Chapter 11 – ELLIE
ELLIE
The information staring back at me from my laptop screen could get me arrested if not fucking killed if the wrong person saw it, so naturally, that's when Heather decides to burst through our dorm room door like she's auditioning for a SWAT team.
"What're you studying?"
She drops her lacrosse bag with a thud that makes me jump, my hand already slamming the laptop shut.
"Econ test." The lie slides out smooth as Todd's campaign promises. "You know how Professor Dodge loves his supply and demand curves."
Heather makes a face, already peeling off her practice jersey. "Gross. I'd rather run suicide drills than look at another graph."
She disappears into our shared bathroom, and I wait until I hear the shower running before opening the laptop again.
The dark web forum loads slowly through the Tor browser Cyrus taught me to use years ago.
That was back when he was trying to impress me with his hacking skills, not knowing I'd use them for this shit.
My fingers tap against my thigh.
One, two, three, four, five.
The rhythm keeps me grounded as I scroll through posts about them like I'm giving myself one last chance to back out of this.
The Kings of Ruin.
A killers-for-hire group that operates in the shadows of our city, making problems disappear for the right price.
Most of what I find is bullshit. Urban legends and wishful thinking from people who want to believe someone's out there serving justice with a side of violence.
But buried in the noise, patterns emerge. Four members, always four. Not the best number. They use chess piece aliases like they're playing some fucked up game with people's lives.
King is their charismatic leader.
Rook is their silent muscle.
Bishop is their hacker.
And Knight is unhinged chaos incarnate.
A landlord found zip-tied to a chair in his own office, his right hand wrapped around a pen and every finger broken. Everyone thinks he deserved it. And maybe he did. Or maybe he just pissed off someone with money.
A college athlete found howling under the bleachers with both kneecaps shattered. He never played again. Never talked to cops. Whatever he did, he knew better than to make it worse.
A pharmaceutical exec who disappeared for seventy-two hours. When he resurfaced, he'd transferred his entire net worth to some nonprofit and checked himself into a psych ward. Swore up and down he saw Rook unmasked and that he was a demon straight from hell itself. Became intensely religious.
And then there are the ones who don't come back at all. No bodies, no investigations, just... gone. The forum calls these "permanent solutions."
Premium pricing. No questions asked.
These aren't vigilantes with a code. They're killers for hire who've figured out how to make people disappear without leaving a trace.
And that makes them perfect.
The water shuts off in the bathroom. I close everything, clear my browser history twice just to be safe, then open my actual econ notes like the good little senator's daughter I'm supposed to be.
"You coming to the party tonight?" Heather emerges in a towel, her brown hair dripping onto our questionably clean carpet. "Sigma Nu's throwing a rager, so you know there's gonna be good shit. Better than the kind you keep in that bag."
She waggles her eyebrows at the hot pink pill case sitting on my desk and I hastily swipe it into my pocket.
Guess I haven't been as subtle about my increase in reliance on these little white gems as I'd hoped. Whatever. I tell myself I'll wean off them once this nightmare is over. In the meantime, it's all about coping and surviving.
"Can't." I gesture vaguely at my laptop. "This test is worth thirty percent."
She shrugs, already rifling through her closet for whatever microscopic outfit she'll squeeze into. "Your loss. Josh has been asking about you again."
I somehow suppress a shudder at the thought of Josh. Six-foot-two of entitled lacrosse player who thinks my stepfather's position makes me interesting. He cornered me at the last party, breath reeking of cheap beer, hands wandering until I accidentally spilled my drink on his crotch.
Oops.
"Tell Brad I joined a convent."
"Are you even Catholic?"
"Details."
She laughs, pulling on a dress that barely qualifies as clothing. "You're weird, Ellie. But like, in a good way."
If only she knew how weird. Like how I've spent weeks researching hired killers instead of studying. Skimming cash from ATMs across the city, never the same one twice, building an untraceable payment. Or how almost half of my cash is in shit like Bitcoin.
Cyrus would be fucking proud.
Heather leaves in a puff of vanilla body spray. The second the door clicks shut, I'm moving.
The cash is hidden in duffel bag underneath my bed.
My hands shake as I count it for the fifth time.
Twenty thousand in hundreds, rubber-banded in neat stacks.
Another ten thousand in crypto, give or take whatever Bitcoin's doing today.
The seed phrase is backed up on a USB drive that looks like a tube of lipstick.
Thirty grand total.
Everything I've saved, stolen, and skimmed over the past six months.
Some people save for spring break in Cabo. I saved to have my stepfather murdered.
The irony isn't lost on me that I'm using Todd's own money to pay for his execution. Poetic justice, or whatever the fuck you call it when you hire vigilantes with your abuser's cash.
I pull on my most forgettable outfit. Dark jeans, black hoodie, clothes that make you invisible in a city that only notices designer labels. The pink streaks in my hair are hidden under a baseball cap I stole from some frat boy's room last semester. Can't look like Eleanor Waterson.
Tonight? I need to be nobody.
The address burned into my memory leads to the industrial district, where abandoned warehouses rot like broken teeth in the city's mouth. It's places like this where my boys and I used to drink stolen beer and pretend we owned the world.
I tried to find them. That first year, when Todd's leash was still new and I was stupid enough to think I could slip it, I spent hours in the school library searching for any sign of my boys on computers he couldn't track.
I found nothing. It was like they'd never existed.
Once, I made it three blocks from the trailer park before the black SUV appeared in my rearview mirror. And I learned my first of many horrible fucking lessons that day.
Even now, I find myself jumping at every shadow. Every shadow could hide someone who'd slit my throat for the cash in my bag.
Or worse, another black SUV.
But that's paranoia. He's watching me, and so are his goons, but not that close. I haven't given him reason. Certainly no reason to think his wife's only daughter who can't even watch horror movies without emotional support is plotting his murder.
The building squats against the night sky with its broken windows and rust-bleeding walls. A few years ago, I would've walked into a place like this without thinking twice. Now my hand finds the pepper spray in my pocket like that would do fuck-all against the kinds of people I'm here to meet.
A man emerges from the shadows before I reach the door. Built like a refrigerator, face hidden under a ski mask that does nothing to hide the fact that he could snap me in half without breaking a sweat.
"You lost, little girl?"
"I have business with the Kings."
He barks a laugh. "Sure you do. And I'm dating the Princess of fucking Wales."
I pull out a burner phone to show him the message thread. The invitation that took weeks of encrypted conversations to earn. His demeanor shifts, suddenly all business.
"Spread 'em."
The pat-down is thorough, and humiliating. His hands linger just long enough to make my skin crawl but not long enough to justify the knee to the balls I'm considering. He takes my pepper spray, my phone, everything except the bag full of money.
"Follow me. Don't touch anything. Don't look at anyone. Don't fucking breathe wrong."
The inside is a maze of shadows and urban decay. Water drips from exposed pipes, the sound echoing like a countdown. We pass shapes in the darkness. Other guards, maybe, or just the usual people who haunt places like this. My fingers tap against my leg.
One, two, three, four, five.
Stay calm. Stay focused. Stay alive.
The throne room is exactly as dramatic as it sounds. Someone's converted an old loading dock into something that looks like a cross between a medieval court and a BDSM club.
Four chairs face away from me, their backs to the entrance in a deliberate power move that forces anyone who wants an audience to walk the length of the room and circle around to face them.
Although chairs might be an understatement.
These are elaborate jet black thrones that look stolen from some gothic horror movie set.
One-way glass stretches across the wall in front of them, giving the Kings a full view of the dance floor in the seedy club beyond while the sweaty, half-naked bodies grinding on the other side remain completely oblivious.
The pulsing light from the club lights up the throne room in sickening red and violet and green neon that kicks off an instant migraine.
Or maybe it's just the stress.
"State your business." The voice comes from one of the center chairs, distorted through what sounds like a voice modulator. But underneath the electronic warping, something familiar scratches at my memory.
I really am losing it.
"I have a job for you." My practiced words come out steady, cold. The voice of someone who's already dead inside, just waiting for her body to catch up.
"A job?" He gives a vaguely mechanical laugh. Whichever assholes are in the two chairs left of him chuckle. Nothing from the chair on the right. "This isn't a career fair. You're gonna have to be a little more specific."
I clench my jaw, reminding myself I've already come this far. There's enough damning evidence between those messages and just walking into this place with a shit ton of stolen cash.
And apparently, this asshole wants me to spell it out.
"I need someone eliminated."
"Eliminated." He draws out the word like he's tasting it. "That's a very clinical way to say murder, sweetheart."
The condescension in his voice, even through the modulator, makes my teeth grind. But I force myself to stay calm and not tell him to shove it for repeating everything I fucking say. "The target is high-profile. Security detail, public figure. It won't be easy."
"We don't do easy." This from the chair on the far left. A rougher, colder voice. "Easy doesn't pay our rates."
"I have thirty thousand. Cash and crypto."
Silence. Then laughter from the first guy, rich and mocking. "Thirty grand? You think we're some corner boys who'll pop someone for pocket change?"
I clench my jaw tighter. "The person I talked to on the secure channel said—"
"Thirty grand is the price of entrance," he cuts me off, dragging out his words like he's talking to an idiot. "Thirty grand might buy intimidation or a security detail. Elimination?" All I see is him having his hand dismissively. "Please."
My feet stay rooted to the floor. There's not much space between the glass and those thrones, and I know these guys are packing heat. So is the armed guard standing silently but not so subtly by the door, watching me.
It feels like walking to an executioner's block, but I make myself move, circling around the row of thrones toward the glass wall so I can face them.
I try to give the far throne on the right, the one belonging to the only King who hasn't mocked me yet, a wide berth as I pass.
But I can feel him staring. Even in the shadows, I can make out how fucking huge he is. Huge and clad in jet black clothes.
I stop in the narrow space between them and the one-way glass, my back to the oblivious dancers who have no idea what's happening on this side of the mirror.
And I get my first look at the Kings of Ruin.
They're all wearing masks, because of course they fucking are. But it's the details that make my blood run cold.
The one who spoke first—King, if the ego is anything to go off of—wears a pristine white mask that covers the top half of his face, leaving his mouth exposed.
Full lips set into a malicious smirk and a jawline that could cut diamond.
His dark hair is slicked back, and there's something about the way he holds himself, the casual arrogance, the fingers drumming against the armrest in a rhythm I know like my own heartbeat.
To his far left sits a tall, lean man who's still plenty imposing even if he isn't as solidly built as King.
A solid white, featureless mask covers his entire face except the eyeholes, but even in the pulsing light, I can make out the glint of the piercing green eyes behind it.
Eyes as intense as they are cold. For some reason, they widen with shock, as if I'm not what he was expecting.
The man next to him wears an ornate Venetian mask of sharp white angles and metallic gold paint.
Blond hair falls past his shoulders in a golden cascade, and he's lounging in his throne like he owns the world, long legs crossed in front of him.
Those long fingers adorned with rings that catch the light and letters tattooed across his knuckles that read…
Nope. I have to be seeing wrong. There's no way he's got the word Jinx tattooed across his fist. That would be a fucking insane coincidence.
But it's the fourth one that makes me freeze.
The silent giant dressed all in black, his dark hair swept partially back from a face covered entirely by a leather gas mask.
And not just any gas mask, either. This is a gas mask I recognize because I bought it years ago.
I'd saved for months to get it because Tank was obsessed with this cheesy post-apocalyptic video game where the main character always wore a gas mask. Tank liked him because even though he was scarred and looked terrifying beneath the mask, he was one of the good guys. He saved people.
The perfect costume for the one night of the year Tank didn't have to feel so different from everyone else.
"The one night everyone looks like a monster," Kade had pointed out so eloquently, earning an elbow to the ribs from yours truly. We all knew he would die for his brother without a second thought, but sensitivity was never really his thing.
The memory of Tank squeezing the life out of me when I gave it to him hits me like a fucking train. I barely even hear King over the roaring in my ears.
"Alright. Let's have a look at you, Prin—"
King breaks off abruptly, his jaw slightly slack. Even through the masks, I can feel the weight of their collective shock matching mine. His voice rasps in disbelief as he finishes on an exhale.
"—cess."
No.
No.
They can't be the Kings of Ruin.
My boys.