of them, and the main one, which is why the island exists the way it does, is that a King cannot hurt another King. It’s why they’re all still alive.
Lost Boys? Not Kings.
The Prisoners? Mostly not Kings…
“She wasn’t just running the entertainment.”
My eyes fly to him. Any second, the cigarette would swallow my finger, but I didn’t care. I wait. Like a lion does his food.
“She was below deck.”
I already knew this.
“Helping Vaden through level two.”
“You what?”
My eyes bounce around the table before landing on Vaden. “Ah, I see…makes sense now.”
“You weren’t holding the gavel when it happened, and the conversation never came up. If it had, I would have told you. You know how it goes.”
I slowly lower back down to my chair, eyes remaining on Vaden. “Yeah. I do.” Heat rushes in my ears, and I slowly close my eyes, taking a moment to rein in what I’m guessing is rage. Undiluted rage. Not because Vaden held something from me, because that came with the territory, and as he said, I didn’t have the gavel at that time, which meant he had to take orders from my father, but because of her.
Because she was below deck. Which only means one thing…
“She’s a trained killer.”
Nate holds my stare. “The very best we’ve seen.”
“That should surprise me, but it doesn’t,” Halen murmurs, leaning back against her chair.
Her training in Del Morts isn’t a secret. The girl has throwing stars harnessed around her thighs. No one talks about what happens beneath the surface of Perdita for a reason. Because nothing good ever happens there.
“Wait, but the prisoners under there are the worst. How’d that go?”
Brantley’s voice filters through the tense space. “She played poker with them on Sundays. What can we say…she’s charming like her father and deadly like her mother.”
“—and conniving like her other father,” Dad adds through a sip of whiskey. He lowers it onto his knee. “Sorry, son. I planned to have this conversation with you about that at a later time, but it’s been one thing after another since you’ve come on, and I wanted you to warm up to your other duties before dropping this one on your lap.”
I clench my teeth. “I have large thighs, Dad. Pretty sure my lap could have taken it.”
He snickers. “Smart ass.”
“For the fucking record, though?” I am sure to hold the room, waiting until each of them has their whole attention on me. “I’ve loved Luna since the day I first saw her. I know that now. When I told you to draw up a marriage contract, I allowed you to think it was best for her own safety, because I allowed you to think she needed the force of my hand to keep her alive or I’d kill her when I found out that she was a twin, which by the way, I knew. All along.” I could reword my following sentence, but without her here, I no longer care to sugarcoat shit. “I would have slit that girl’s throat a second sooner if I ever had my hands on her, so trust me when I say, Luna is the love of my fucking life, and if I ever hear another word out of anyone’s mouth mentioning that fucked up bitch around her?” I flash a wicked smile. “I’ll throw your ass in Wonderland. Won’t I, Stella?”
Stella grumbles, crossing her arms in front of herself.
I make them wait. “I made her my wife to protect her once she left the safety of Del Morts. All along. I knew if she were my wife not a single motherfucker would lay a hand on her, so how does it feel? To be played at your own game and knowing that in your old age, you were too busy playing checkers while I was playing chess.”
I light the end of the cigarette. “Moving on, now that we’ve got that out of the way.”
Pop’s in the room’s darkest corner, his hands buried in his pockets.
“What’d you all find out about the Ministry during the whole time that you decided to place one of our own—no—” I pause, shaking my head and flicking my thumb over my bottom lip. “— my own —into a situation that could have ended badly for her and I’m not talking about Perdita.”
The room falls silent.
“Well, nothing. We trained her with a specific set of skills that would help her survive, and we asked her for a favor. The time came when they took Madison just to get her attention. We led her to the house, and then you decided to go rogue and slaughter their entire army, walking out of there with the only man we’ve known to lead an organization by a collar around his neck. This man has done what no other has been able to do.”
“Mmm.” I don’t speak, and my eyes find Pop once more. “Interesting. And you’re saying she’s back there now, so now I’m going to tell you where your favor has led us.” I lean forward. “She broke out Corbin and is now running back with him to the hole they crawled out from, just to find this—Minister that no one has ever seen with their own eyes.”
“Bishop. The Ministry is a very new organization. It came about when you were in your mother’s stomach, but it’s new compared to others. We found out they run tunnels like the ones in Perdita that connect all over the States of New York and Colorado with connecting pipelines that keep them all together. This operation doesn’t come from the hand of an amateur.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t.”
They all stop, the tension in the air cracking like thunder when Dad’s eyes narrow on me. The smirk was inevitable since I’d successfully done the one thing I never thought I could do.
“It’s run by me, and Luna? She isn’t with them.”
Past
I stare back at the beaten and bloody face. It’s like watching your favorite horror movie with subtitles.
“This is him?” I ask Pop, gesturing to the man bleeding out on the chair in the middle of the room. To think…this farmhouse was once a place of family.
A fucked up one at that, but still a family.
“Here I was thinking you were showing me something—anything else. Since Dad hasn’t even given me the key yet. At least I’ll be ready when he does.”
His head hangs low between his shoulders. I grab the edge of my hoodie and pull it off.
“Before you do this—” Pop stops me. “You have to know some information that I found out. Most importantly, he’s apparently part of some new organization called the Ministry who took over the tunnels when your father declined the key. I don’t know many details other than that. I spoke with Lilith, who gave me a little background on her family heritage to try to piece together the twin situation and your wife. Seems they could have been formed by a child they didn’t kill when they took out the people Lilith came from. It’s been a slow build, but they’ve finally got the power and numbers by stealing and grooming members of Midnight Mayhem over the years. I don’t know what this motherfucker is doing mixed up in it—” He gestures to the beaten man on the chair.
“Why do you not know?”
“Because of this—” He flips his suit collar over, displaying a logo I could recognize from anywhere.
“The Gentlemen.” Careful to not get blood on my suit, because if there’s one thing my mom hates, it’s blood spilled during a gala. “You sure this is the man?”
Pop nods his head. “Yep. He existed among everyone because of only one way. The Minister is never seen. He simply just…exists. They answer to him through one man, and that man alone hasn’t even seen him.”
“The young boy from Aspen?” I ask, eyes narrowed.
Pop nods. “The very same.”
I step forward, cracking my neck and ready to kill him when Pop’s hand lands on my chest.
“One more thing. They can’t not have a Minister. I know you’re young and don’t hold the gavel yet, but we still don’t know enough about them. The fact that he’s wearing Gentlemen ink makes me nervous. How many people are undercover? Who are they?” He sighs. “If you do this, you’ll need to step in as the standing Minister. Don’t ask me what that entails because I don’t know yet. But we can figure that out with this.” He shoves a set of keys into my chest with his other hand, and I look down at it. The carved logo that reads M. “These tunnels are ours. This is how we claim them back, right the wrongs.”
“Whatever. But you are to find out what this means for me. I don’t want to walk into a trap.” I lift the hand that holds my nine, popping a bullet right between his eyes.
“What will you do about the Fathers and your plan to sell her tonight?”
I blink at the blood dribbling from his forehead. “I’ll do what I do and make them think her going with Archer Thorn is their idea.”
Present
I look around the room, waiting for one of them, any of them, to say anything.
“And this entire time?” Halen says, her eyes on me. “This entire time, they’ve been trying to find someone sitting right in front of them?”
I look back at Dad. “Checkmate.”
“I’d be pissed if I wasn’t so proud,” Dad whispers, shaking his head with a full-bellied laugh. “Fuck me. We created monsters.”
Nate’s strangled laugh comes next. “Little fucking shit.” His laughter cuts and his smile drops. “Where the fuck is Luna?”
“She’s not there. Corbin is, and I plan to deal with him accordingly.”
“Jesus, you truly knew about her being a twin all along…” River blinks.
I don’t bother to reassure her. Of course I fucking did.
“Corbin will be trying to build against me. Licking his wounds. He knows who I am, and I don’t give a fuck because the goal was to regain the tunnels we’d lost.”
“Jesus…” War pushes up from his chair, moving his hand over his chin. “Then we need to kill everyone until we find her.”
I smile. “The best thing you’ve said since telling me you’re fucking my sister.”