Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
kaius
Even over the chaos of last call at the Queen’s Table, I could hear Acelynn’s bright and melodic laugh cutting clean through the noise. She stood in front of Nolan, her smile wide as he said something that made Astoria roll her eyes and throw a crumpled napkin in his face.
My sister hopped down from the bar, grabbing a bottle of dark liquor from the top shelf and pouring three shots.
She slid one to each of them before raising her own and launching into a toast that, knowing her, had some sort of sexual innuendo buried in it.
The three of them clicked their glasses once before tapping them on the bar top and downing the liquor.
Acelynn’s face twisted in immediate regret, violent coughs breaking through her lips.
Nolan reached out, patting her back lightly.
Any other man in this place laying hands on my new fixation would have had me already halfway through breaking his jaw.
But not Nolan. I didn’t need to worry about him pursuing her.
Not when he had been hung up on my baby sister since we were teenagers.
And he knew better than anyone what lines we were willing to cross.
We trusted each other with our lives. Always had. Always would. And we had made that very clear time and time again.
The blade bit into my palm as I dragged it across the skin.
Precise but deep enough to scar, because this oath would be lifelong.
A permanent reminder of the weight of it.
I clenched my fist, letting the crimson pool drip into the rusted metal bowl at our feet.
The light scent of rain surrounded us from the passing monsoon.
Across from me, Nolan stood silent. His face was unreadable. He had always looked this way when he was pissed, when he felt out of control.
“This is how we clean house. How we bury traitors, boys,” my father had said hours earlier when he decided it was finally mine and Nolan’s time to be more than just drug runners for the club.
He always expected me to take on his role as president of the Knights of Lovelen and knew who I would choose as my second.
This was an initiation, a test of loyalty for both Nolan and me.
“I told you he’d fold,” Nolan said through a clenched jaw, voice low.
I didn’t respond right away. My hands were still shaking, not from the pain, but from the rage that had coursed through me tonight.
And it scared me that I was able to reach that point so easily.
How I had been able to turn off my emotions like the flip of a light switch.
I had turned into exactly the monster my father had raised me to be tonight.
The betrayal hadn’t sunk in fully. Liam.
Our own. One of the sacred seven, as they liked to call the club leaders’ sons.
The ones who would rule for them when they were just dust. We’d grown up together, bled for the cause of keeping peace between the clubs, cracked bones in alleyways when one of us stepped out of line, but now none of that mattered.
Liam had just fucked any idea of peace between our groups to hell. He was feeding intel to the feds. Selling out our drops, mapping out where we had safe houses. Playing both sides, but I had caught him, which meant I had to be the one who delivered the punishment.
“I wanted to believe it was a lie,” I finally muttered. “I thought he’d say there was some bigger picture deal happening.”
Nolan let out a bitter laugh. “You always wanted to believe in people too long.”
“You never believe in anyone.”
“That’s not true,” Nolan snapped, eyes glaring at me. “I believe in you and Vince. Hell, I even believe in Tori when she isn’t being such a fucking brat.”
“That’s why we are still standing,” I said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of my back pocket and placing one between my lips.
I offered the box to Nolan, but he waved his hand, uninterested in picking up the habit, as he would say.
Lighting the end, I took a long drag before letting the smoke billow into the night air before responding.
“We all have each other. If we were truly in over our heads, we know any one of us would go to the ends of the earth to fix it.”
I glanced over at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. His gaze was locked on the bowl below us that held our mixed blood.
“I didn’t want to turn into him,” Nolan bit out.
He had always had a fear of becoming the kind of man his father was.
And I don’t blame him. Lance Bedivere was the type of monster that was created in the darkest corners of hell.
He had no regard for human life, and the hundreds of corpses that had been removed from the basement crawl space of the Bedivere family home had confirmed that.
Nolan had been barely six when his father had been sentenced to death.
Not that he made it to the electric chair.
They had found him dead in his cell only three days after he arrived in prison.
I had dragged Nolan back to the club just as Astoria was always bringing strays in.
My father must have seen the potential in the young boy, or he knew who his father was, because he didn’t fight me when I asked if Nolan could stay.
“You are nothing like your father,” I said firmly, but the tension in Nolan’s shoulders told me he didn’t believe me.
The silence was heavier this time. I knew there was no convincing him, not when he was so far in his head.
But I couldn’t help but feel the same way as my best friend.
I was just a pawn in my father’s plan. The prince of Lovelen, silver-tongued and dangerous when necessary.
I could handle it, compartmentalize the pain and the shame.
I had been forged to carry the weight. To pull the trigger. To slit the throats of our enemies.
“What if it had been me?” I asked suddenly, surprising even myself with the sudden question.
Nolan’s eyes snapped to mine. “What?”
“What if I were the one who broke the code? If I had made a mistake like that. Gave something away. Would you have finished me too?”
The muscles in his jaw twitched, eyes not even blinking as he stared me down.
“No,” he said simply.
“Why not?”
“Because I would never let it get that far, Kaius.” Nolan narrowed his eyes at me.
There it was. That twisted, fierce loyalty we both had for each other.
The thing that we never said but always meant.
Both of us would bleed for each other, kill without question, cover for the other, even if it meant betraying the very code we had just sworn in blood to.
Because that’s what you did for a brother.
“I don’t need you to protect me,” I said, taking another long pull from my cigarette. The smoke burned my lungs, but at least I could still feel the pain.
Nolan stepped forward, hand still bleeding, voice sharp as razors. “I don’t protect you, Kaius. I stand with you. There is a difference.”
My throat tightened at the statement. We’d grown up in fire, both of us orphaned in different ways.
I had a crown I had never asked for, a legacy soaked in secrets and blood.
Nolan had a serial killer father and a mother who had run the second he was behind bars, leaving two boys to fend for themselves. We found each other in the wreckage.
The Knights of Lovelen had molded us. Twisted us into the men we were, but we had shaped each other into something more sacred.
Throwing down the cigarette, I stomped out the ember before offering him my bleeding hand. He didn’t hesitate, pressing his palm with mine. Blood smeared between our fingers like war paint.
“No more traitors,” I say.
“Only brothers,” Nolan answered.