Chapter 13 – ELLIE
ELLIE
I stare at Kade, this twisted version of the boy who once drew on my cast when I broke my wrist, and try to process what the fuck is happening.
What he just said.
These can't be my boys. My boys nursed wounded birds back to health and stole candy bars to share five ways. They ran a racket, sure, but that was juvenile shit. They didn't run fucking criminal empires from throne rooms overlooking drug-fueled raves.
But the evidence is right here, wearing their faces like Halloween masks.
"Fuck off." I smack his hand away from my chin. "You don't get to taunt me with your dramatic bullshit."
Kade's laugh is sharp enough to draw blood. "Princess, this is nothing more than what we're due. Four years of interest on a debt you never thought you'd have to pay."
I calculate the distance to the door. Twenty feet, maybe less. The guard's built like a brickhouse, but if I'm fast enough—
My feet are moving before my brain catches up, sneakers squeaking against the concrete floor as I bolt for the exit even though it means abandoning the bag full of cash I dropped when Kade cornered me.
For half a second, I think I might actually make it.
Then the guard steps into my path like a wall of meat and tactical gear and I bounce off him like a pinball hitting a bumper.
My back hits a solid wall of lean muscle.
"Where do you think you're going so soon?" Cyrus's voice drips condescension from behind me. "We're just getting reacquainted."
I spin around, trapped between the guard and four sets of eyes that used to look at me with love. Now they're dissecting me like I'm a meal to devour.
Three sets. I can't see Tank's eyes behind his mask as he looms behind Kade, Jinx, and Cyrus like a silent shadow.
"If I go missing, people will know." The threat sounds hollow even to my own ears, but I grip it like the life preserver it is. "Todd has security on me. My roommate knows I'm supposed to be back tonight. Someone will—"
Kade's bitter laugh cuts through my desperate calculations.
"You think that's what we're going to do?
Kill you?" He shakes his head, a few strands of his styled brown hair falling into those cold gray eyes.
His face splits with the widest grin yet.
"Been too long to let you off that easy, Princess. "
"What did I do?" I ask, even as I know the answer.
"You left." Cyrus snaps the words like a whip, eyes flashing behind his glasses.
He's changed, too. He's still lean, but he's filled out with muscle and his angular face makes him look like Clark Kent turned into a fucking mafioso.
Cyrus's lip curls as he glowers down at me. "You walked away without a word, without a trace. Like we were nothing. Like we never fucking existed."
I flinch, the accusation digging into me like a knife. I want to argue, want to scream that I tried, that I meant every word I wrote in those letters, that I snuck out so many times before Todd's security caught me and he—
I force myself to stop spiraling.
From their perspective, I just vanished.
One day I was theirs, the next I was gone. And explaining now would just sound like I'm making excuses. Trying to save my ass from whatever revenge they've been cooking up for four years.
The fucked up thing is, part of me is relieved. They didn't forget me.
I'd rather them hate me than forget me. At least if they hate me, they remember the girl I used to be before she was hollowed out and filled with somebody else.
My eyes find Tank, still wearing that gas mask like armor against the world. I can't see his eyes through the dark lenses, can't read what he's thinking.
Does he hate me too?
The boy who held me in his strong arms and let me cry for as long as I needed, who carved me a bird just like the one we saved together? The boy who drove me home that final night and signed I love you on the way to signing fly?
The thought that Tank out of all of them might hate me makes something in my chest crack like safety glass, still holding its shape but shattered beyond repair.
I was wrong.
I'd rather be forgotten.
They have me surrounded now, a circle of beautiful predators. Even Jinx, who doesn't have the same hostile energy as the others, has this bitter twist to his perfect mouth. He's not making any move to step in, to defend me like he would have before.
Before I ruined everything.
He's gorgeous, though. They all are. Four years turned them from cute boys into devastating men.
Jinx's blond hair falls past his shoulders now, all tousled perfection.
Tank's always been huge, but now he's even more massive, his presence and the whooshing rasp of his breath through his mask filling the room.
And Kade…
Styled hair, tailored clothes that make him look like the underworld god he is. That same cocky confidence he wore like an oversized suit when we were kids clings to every fiber of his being, except now…
Well, now he's grown into it.
He stands in front of me, hands in his pockets like we're having a casual conversation instead of… whatever the fuck this is.
"We'll take your job." His words are casual, but his gray eyes burn into me. "Kill your stepdaddy for you."
Wait… what?
Conflicted relief floods through me for one heartbeat.
Even if this is what I came for, I didn't want it to be them.
And of all the times I've dreamed about what it would be like if we met again, if I could ever stop being too terrified to find out if they even still remembered me, I never imagined it would be like this.
"But in return," Kade continues, his voice dripping with menace, "we want something."
I wait, my heart pounding so loud I'm sure they can all hear it.
Of course they want something.
We're not kids playing Conquest in the dead grass in front of a rusted-out RV anymore. This is the real world, and nothing is free.
Not even the memories.
"What?" The word comes out strangled, but I consider getting anything out of my mouth a victory. This wasn't how tonight was supposed to go.
This wasn't how anything was supposed to go.
"You. For one year. Starting tonight."
I freeze, staring blankly at Kade.
"What the hell does that mean?" I hear myself asking, but I already know the answer. I can see it in the way Kade's eyes track down my body, the way Jinx shifts in his peripheral vision, the way Cyrus's burning green eyes are locked on me.
Four predators surrounding their prey.
"Exactly what I said." Kade steps closer, and I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "For one year, you belong to us, Princess. Body and soul. You're ours to keep, claim, fuck, and do whatever else we want to—without question or resistance—for one whole year. Starting tonight."
The word 'fuck' hits me like a slap, even though I should have expected it, and in a way, I was. These aren't the boys who blushed when our hands brushed on the playground. These are men who've probably had more women than I want to think about.
"And after that," Kade continues, like he's discussing a business contract instead of my body, "you're free to walk back into your pristine, perfect life.
And considering the senator doesn't have any other brats—at least as far as we know—you'll have plenty of years of freedom to enjoy your delicious inheritance. "
Inheritance?
He thinks this is about money?
He thinks I want Todd dead so I can get my hands on his fortune and live the high life without having to play the perfect daughter anymore?
The accusation stings worse than everything else combined because it tells me exactly what he thinks of me now. I'm not their Ellie anymore. I'm just another rich bitch looking to cash in.
I could always deny it. Could tell them about the bruises Todd's careful to leave where they won't show.
Could explain how he controls every aspect of our lives, how he drugs my mother into compliance, how he's threatened to have us both killed in an 'accident' if we ever try to leave or even just embarrass him in front of his constituents and all those flashing cameras that see everything and nothing all at once.
But what's the fucking point? They've already decided who I am. And maybe it's easier this way. Easier to be the villain in their story than to admit I'm just as broken as they are.
"I can't just go missing." My voice sounds steadier than I feel. "I have a life. School. Public appearances. People will notice, and they'll know I had something to do with his death if I vanish right before it happens. It might even tip him off."
Kade's sneer could strip paint. "Oh, we'll cut you a deal, Princess.
You can go to school during the day. Let the senator parade you around like the good little doll you are at events.
" He leans in close enough that I can smell his dark, expensive cologne.
He always did have rich taste. "But after hours? You're all ours."
"And then," Cyrus adds coldly, "after the senator's tragic and untimely demise, you'll drop out of university like the good little girl you are to comfort your mother.
But really, you'll be staying with us until it all blows over.
Can't take any chances of you getting a guilty conscience or trying to save your ass by throwing us under the bus. "
I look between them, searching for any sign of the boys I used to know. Any sign at all they're still in there, in the bodies of these men.
Jinx won't meet my eyes, studying his rings like they're the most interesting things in the world.
Cyrus watches me like I'm an ant under a microscope.
Tank hasn't moved a muscle or made any kind of sound at all. He just stands there like a stone monument to everything I've lost. A ghost.
And Kade looks at me like I'm both his salvation and his damnation, and he can't decide which he wants more.
No.
My boys are dead.
The thought makes my stomach twist even more than the realization they want me. Not as their friend, not even as a lover, but as a plaything. A toy to use and then discard when the year is up.
"I..." The words stick in my throat like I ate glass. "I can't do this."
Panic wins over logic, and I'm moving again, stumbling toward the door on legs that feel like water. This time, the guard looks to Kade for instruction, massive hand hovering over what's definitely a gun under his jacket.
"Let her go." Kade's voice carries an authority that makes people obey without thinking.
The guard steps aside, and I practically fall through the doorway in my desperation to escape. He puts my phone in my hand at some point, but I don’t even remember taking it.
"Here, Princess. Catch," Jinx adds, tossing the bag full of stolen cash into my path like it's nothing to them. I almost trip over it. More money than any of us could have dreamed of ever getting our hands on once upon a time, and all they want is my suffering.
I grab the bag on autopilot as I bolt through the door like a rabbit escaping a den of wolves. I half expect them to try to stop me, but they don't.
But Kade's voice follows me into the darkness, confident and cruel and absolutely certain.
"She'll be back."