Chapter 3
Lucas
INITIATION: TEST TWO.
After replacing my set of forty-pound weights on the rack, I picked up my water bottle and joined Levi on the treadmills for a cool-down.
We were almost ready to wrap up our early morning workout before heading to the Temptations theater for rehearsals, still waiting on Dane for our next assignment.
These tests were going to be far easier than I’d initially thought, especially with Dane briefing us on everything that was to be expected beforehand. We knew exactly what to expect, and we made our move confidently without hesitation.
I couldn’t be prouder to have seen my brother stabbing a man to death right alongside me—partners in crime to the fullest extent.
Witnessing the legacy from Red Magic take his kill with absolutely no fucking remorse put things into perspective, and I felt no guilt for my actions or those of my brother.
Did that make me fucked in the head? In some ways, sure. But did it also bring me one step closer to living a life of luxury that I’d dreamed of one day obtaining? Damn right.
Sky-rise penthouse overlooking The Strip, here we fucking come.
“Any news?” Levi wheezed, removing an earbud as he slowed his pace from a fast sprint down to a light jog on the treadmill.
“Nah. Nothing yet, but Dane will be at rehearsals, and I’d planned to talk to him then.
He never gave me a timeline on our tests and when they were expected to be issued…
” Levi was staring out the window at the street below, and I dragged my tongue along the inside of my cheek before finally asking him the burning question that had been gnawing at the back of my mind for the last week: “How are you holding up?”
My brother only shrugged in response, slowing the machine to a casual stroll while he caught his breath and braced his hands on the guardrails for support.
We’ve always had an open-door relationship and never hid anything from one another, so it wasn't really any of my business as to how he felt about the kill if he hadn't said anything to me about it by now.
However, I needed that peace of mind—the verbal confirmation that we were still on the same team with this process.
“I’m fine. Why?” Levi mumbled once his breathing had leveled out.
“You haven’t said much about what happened, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Mentally. I needed to know that he was coping with the life we’d taken and not reconsidering the decision instead.
“I didn’t feel anything, if that’s what you’re asking.” His tone was blunt as stone, but his words were laced with a hint of guilt.
“You make it sound like that’s a problem?”
Levi stood to his full height, grabbing his towel and using it to soak up the sweat still dripping from his brow.
“I—”
“Well, well, well, look who it is. The Castiel brothers.” Dane interrupted as he hopped on the treadmill to Levi’s left, dialing the machine up to a running pace right off the bat.
“You boys ready for your next test? It’s gonna be a fun one.
” He gave a sly wink, the smirk on his face pulling hard and accentuating his dimples.
Fun? Jesus Christ…
“About fucking time. What took so long?” I rushed out, finding relief in his words while at the same time wondering what kind of man that response made me for reacting that way.
“Easy there, Mister stab happy. We don’t have targets lined up one right after the other like a police lineup.
It takes time and heavy vetting to ensure that no mistakes are made.
It took nearly a month to have three available at the first initiation test. Those poor fucks locked in a cell just waiting to…
” Dane lightly dragged his thumb across the front of his neck and clicked his tongue when he’d reached his earlobe, gesturing what couldn’t be spoken out loud.
“What do you mean by heavy vetting?” Levi asked, pressing his palm on the red button to stop his machine just as I had when Dane showed up.
It made sense that they would need to ensure that the crime was severe enough to warrant the punishment; I shouldn’t have expected anything less.
“Look, there's a lot more that you don’t know, and over time, you’ll become well acquainted with the MUR’s inner workings, once you make it to the ring ceremony.
But right now, I need you two to focus on the remaining tasks at hand, because if either of you fails, then the details no longer matter. ”
We wouldn’t fail—that word held no weight in our vocabulary.
After our late-evening performance, Levi and I met Dane in the backstage lounge room. He was sitting on the couch, already dressed and ready to go in ripped jeans and a black T-shirt that matched the ring on his right hand—an accessory that I wanted so fucking badly.
“If you boys are ready, your target is waiting for you in his suite upstairs. I’ve handled most of the work—strapping him down, taping his mouth shut, so there isn’t much left for you to do other than put him out of his fucking misery—however slowly you believe he deserves it.”
I think now is the time to ask about the type of offense a person has to commit to be sentenced to death…
“Say we wanted to know the reason our targets had been selected? Can you or Dustin provide us with that kind of information, or is it strictly confidential? Just a straightforward ‘do as you’re told and don’t ask stupid questions’ kind of arrangement…
” Levi beat me to the punch, stepping forward as he slid his hands into the front pockets of his dark-wash jeans.
Dane laughed as he sat up and pushed off the couch to stand, adjusting his shirt and pulling his jeans up from where they had started to sag on his hips.
“Yeah, I figured you’d ask that at some point…
When we’re given the initial assignment, Dustin sends us the details of the crime they’ve committed so we can better judge how to handle their untimely departure.
Whether it be a quick bullet to the head or something more prolonged and drawn out. ” In other words, torture.
“And this target?” I jumped in, referring back to when he’d mentioned that this would be fun at the gym.
“I’m not going to give this piece of shit the respect of even uttering his name.
But as far as the crime? Drugs, and lots of them.
” Dane dragged his hand through his dark, mussed hair, breathing a heavy sigh before continuing.
“As you can imagine, street drugs are a rapidly spreading problem—one that’s hard to control even for the government, and while we might not be capable of eradicating the issue from this city—yet—we can at least contain and regulate it.
However, this son of a bitch is making it hard even to do that since he started lacing his supply with Fentanyl.
Your target’s been the cause of more than one hundred overdoses—just in the last month.
He’s a fucking disease and deserves to be brutally murdered for all the lives he’s taken. ”
Holy shit.
“Well then, what the fuck are we waiting for? Let's give this guy the farewell party of his fucking life.” Levi smirked, and I could feel his shift in demeanor—the confidence and enthusiasm that radiated for the kill.
I wondered what he had planned… But then again, I suddenly had ideas of my own.
Dane escorted us to the suite where he’d restrained our target, the shit eating grin on his face not faltering for a single second from the moment we left the lounge. His excitement was contagious, and even had Levi walking with a fuck around and find out swagger.
I felt a rush of adrenaline wash over me as we approached, ready to teach a lesson and discover just how dark a path we were paving.
Levi nudged me in the arm with his elbow as we stopped in front of the door—the same brotherly check-in I did with him back at the mansion.
Even though I knew I could handle what we were doing, there was always that little voice in the back of my mind constantly urging me to rethink my decisions, but there was no room left for self-doubt, not anymore.
I had to be confident in my future choices. Weakness would only get us killed, and as impulsive as I was, the last thing I wanted to see was Levi dead because of me.
“Luke…” My brother whispered while Dane pulled a white key card from his back pocket and held it to the black scanner on the wall.
“Yeah?”
“Remember all those times we were told we weren’t good enough or would never amount to anything? That we’d become nothing more than menaces to society?” Odd time to bring that up… but sure, let’s open an old wound…
“In our teens, yeah…”
“Well, this is where we prove all of them wrong. Prove that the Castiel brothers are fucking badasses.”
“Billionaire badasses.”
“Exactly—”
“If you two are done with your little pep talk…” Dane interjected, bored. “Your target and test number two are waiting for you inside.” He gestured with his free hand through the door while sliding aside to allow us in.
The suite was dark, but as we stepped through the entryway, the living room lights switched on one by one to their lowest setting, triggered by motion detection and revealing our second target in the middle of the large living room.
“Sensory deprivation is a bitch, isn’t it?” Dane spoke in greeting to the man bound to a chair with his mouth sealed shut.
All furniture that would’ve filled the massive area had been shoved to the outer edges, turning what must have been a luxurious living space into a temporary torture pit.
The target tried to answer—or scream, his response muffled by all the duct tape slapped across his mouth… and eyes.
“Did you know that if you remove one sense from a person, in your case—sight—the others are substantially heightened to compensate?” Dane paused as he paced around the room, asking a question that he knew the man wouldn’t be able to respond to.
“Did you also know that certain drugs, like hallucinogens, can amplify or distort the same five senses?—I mean, of course you did, you sold them after all—more specifically, your bestseller, Angel Dust.”
The man started to squirm in his chair at the name, his wrists twisting in the thick zip ties used to restrain them. Even with the low lighting, it was hard to miss the dark crimson marks that had started to break and bleed from the friction.
“My protégés have a choice. To let you die quickly and easily, or to let you explore your senses for just a little bit longer.” Dane extended his arm and pointed behind us to a bar cart positioned against a wall with a cutout.
Displayed on top were three items, a gun and a knife, which were to be expected based on the first night, but the third—a syringe, loaded with a milky white liquid.
My brother and I eyed one another, with the same burning question, and knew the all-too-obvious answer. Dane wanted us to inject the target with his drug of choice before ending his life.
Wasting no time for fear of appearing weak, I stepped toward the cart, securing the syringe while Levi grabbed the knife, and together we approached the center of the room.
Dane’s white teeth beamed even brighter in the dark, like a Cheshire moon in a response that told us we’d made the right decision.
I pressed my lips together in an effort to hold on to my humanity before jamming the needle into the man’s deltoid and plunging the toxic mixture into him, not wasting a single drop.
When the barrel was empty, I retracted my hand and stepped back beside my brother as we waited for the show to begin.
Within literal seconds, his body began convulsing, the drug taking effect instantly, while we continued to watch as he overdosed on a lethal level of what I could only assume was PCP.
My upper lip and nose twitched at the sight as Levi fought an audible cringe beside me.
Neither of us was having fun, all while Dane appeared menacing as fuck—his eyes glowing at the sight of a man frothing at the mouth and choking on his own bodily fluids.
The duct tape could only hold back so much, and eventually, all that vomit and bile started seeping through the cracks, dripping down his chin and onto his shirt.
Having seen enough, Levi took a step back, repositioning himself before whipping the knife at the target, hitting his mark, and piercing the side of the guy’s neck. Blood sprayed from the impact as the blade successfully severed one of his carotid arteries.
This was the moment when I started to reconsider choosing knives over guns as my stomach churned at the sight.
The blood soaked and stained the cream carpet beneath the chair, the man’s clothes were completely soaked as he struggled in his final seconds of life, right up until the entire room fell eerily silent, and he stopped moving entirely.
Unable to bear witness to the result of our actions much longer, we left Dane to revel in his moment of fucking madness, exiting the room without another word.
Skirting around the corner, we waited just outside the door, staring off into nothing while our bond was screaming everything to each other.
When our gazes eventually met, only one thought crossed my mind, and I could see it in his vivid blue eyes.
Two down… one to go.