Prologue
KROSS
The girl screams again—a raw, wet, ugly sound—sand smeared across her face as she crawls like a busted crab across the beach.
Kade exhales behind me, all irritated and calm, like she’s delaying his schedule.
“Jesus, would you fucking run,” I tell her, nudging her ankle with my boot. “At least make this worth the cardio.”
She scrambles up, legs shaking, babbling nonsense—how she’ll do anything, how she didn’t mean to piss us off, how she’ll “make it up” to us if we just let her live.
They always go there.
“Sweetheart,” I laugh, “if you’re gonna offer that shit, at least sound confident about it. You’re killing the mood.”
Kade steps forward—quiet, precise, the colder twin through and through.
He grabs her by the hair, yanks her back just enough, and the blade kisses her side—shallow, more of a lesson than a wound.
She shrieks, knees him in the balls, and bolts.
Kade folds with a low, murderous groan—the kind that promises she’s not making it to sunrise.
Then I absolutely lose it.
I double over laughing, hands on my thighs, mask glowing like a deranged Valentine slasher come to life.
“Oh my god,” I wheeze, “she got you. Bro, she actually got you.”
Kade straightens with murder on his shoulders, jaw tight under the mask.
“She won’t get far,” he says, flat, cold, and lethal.
Then he moves with that clean, controlled speed he’s annoyingly good at, and I jog along beside him, way less graceful but twice as fucking thrilled.
“Fucking love when they fight back,” I say, breath puffing in the cold air. “Gets the blood pumping right to my cock. Plus, she’s fast. Think she does track?”
“Focus,” he mutters.
“Bro, I am focused. I’m literally focusing on the bitch sprinting away from us.”
The girl darts between washed-up logs and beach chairs, screaming like it’ll help. It won’t.
Her legs are shaking; she’s about to fold. I’m already picturing how she’s gonna taste when the blade gets—
She suddenly veers left.
Kade slows, no doubt still feeling the sting of her knee in his nuts.
But I don’t.
“Where the fuck is she—”
I skid to a halt at the edge of the dune.
Bright lights and bass so heavy my ribs vibrate.
And a whole swarm of drunk, glitter-smeared idiots pouring into a warehouse on the beach.
A fucking warehouse rave.
Of course.
The girl we’ve been chasing?
Yeah. She bolts straight through the open doors like she’s diving into salvation.
I stare up at the massive red-neon sign buzzing above the entrance.
CUPID’S KILLHOUSE, and snort.
“Kade, you seeing this shit? The bitch just ran into a place literally named after us.”
Kade groans like he’s two seconds from strangling me.
“She’s making this complicated.”
“No.” I grin behind the heart-eyes mask, sweat and ocean salt on my tongue. “She just made it fucking interesting.”
Because now we can’t just drop her.
Not without half this rave watching.
But we can go inside.
We can blend in.
And we can find her before she realizes running into a crowd didn’t save her ass it just gave us a playground to hunt her in.
Kade mutters, “Fine, but we end her quick. In and out. No bullshit.”
“Sure,” I lie without even blinking, already locked onto some wasted asshole wobbling around in white feather Cupid wings with a cheap plastic bow hanging off his shoulder. The dude looks like a fucking discount Valentine’s decoration.
Perfect.
He freezes the second he notices the knife in my hand and the glowing heart-eyes on my mask aimed right at his face.
“Hey, man,” I say, all friendly and sunshine. “I need your wings.”
He hesitates—bad choice—so I tap the blade against his throat. Light. Gentle. Encouraging.
“Now.”
Yeah, that works.
He damn near tears the wings off himself trying to get them to me.
I grab them, swing them over my shoulders, feathers dragging over the tattoos covering my chest and arms.
No shirt. Just ink, sweat, and the kind of adrenaline that makes everything funny.
Then I point at the bow slung across his back.
“That too.”
He hands it over with hands shaking like he’s trying to vibrate into the ground.
I grin at him like we’re best fucking friends.
“See? Teamwork. Proud of you.”
Behind me, Kade’s just standing there with his leather jacket hanging open, tattoos crawling up his chest and arms, blood smeared across him from where our little track star got a little too close to his blade.
He looks like he slaughtered someone in the parking lot and couldn’t be fucked to clean up—which is normally my brand, not his.
But hell, maybe he’s leveling up.
His mask glows solid red—steady, cold, giving off that pissed-off big brother energy.
He eyes the wings. “Seriously?”
“Fuck yeah, seriously.” I tighten the straps, bouncing my shoulders so the feathers shake. “If we’re going into Cupid’s Killhouse to take her out, I’m going in committed to the bit.”
Kade shakes his head once. The way he does when he wants to strangle me but doesn’t feel like putting in the effort.
“We get her fast,” he says. “Crowd’s huge. Cameras everywhere. No mistakes.”
“Relax,” I say, tapping the fake bow against my shoulder like it’s real. “We’ll find her. And hey, might as well enjoy the party while we’re here, right?”
He doesn’t answer.
Which, in Kade language, means yes, and fuck you, and also I hate that you’re right again.
I shove through the warehouse doorway, heat smacking me in the face, bass rattling the steel walls, bodies everywhere, sweat and glitter and neon red lights reflecting off every surface.
The wings bounce behind me as I move, plastic bow in hand, tattoos glowing under the strobes.
I scan the crowd, grin stretching under my mask.
“Alright, little trackstar,” I mutter into the noise, “you made this interesting. Let’s finish what you started.”