10. Ruin
Chapter 10
Ruin
My brothers enjoy watching Celia in the daylight. Rebel and Rage take turns escorting her around the city, going nowhere in particular to leave her scent all over. A picture taken here, an ice cream cone purchased there. It’s almost like they’re tourists basking in each other’s attention rather than the attention of the city.
For me, Celia always glows brightest in the dead of night.
After taking a heavy hit from my joint, I exhale the smoke from my lungs as slowly as possible, letting the burn settle my nerves. Funny thing, the feeling of burning alive. I sense flickers of it every time I take a pull, like a nightmare on the verge of collapsing around this fragile reality we call life. I can picture it—the walls collapsing, the rubble and smoke billowing into the air, the intensity of heat rolling across my skin and the bright, blinding light of it all singing my eyes.
Walking through the city almost felt like burning, too, with my eyes stinging from the sunlight. Hours later, in the relative calm of the club’s waking hours, my skin still pricks with the memory of it.
I drown out all feeling left in my body with the weed.
Rage is talking to Celia at his golden throne, a black leather monstrosity that he insists adds class to the club’s atmosphere, when all it does is make him look like a kinky asshole. Behind them sits the shining golden cage he had installed after Celia ran away—quarter-thick bars tower ten feet high, where they’re cut off by a paneled ceiling. You could easily install hooks to hang ropes or a swing inside, but Rage was never one for theatrics. The only item inside that cage is a silken pillow for Celia to kneel on.
Not that she ever will.
Even from a distance, I can see the anger burning in her eyes as they argue about the cage. Their voices raise high enough that club members are giving them a wide berth—even Fox, the red-headed VIP whose cherry red Ferrari Rebel took for a joy ride, keeps her distance. Tonight, she has two of her toys on leashes, parading both men around like pets.
I imagine that’s how Rage wants Celia to behave. Like his pet. The heart-shaped pendant lying across Celia’s throat gleams in the light as she turns her head away from Rage to scan the crowd.
I wonder if she’s looking for me.
Thanatos walks over to me, slipping out of the shadows much like how I usually do. He’s covered head-to-toe in the riot gear he picked up from the Dolohov job, minus the helmet. I take in his appearance, but so do a handful of thirsty passerby, a few of them bold enough to consider approaching before they realize that I’m standing next to him. Once they see me, they scamper away like vermin.
“You shouldn’t be smoking,” Than tells me, frowning as I bring the joint to my lips. “It’ll slow your reaction time.”
I ignore him, focusing instead on Celia. She’s slipped down the stairs from Rage’s throned stage to approach Fox, the two girls now engaged in conversation. They hug, like they’re suddenly best friends, and travel to the bar together.
Hmm. Celia is playing her part as bait well. The rhinestones on her sheer top sparkle like diamonds, the black bralette covering her breasts hardly modest, more like a bikini. Her tits spill over the top, like it’s a few sizes too small, and I picture the tight band digging into her soft skin. When she undresses in a few hours, she’ll have red bands covering her ribs like halos, and my brothers will no doubt want to smooth them out with their fingertips. They always find ways to touch her.
But she always finds ways to touch me.
I’m not sure that I enjoyed her touch at first. It was foreign and warm, sending flickers of heat and tension rippling through my muscles. But the sensations were new, sparking a curiosity not only in how I was feeling—but how she reacted to my touch.
“ Krosotka has always been responsive,” I murmur, putting out the joint on my thigh and slipping it into my pocket.
Thanatos follows my gaze across the room, his expression hardening once he realizes who has my focus. “We’re not here to fuck, Ruin.”
I nod toward all the guests in the room thinking the opposite. “They are.”
“We’re not them.”
Although I’ve never been close to Thanatos, there has always been a part of me that understands him. Both of us are exceptional killers, one out of necessity and one out of fondness. Even now, this situation with Celia feels like it’s born from those same tendencies—my brothers and I are with her because we like her, whereas Thanatos is only here because we’ve required it of him.
“What will you do when this is over?” I flick my gaze to his, noting the way his eyes have clouded. He stares at Celia, his body as tense as a tripwire waiting to be triggered. He doesn’t want to be here, that much is clear. “We won’t keep you.” I push my gloved hands into my pockets and lean back against the cold wall. “If you want to go, you can go.”
His jaw tightens. “It’s not that simple.”
Nodding, I hum to myself. It never is.
Things in our family have always been complicated and messy. I’m sure that in another life, Thanatos would be as far away from here as possible, leaving the city—hell, the country—to find some other purpose that doesn’t involve taking orders from powerful men. Then again, he and Ezra were always a dynamic duo, even before I was old enough to recognize it.
“How are things with you and Ezra?” I ask, curious.
Than blinks, turning away from Celia to face me. “Why?”
I hum again. Why am I asking?
“He seems like a brother to you,” I finally surmise, tilting my head. They’re closer in age than I am to Thanatos, and surely Ezra doesn’t have as fucked up of a past as I do. I doubt he has as much baggage suffocating him in his sleep.
I bet Ezra Reinoff sleeps like the dead.
Then again, the few times my boss and I have spoken about my targets, he’s been a man of few words. Not guarded, exactly, but quiet. If Rage weren’t so volatile, I imagine that he and Ezra would be alike in their sense of duty to the bratva and its pakhan. As it stands, Ezra and Thanatos likely have the most in common out of the four of us.
Hence why Ezra is more suited to be Thanatos’s brother than me. The fact that Than and I share a bloodline doesn’t mean shit when our bloodline is laced with poison.
My gaze wanders over to Celia again, up her long legs to those tiny, pleather shorts she’s wearing. It’s warm in the club by design, making it easier for people to shed their inhibitions as they strip naked in front of strangers. Tonight, however, none of our regulars are wearing masks, and that includes Celia.
I like it when she doesn’t hide from me.
New guests to Midnight seem to think that my mask is a costume, a few of them smiling at me like they think I want to fuck them, or that they want to fuck me. But I’ve never been one to indulge in the flesh—and I’m not about to start tonight.
Flashbacks of that morning in Celia’s bed hover in the back of my mind, a ripple of heat pooling deep in my gut. It’s been happening more often lately, like the time spent hovering over Celia’s naked body has unlocked something within me. I don’t dare think—I don’t dare hope —that it’s a piece of me that has been lying dormant all these years, waiting to be brought back to life.
A piece of me lost, now found.
I drag in a quick lungful of air and squeeze my aching eyes shut. All of this is too much. My body is still recovering, taking its time to heal, or maybe it never was healed to begin with, and now we’re merely feeling out what scraps are left to salvage. There can’t be much left worth keeping.
“Are you okay?” Than asks, hovering closer. He’s blocking off the rest of the room with his body, using every square inch of muscle and bone and armor to shield me from prying eyes. He may not realize that he’s doing it, but I’ve seen both of my brothers’ own protective tendencies enough times to recognize it here with Thanatos.
My brothers’ best defense is their offense, both of them striking out before any of us can get injured. But Thanatos, my half-brother, must take more after his mother than our father, because his defense is a literal shield.
I’m starting to think that we might need that in our lives.
Tentatively, I reach out and touch his arm, allowing myself to feel his strength and to siphon some of it into my body. The doctors have always told me that the key to a long, healthy life is all about vitamin intake and exercise, but I’ve killed plenty of people to know that having a perfect body isn’t what gives you a long life.
It’s having a sound mind.
Mine is anything but sound.
I shake my head to drown out the static, sighing once my heartbeat drums in my ears. It’s a quick energetic exchange between the two of us, but it’s enough for me to refocus on our mission. As much as I’d rather spend the entire night watching Krosotka , I’m supposed to be watching for our father instead.
We all are. Even as Rage summons Celia to sit in his lap on the throne, and even as she turns her nose up and walks the other way, bucking the plan, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
Keeping watch for the enemy, not for each other.
But I have a feeling that all five of us will struggle to reign in our desires when desire is the very thing Midnight thrives on, the very thread of it twisting through the air and ensnaring its victims like a siren’s song.
“This isn’t a good idea.” I track Celia’s path with my eyes, longing to follow her and knowing that it’s inevitable, because I will. And so will my brothers. We’re all doomed when it comes to our woman. “We’re all distracted.”
Thanatos swallows hard, his gaze mirroring mine. “Yeah.”
I pick at the edge of my face mask, itching to take it off. Ever since the last fire, it’s been harder and harder to keep it on. I feel like I’m suffocating within it—like it’s no longer a prop, but it’s fusing to my skin. “Rage will want to lock her in the cage if it means completing our mission.” I drag my hand down Than’s chest, feeling the thick bulge of his armor. It would be hard to pierce with a knife, maybe impossible, and bullets likely won’t get through either. “You should go by Riot,” I tell him, rapping my knuckles against an armored plate over his stomach.
He chuffs, taking a step back and avoiding my gaze. “What, so I can join the family legacy?”
“Yes.”
The scar cutting through his upper lip pulls as he twists his mouth. He takes a breath like he’s going to say something, then stops himself. “Yeah. Maybe.”
I grunt, pulling away from him. In the bratva, names are important. Blood is important, too, both in the ties it creates between family lines and the blood one spills on the floor. Names and blood are what keep us together, and since Thanatos can’t get any closer by blood, the only thing left is by name.
Riot can be ours.
Mine. My brothers’. Hers.
“You should let Thanatos die,” I conclude, taking another step away from him to follow Celia. “Shouldn’t you?”
I leave my half-brother to his thoughts, knowing that the decision should be as simple for him as it was for me, Rebel, and Rage.
Should be.
But I have a feeling that with Thanatos, there are a lot of things he should do that he holds himself back from.