Chapter Two
Wyck
Present
They say the mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I say it’s a weapon, loaded, cocked, and always aimed at the back of your skull.
It doesn’t whisper.
It hunts .
Dragging up shit you thought you buried in blood and concrete. The kind of thoughts that can make even the strongest man flinch.
Everyone’s got a job.
I’ve got mine.
And yet here I am… Parked in this goddamn truck, white-knuckling the steering wheel like it's the only thing anchoring me to this reality.
The abandoned warehouse stares back at me, silent, rotting, familiar.
Devils’ business.
Dash brought the initiates here earlier for their little baptism-by-fire. I should be out there, watching, gathering intel, pulling strings. But I’m not. Not yet.
Because my mind’s dragging me somewhere else.
Back to the dark.
Back to him .
The past doesn’t just haunt, it hollows . And every time I think about what my father did to me, I feel that pit open up inside me again. That same concrete room. That same fucking light. That silence between screams.
He sent me away like a rabid dog. Locked me in a foreign hell and called it a lesson. And I let him.
That’s what eats me alive.
I didn’t fight.
Didn’t spit in his face and tell him to rot in the empire of lies he built on my back.
I was still just a kid.
But I’m not anymore.
Now I’ve got the plan. The power. The rage. And I didn’t come home to play fucking catch-up.
My palms sweat against the leather, vision blurring as bile rises like it knows the truth I’m still choking down, I lost time. Years. People. Her.
And for what?
For silence.
Breathing deep, I force air into my lungs like it might quiet the storm in my head. A trick I taught myself when the walls started closing in. Breathe in. Count to four. Lie to yourself.
It doesn’t work.
Because the ache never left. It just changed shape.
And somewhere between what could’ve been and what’s about to happen. I remind myself… It was exile or death.
And no one decides when I die.
Not him.
Not anymore.
Refocusing my attention, the haze clears. The bodies don’t.
I watch as the clean-up crew moves through the warehouse like they’ve done this a hundred times before. Fluid. Efficient. Cold.
One by one, they drag the corpses across the concrete, dumping them into the pit like rotting meat. No prayers. No last rites. Just silence and gasoline.
Moments later, Kyran steps forward, new blood, still shiny around the edges, but there’s something sharp in him. A quiet hunger.
He flicks a match. Drops it.
Woosh.
Black smoke erupts into the open air. The stench of burning flesh and charred sin hits the back of my throat, and I welcome it.
There’s nothing quite like the smell of death and destruction to stir the Devil in me. Hell, it practically gets me off.
This place? This scene? It’s all because of a hunch.
Dash’s hunch, to be exact.
He may have a mouth that never shuts and a temper that could start a war, but Dash is a fucking savant when it comes to tech.
Firewalls? He eats those for breakfast.
He once built a keylogger in under ten minutes just to catch a professor skimming university funds. The man disappeared the next day.
Dash made sure the only backup of the evidence lived inside a drive wired to a bomb.
That’s his flavor of genius.
We all have our trade. Our role. Our edge.
Me?
I’m the manipulator. The puppeteer. The Devil who smiles while pulling your strings, then hangs you with them when you twitch too much.
Dash is our tech god. The one who sees through the code and finds the rot beneath.
Then there’s Karter, our charming sociopath. The seducer.
He gets in where others can't, through whispers and wicked smiles. He can talk anyone into bed, and slit their throat before the climax.
He’s got blood on his cuffs and perfume on his neck, always. That’s just Karter.
Onyx?
He’s the enforcer.
Quiet. Controlled. Pure violence in a tailored suit.
When he moves, people disappear. He once dislocated a man’s jaw just for talking over him . Didn’t even blink.
And Wells?
He’s the tactician. Strategic. Ruthless.
Wells is the Devil who sees ten steps ahead, always three plans deep. The kind who can start a war with a whisper, and win it before the first shot is fired. He's all cold logic, sharp, and the kind of eyes that make you confess sins you didn’t even know you committed.
We don’t just attend Fraysier University of Cliffside Knights.
We own it.
Every hallway. Every locked door. Every dirty secret.
Sliding across my peanut butter leather seat, I open the truck door and step out. One hand in my pocket, the other casually adjusting my jacket, I stroll toward the warehouse like I’m walking into brunch, except brunch doesn’t usually smell like burning bones.
And I don’t come here to eat.
I come here to remind them who the Devils really are.
I step deeper into the warehouse, the flicker of fire licking shadows up the walls behind me.
They’re all in the pit.
The crew. The initiates. The liars.
I scan the crowd, the heat of the flames casting them in flickering shades of guilt. My eyes lock on the one I came for, and a smirk slices across my face like a blade.
“Kellan,” I call out, voice sharp enough to slit a throat. “Front and center. Now.”
A ripple goes through the group. Heads turn. Feet still. But I’m not looking at any of them. Just him.
The scrawny little bastard’s head jerks up. His eyes dart left, then right, already hunting for a lifeline. Someone to save him.
No one moves. No one will.
Seconds stretch. Then he finally steps forward, shaking like a leaf already burning at the edges. “I-I’m K-Kellan,” he stammers, voice fragile and pathetic.
My arms fold across my chest as I face him fully. Cold. Steady. “Step forward,” I command, the words cutting through the air like a whip.
He obeys.
I let the silence build like pressure in a pipe, waiting for the break. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here, kid?”
He panics. Eyes flicking around, sweat beading on his brow like dew on a corpse.
“I-I work here,” he blurts, gesturing vaguely toward the clean-up crew. “W-With them, sir.”
Sir.
That’s rich.
I toss my hands on my hips and tip my head, staring down at him like he’s already bleeding. “And how exactly did you come to be employed with them ?”
He gulps again. Another lie dying on his tongue. “I-I was hired in, sir.”
There it is.
I start to circle him like a predator who’s already had his first taste.
“That’s an interesting claim… because we don’t just hire in for clean-up.
These aren’t janitors.” I stop. Let the weight of my stare bear down on him.
“The Devils of Cliffside have a crew. A vetted crew. Blood-bound, oath-tied, silence-sworn. Because when it comes to this, ” I jerk my chin toward the pile of burning bodies behind me, “secrecy isn’t optional. It’s survival.”
He follows me with wide eyes. Terrified. Obedient. Delicious.
“You don’t just stumble into a job like this,” I continue, voice low and lethal. “Not unless you’ve got a reason. Not unless someone put you here.”
I step in close, just inches from his face. My breath steady. His, ragged.
“So I’ll ask again,” I say, slower now, deadlier. “And if you lie, even once more, I’ll make sure you live long enough to regret it. Who. Do. You. Work. For?”
He blinks. Swallows.
“I-I work for y-you, s-sir.”
Fucking liar.
I grin. Wide. Wicked. And then I grab him by the throat.
His feet leave the ground.
His gasp is music. The way his hands claw at my wrist? That’s rhythm.
I watch him choke on his own lie, his eyes bulging as I tighten my grip. My heart doesn’t race. My pulse doesn’t flicker.
This is peace.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Colt Carmichael ,” I say, voice velvet over razors. His eyes go wild. That name sinks in like poison. “Oh yeah,” I purr. “I know exactly who you are. Gerald Carmichael’s boy. And Court’s little brother.”
I tilt my head, amused. “ Late brother, that is.”
His whole body jolts at the name. I laugh . I can’t help it.
“See, you walked in here thinking you were invisible. But you’re not. You’re a loose end. And I specialize in cutting those.”
I let him dangle a second longer, just until the edges of his vision fray.
Then I slam him down.
He hits the ground in a coughing, broken heap, lungs wheezing like popped balloons. I crouch beside him, grab a fistful of his hair, and wrench his head up.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, bloodlust thick in my throat.
And then I punch him. Hard. Nose cracks. Blood spurts. It paints his lips in red confession.
That felt good.
I tilt his head back again, locking eyes, and drive another fist into his face, rage flooding every nerve in my body.
“You thought this was just a job?” I growl. “This is war, you stupid fuck. And I’m not just the executioner.” I lean in until he can feel my breath on his cheek. “I’m the Devil you pray never walks through your door.”
“P-please, don’t kill me.” He cries like it’s not already too late.
Begging always sounds better soaked in blood and desperation. But he’s wasting his breath.
“I won’t kill you…” I say, crouching beside him with the kind of calm that signals the storm. “ Yet. I’ve got questions, and you’re going to give me answers before I decide how deep I want to bury you.”
I don’t even turn my head when I bark, “Declan!”
He’s already moving.
Six-foot-four, solid muscle, a Devil by fire, not by blood. Declan didn’t get here by legacy. He earned it with pain. Built himself from the ashes of his mother and brother’s murder, and we helped him burn the man responsible.
Now he’s one of us. And I trust him with my life.
“Sir?” he asks, stepping up beside me like the executioner waiting for his cue.
“I don’t know everything that went down here today,” I say, keeping my eyes locked on the rat squirming at my feet, “but I do know your family’s killer died screaming, with your hands around his throat. That’s justice.”
Declan’s jaw ticks. Good. He remembers.