Oathbreaker (The Devils in D.C. #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

I stand on the shore of Isla Cara as five men pray to the god of the island.

While the sun made its trek over the horizon, their screams echoed from the bowels of the mansion. They marched to the altar, and their voices lifted on the wind like the angel of death sprinting through Moses’ Egypt. Just like that one kid’s movie the nuns showed us on a rainy Friday afternoon.

The sound reached me in my room, where their pleas crashed into my eardrums.

It’s summer, and instead of staying at St. Regis Prep in Connecticut as I have for the last eight grades, Father decided it was time that I spend the entire summer with him on Isla Cara.

My schoolmates, who I’ve spent most of those summers with since kindergarten, were jealous.

Until now, I’ve spent a few weeks on the island here and there, but never this long of a stretch.

Father, five men, ten guards, the Polancos, and Alistair, my father’s right-hand man, make up the group on the beach.

And me. I’m here too .

A guard pushes me, and I barely catch myself before I hit the sand face-first.

“Are these all of them?” Father asks one of his guards once I am close enough to hear his voice.

Alistair’s cultured voice is low as he murmurs, “Yes.”

“Excellent,” Father says with a pleasant tone.

Five men settle into the sand, motionless.

Resigned.

I’ve seen this scene many times, so I flick my hands at the wrist to stop their shaking and keep my eyes locked on my father’s back. Still, I notice when Alistair’s eyes land on me, and I suppress a shiver.

Watching me. Watching me. He’s always watching me.

Miguel Polanco and his son, Leo, stand off to the side. Smoke billows from Mr. Polanco’s Marlboro, and Leo takes up space one step behind him.

I move to a spot near Leo—not in his space, but close enough to feel comforted standing next to my best friend. But the stink of alcohol rises off Leo’s father, making my nausea worse.

My father takes one step, then another, until he’s staring down at the man who used to bring Father’s friends from nearby Martinique to Isla Cara. The light tan linen shirt and matching pants Father wears—along with being barefoot—would have made anyone else look friendly. Vulnerable.

Benjamin Brigham isn’t a weak man. There’s nothing he cares about enough to make him so.

“Do you wish to confess your sins?” Father looks down at the dry-eyed man. Pressing his lips together, the man’s fists clench where they’re handcuffed behind his back.

“Very well,” Father says with a short sigh. He shakes his head with a look of disappointment I’ve seen often.

Father walks down the line of men and back again, taking slow, sure steps in the sand.

“Here’s the problem,” Father begins. “I’ve paid you well, have I not?” He pauses with his hands outstretched to emphasize his point. “Have I not set your families up to live a good life on your shithole islands across the ocean?”

He shakes his head while looking at the man in the middle. The accused stares at the sand as if he could count every grain.

“I have done all this, and yet you decided to go against me. What reason could you possibly have?” Father resumes his pacing and pulls a small device out of his pocket.

“A camera? Really, Johan?”

He spins the item—not much larger than a tube of lip balm—in his hand.

“Was it more money? Is that it? Did they offer you more money to spy on me?” If one didn’t know my father, they would think he sounded hurt. Upset. Sad.

I know better.

Father holds the camera up to his face, turning it in the dim morning light as if it were a jewel he wanted to assess for purity.

“And you, Johan,” Father says, not looking at the man who has been his butler for as long as I’ve been alive. “What could they have given you that would make you turn on me like this?” He shifts, leaning so his face is nearly level with Johan’s.

The butler doesn’t say a word.

Father paces again, tossing the camera in his hands like a hacky sack. He’s silent for almost a full minute, walking over to Leo’s father, before he stops. His abrupt movement causes sand to kick up at his heels.

“If you hadn’t tried to spy on Miguel here,” Father taps Mr. Polanco’s shoulder. “I would have never known. How can you sleep at night knowing this?”

Father rolls his eyes heavenward as if praying for understanding. “So now, here we are,” he says with a long, drawn-out sigh. “I can’t let a betrayal go unpunished. Surely you understand.” Father looks at each of the men one by one as if he were explaining why he couldn’t give them a raise rather than discussing their deaths.

He sighs again. “Any last words from any of you?”

The men are silent.

“Very well,” Father says again. He looks at Alistair, then to one of his guards, who steps forward to pull a gun out of his holster. My heart jumps in my chest and dread triples in my stomach.

I look at Leo. I can’t tell a thing from his expression, and he’s so still he might as well be a statue.

“Wait,” Father says, and I swing my head back to him. “Hunter. You’ll do it.”

He waves a hand at the guard again, and the beefy man walks over to me, slapping the pistol in my palm.

I would have dropped it if he hadn’t curled my fingers around the handle.

“W-What?” I say, speaking for the first time in many hours.

Father’s eyebrows drop, his face looking severe for the first time in this entire process.

“Hunter,” he says sharply, all patience and calm removed from his tone.

I swallow.

“F-Father, I?—”

“Get your pussy ass over here now, Hunter!” he hisses. I stare at him and feel like I’m going to throw up or scream or pass out. He can’t possibly mean....

Father emits a low, frustrated growl, and when his eyes move from me to the guard next to me, I jump into action. I don’t feel like being manhandled or beaten today.

Not today.

“Good,” Father says, his face clearing once I’m next to him. “Hunter, these men here had the intention of betraying us. Betraying our family. Do you know why that is, Hunter? ”

I shake my head, not daring to look at the men. I stare at my father’s face.

“It’s because they think they’re better than us, Hunter.” Father laughs, and the sound is so loud my ears ring.

“They think that we’re bad and they’re good. But the reality is—there’s no such thing as good or evil. There’s just existing. Living. Living life to the fullest. It’s nature. Some are meant to be predators. Some are meant to be prey.” He leans down so he is level with my eyes. When the winter semester started, I had a growth spurt, going from five-foot-three to almost five-nine. Still, my father towers over me.

“We have been given much, Hunter. This is true,” he says, as if embarrassed. “But it’s our responsibility to ensure that what we have stays with us. If we didn’t, what would we be saying to The Architect of all that is?” He grips my shoulder when I don’t respond for a moment, and I nod my head in affirmation.

“To protect our family, we must eliminate any threats. This is your first lesson, son. You will exterminate these threats,” he says, swinging his arm out to indicate all the men kneeling.

“You want me to...” I whisper, hoping to avoid embarrassing or angering him with my questions.

His hand tightens on my shoulder anyway.

“Hunter, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what you will do. You are going to put a single bullet in each of these men’s heads one by one. Got it?”

I want to scream. I want to run away.

Instead, I tremble.

My brain tries to come up with a way out of this—a way to not cross this line. Out of the corner of my eye, I look at the men. Johan has been my father’s butler since I was a child. He used to give me sweet bread at night when Father said I didn’t earn dinner. He wrapped my injuries and cleaned my cuts .

No solutions surface.

“I should do it too,” I hear from over my shoulder. Leo walks across the sand to stand near me and my father. He looks over to his dad. The elder Polanco flicks his cigarette butt into the sand and shrugs.

Leo has to see the terror on my face. “They tried to disrespect the Polanco name,” he says. “It’s not just a betrayal of your family, Mr. Brigham.”

Father sniffs and raises his eyebrow at Leo. “Whatever,” Father finally adds.

Leo walks back toward his father, who waves his hand at one of his guards to give him a weapon.

Mr. Polanco looks beyond bored.

Beretta in his possession, Leo walks back to me and nods. So much is communicated in the action, but the loudest message is: I’m with you in this.

“Well, what the fuck are you two gonna do, start kissing each other? Get the fuck on with it,” Father says, and one of his guards laughs. Alistair releases an amused huff of air.

“Right,” I say more clearly than I thought I could.

Leo and I take matching steps toward the men.

“It’s going to be okay, H,” Leo whispers to me, his gaze on the shoreline.

The ocean, for once, is calm.

“I’ll take as many of them as I can, but you have to do at least one, okay?” Leo’s still not looking at me, but I glance at him out the side of my eye. His face is blank.

“Okay,” I whisper back to him.

We part ways, him going to one end of the line and I to the other. I look to my father, and when I do, he waves his hand in the air as if to say, “Hurry up.”

I inhale past the restriction in my throat and look at Leo. He’s raised his gun, pointing it straight at the man’s forehead. I look away and squeeze my eyes shut.

Pop. Thud .

One.

My heartbeat is violent between my ears, a rapid woosh-woosh-woosh as my body urges me to flee.

Pop. Thud.

Two.

Bile surges up my stomach, balling in my throat. I’m going to vomit right at this man’s feet, and I’m sure Father will punish me soundly simply for embarrassing him.

Pop. Thud.

Three.

I close my eyes and think of the rose garden at Amelia Manor, my little sister’s laughter, and my mother’s smile when she’d visit me at school despite Father’s command not to.

Pop. Thud.

Four.

I open my eyes and look at the man kneeling before me.

Johan.

With my mind so very separate from my body, I lift my arm.

“I’m really sorry,” I whisper.

Johan looks at me hard for a moment. Then he says, “Fuck your ‘sorrys,’ Brigham.”

With each fraction of a heartbeat, I choke on all the words I want to say. I choke on fear and the sob held back by the tension pressing on my vocal cords.

My throat burns as much as my eyes do from the salty sea breeze.

“Right,” I whisper. There’s nothing else to say.

As my father swears, marching toward me as I hesitate, I close my eyes and do the thing I don’t want to do.

I fire.