Chapter 49 Kip
KIP
“I have eyes and ears everywhere, cops and politicians are on my payroll, I own more property and land than you could ever imagine. So, what makes you think that I don’t know about you?
What you did for your uncle with cleaning the bodies, the kills you’ve not shared with your friends, the bloodlust, and what you all do in the Horizon Society.
I do think it’s brilliant to feed Death his victims so he can stay under the radar.
Dope had a good idea with that one. Death is very creative in how he kills and tortures as well.
And Ella.” The Pied Piper clapped his hands together several times, the sound echoing through the small cabin.
“I just adore her. Death did very well with her.”
My chest squeezed tight as he rattled off more details about my life, including when I’d left on trips with Uncle Vinny, and when Mother had put the belt around my arm and shot heroin into my veins.
“Lily was reporting to you,” I muttered.
“They all are, but some of those details my people weren’t around to see. Think, Kip. How would I know where Death killed his latest victims to make sure there wasn’t a trace of evidence? You came in to clean as well, but I was there before you almost every time.”
I frowned, trying to understand how he knew.
Who was his informant? My nostrils flared as Dope came to mind.
He had the tools and skills to cover his tracks and conversations.
Maybe all the information he’d found on the Pied Piper was fed to him to keep us off the Pied Piper’s trail.
It would explain how he knew where we were all the time.
I leaned forward. “How?”
The words that tumbled out of his mouth next sent ice through my goddamn veins.
“Didn’t you ever wonder how you were able to get your cross?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I was older and stronger than Mother. It was the knife she carved my skin with, and I swore she’d never fucking do it again. I overpowered her and ripped the chain off her neck one day.”
“Did she wear it all the time?”
I shook my head. “Hardly ever; that’s why I took advantage of the opportunity.”
“Don’t you think Lily was smarter than that?”
My jaw clenched. “What are you getting at?”
“You were supposed to have the necklace, Kip. I wanted you to have it. It was a gift from me.”
I gawked at him. “Why the fuck would you give me a gift?”
Silence.
The air around us crackled with a dark, foreboding energy that threatened to turn me inside out.
“Before you took it from Lily, I had a tracker and a camera put into one end of the cross. It’s not visible to anyone.
You thought you chose to wear it out of rebellion, but you’ve hardly taken the necklace off for years.
It also served as a symbolic collar. It marked you as mine.
No one was to touch you or Death. Even—well, we’ll save that for a conversation for another day. ”
Jesus Christ, I’d fucked Holland with that cross!
“From the look on your face, you’re remembering all the ways you’ve used that crucifix.”
He waited, letting his words soak in as the color drained from my cheeks.
“Don’t worry.” His laugh sounded hollow to my ears. “I turned off the camera and sound several times. Those private times were for you. I had no interest in your twisted sexual appetite.”
I had no other choice but to believe him because I couldn’t fathom the other option. “Why? Why did you want me to have the necklace?”
An evil smile twisted his features. “Because you were always meant to be the perfect weapon, Kip. And I have to say, you’ve done an exceptional job.”
Cold sweat broke out on my skin, fear creeping down my spine.
“With what?” My voice shook with my question.
“Do you remember the first time you met Death? Because I do.”
My world tilted on its axis as all the puzzle pieces snapped together at once.
“You used me,” I said, the words like glass in my throat. “You planted me beside him. Like a fucking watchdog.”
“You were planted, used by me to keep track of him and everything he did. When he killed, you were there, when he disappeared, you and Dope looked for him. I knew the plan for the society, when he met Ella … every single moment of your lives, I’ve been able to keep up with.”
“That doesn’t explain why I would black out and find myself in a basement and not remember shit.”
The Pied Piper rubbed his jawline, his cold eyes flat and void of any emotion. “We met and you updated me on what I needed to know. Sometimes the camera wasn’t enough.”
My heart fucking sputtered in my chest, skipping several beats and struggling to start again.
“I met with you face-to-face?”
“Yes.”
I nearly doubled over, my ribs splintering beneath the weight of it. My betrayal wasn’t a crack—it was a rupture. A goddamn implosion. I had wanted to know the truth for so long, but now it would destroy my entire world and everyone I loved, including my best friends.
“Why are you telling me all this now? If you were using my cross to keep up with everyone, why tell me about it?”
The Pied Piper flashed me a wicked smile. “Because I don’t need you to keep me posted anymore.”
“Which means you have someone else.”
His smile widened. “Kip, you and Death were created by me. For me. Your entire lives have been orchestrated by me. You both are my sons, so to speak. I want you both to come home and work for me. You’re a team.
You trust each other, and whether you like it or not, you both have been working for me anyway.
It’s time to reunite my family, including my daughter. ”
The world shrank to the size of a pin, a single point of pain lodged directly into my head. “You’re not fucking serious.”
He patted his leg as if to emphasize his words. “But I am. Haven’t you wondered why you always find your way back to me? Why your crew has never been torn apart by law or blood? Why, no matter what, I always come up aces and you always survive?”
His right hand twitched, as if he was smothering a smile or a scream. “You are in my family. Granted, not blood related but you know that means nothing. You are mine.”
Mental images glitched through my mind: flashes of chrome and blood, secret basements, me gasping awake and not knowing how I’d gotten blood under my nails. And behind it all, the thin old man in the tailored suit, whistling a children’s song as he watched us burn down the world.
The curtain ripped away, and I saw it. All this time, when we’d thought we were the ghosts in the pipeline, the ones above and outside the game, we were just running along lines he’d drawn for us in invisible ink.
I could run. I could kill him. My fingers itched for my knife—but even as my impulse surged, another part of me, foreign and icy, stitched my palms to my lap.
“You never had a say in this,” he said, circling me. “You were made to be a weapon. The necklace is simply a reminder, a keepsake, in case you got sentimental and started thinking you had choices.”
Bile rose in my throat, and I struggled to stand. “No,” I said. “I’m not helping you anymore.”
“You are,” the Pied Piper said, but his voice had lost all pretense of warmth. “I have always known what you were, even when you tried not to know it yourself. There is no leaving this family. The sooner you accept it, the sooner we can begin the next movement.”
The word “movement” hung in the air, festering. The Pied Piper walked to the window and parted the living room curtains with a single, spidery hand. The daylight had faded, but the forest outside appeared washed out and brittle, as if something evil waited just beyond the glass.
The Pied Piper stepped past me, and for a moment, I caught his scent—a mix of expensive cigars and leather. He paused, glancing over his shoulder, gaze sharp enough to pin me in place, lips curled into a semblance of a smile so fucking creepy my skin crawled.
“Xavier says hello, and he’s doing well. I’m quite proud of the progress he’s made.”
His words—that name—dropped like a blade. Not a message but a warning.
Without another glance, he opened the door and snapped it shut behind him.
My breath caught, and my hands shook as I lowered myself to the floor, the cracked hardwood biting at my palms.
“I have a message for Xavier too,” I whispered to the empty room. “Fucking die.”
We never talked about Xavier. Not about who he is. Not after what happened. Not after Death let him go.
Breath sawed in and out of me, every inhale stinging like a dry cough.
All the other betrayals in my life—my mother, Uncle Vinny—they paled in comparison to what I’d done to Death.
Fury flared to life inside my chest at the Pied Piper.
At the same time, I admired the scope of his cruelty.
It was genius in its comprehensiveness, an elegant calculus that accounted for every possible outcome before it ever began.
I thought of Holland—her frantic, generous mouth, her hands on either side of my face, the way she’d always looked at me like I was about to perform some miracle.
She deserved someone better. But she was one of the few people who understood my darkness, which made sense since her father was beyond a monster. He was pure evil.
When I looked down, the cross caught a ray of light filtering in from the window.
The camera. The tracker. The gift that wasn’t a gift.
I wondered if Dope could remove what the Pied Piper had planted in it.
It wouldn’t matter if I went to Dope’s and the Pied Piper tracked me; he already knew where Dope lived and all our conversations.
I would give him this last one. I stood, grabbed my cross from the kitchen counter, and walked out the door.
I pulled out my cell and laughed when I saw there was no signal.
It would be a long fucking walk before I got any, but it would give me time to figure out what the fuck I was going to tell my best friends …
and the love of my life. How would I tell someone I helped destroy them?
That I was the weapon they never saw coming?