Chapter 2
TWO
KASHTON
INITIATION
Devotion
Sophomore year at Barrington University
Igroan at the gnawing pain in the back of my head. A pounding fucking headache.
“The fuck?” I get to my wobbly legs. Placing my hand on the wall, I run the other down my face to see if I’m bleeding. Nothing. Then why do I feel like I got the shit beaten out of me?
“Hello?” I call out and look around. I’m in the elevator at Carnage. Of course I’m fucking here. I hate this goddamn place, and my father knows it. I’m only here when the Spade brothers force me to be.
I notice it’s descending, and the button controls inform me I’m headed to the basement. “Fuck.”
It’s my initiation. Last thing I remember is my father calling me to his office. I thought it was odd, but he’s always doing things that don’t make sense to me. He offered me a brandy snifter that I couldn’t object to.
Now I know why—he drugged me. The headache confirms it.
The door slides open and the cold air rushes into the confined space, followed by the smell of blood. More than usual.
Stepping off the elevator, I see the plastic strip curtains. Blood is splattered all over them and dripping off the bottom onto the floor. This is supposed to be my greatest fear. But he better try harder than this. Blood? It doesn’t faze me.
A blood-curdling scream echoes throughout the concrete room, making my heart leap in my chest. “No.” A sob follows. “Please…don’t…” she continues to beg.
I rush through the curtains, letting them slap me in the face.
The pits are filled with blood. “What?” I rush over to them, dropping to my knees and shoving my hands through the bars, sloshing the blood around, trying to feel for a body, but there’s nothing in them.
I do the same to the others. Also empty.
“Where did all this blood come from?” I grind out.
“Please, don’t hurt me…” the female cries.
I know that voice. “Ashtyn?” I shout, getting to my feet and rushing down the hallway to the cells. “Ashtyn?” It’s Adam’s twin sister. We grew up with her. He would kill me if I allowed anything to happen to her. Same with Saint. He’s one of my best friends, and he’s in love with her.
“Pl-ease?” Her voice cracks and my breathing accelerates.
“I’m coming, Ash. Where are you?” I quickly scan each cell on the left and right as I frantically make my way down the hallway. “Ashtyn?” I shout, starting to panic.
Coming to the last one on the right, I see her inside. “Ash—”
“Oh, thank God, Kash. Please, Kash. Please save me,” she begs through a sob.
There’s a metal table in the center of the cell. She’s bent over the side, arms out, with her wrists secured to the front legs. Her legs are spread wide and connected to the table legs as well.
“Help me,” she screams, pulling on the restraints.
I try to open the cell, but it’s locked. “Fuck,” I shout. “Hang on. I’ve got to get a key.”
“Wait. No. Don’t leave…”
I’m already running down the hallway back toward the pits. I go over to the locker and quickly scan the keys hanging there. Finding the one I want, I rush back to her. “I’m here, Ash. I’m here.” I try to unlock it, but it’s not working.
“Goddammit,” I grind out, knowing this is the correct key.
It has to be. “I—” My eyes scan the cell, and my words trail off when I see she now has a gag in her mouth.
It’s an O-ring, secured tightly around her cheeks and shoved behind her teeth.
It’s old. Rusted and jagged. Blood runs from her pried-open mouth and drips to the floor.
She’s sobbing and yanking on the restraints.
A man steps out of the dark corner. He’s dressed in black jeans, a Lords mask covering his face. He’s shirtless, and I can see the Lords crest branded on his chest. “Don’t fucking touch her,” I shout. “Hang on, Ash. I’m coming.”
The lock shakes in my hand while I try and shove the key into it, but it doesn’t work.
“Fuck.” I drop the key, and I watch the Lord walk over to the table.
Her wide, red-rimmed eyes look at him over her shoulder in horror.
I wrap my bloody hands around the bars and yank on them in a desperate attempt to get to her.
She sobs through the gag and her small body trembles. “Hang on, Ashtyn.” I run down the hallway again. I rush back to the locker to grab more keys. Maybe I’m not thinking clearly. The drugs are fogging my brain, and I just grabbed the wrong one. But they’re all gone. There’s nothing there.
I run both blood-covered hands through my hair and sprint back down the hall. My heart racing at the possibility of what the Lord could do to her if I don’t save her.
My steps slow as I approach her cell. She’s lying across the table she’s tied to. The Lord standing behind her. His jeans are undone, down by his ankles. The table rattles from his hard thrusts while he rapes her.
“I’m going to kill you,” I shout, slamming my hand against the bars.
He leans over her trembling body, grabs a handful of her hair, and yanks her head back.
“No. No. No. No,” I shout, wrapping my hands around the bars.
His free hand is holding a knife, and he places it up against her neck before he slices the blade across her throat from ear to ear. Blood gushes from the wound and her body goes slack before he lets go of her head.
I fall backward into the wall and bow my head. My fingers tighten in my hair, and I let out a scream of frustration. My chest begins to burn, and I slap a hand over my mouth to stop from vomiting. I failed her. Once again, I couldn’t save a woman who needed me.
I might as well let the Lords kill me, too. My brothers will never forgive me for failing one of our own. She’s from a Spade brother and Saint has already claimed her as his.
Looking up from my place on the wall, I see the Lord is no longer in her cell. He left. I place my hands on the bars, and the door squeaks, opening.
I enter and walk over to her body. I untie her wrists and ankles and then pull her limp body off the edge of the table and pick her up in my arms.
“I’m sorry,” I say through the knot in my throat.
Exiting the cell, I take a right, and my heavy boots guide me to an opening. I come to a stop to see my brothers.
My stomach drops when I see them all hanging side by side with their hands secured to the ceiling. Their heads are down, looking at the floor that their feet aren’t able to touch.
I lay Ashtyn on a table to the left and rush to them. “Haidyn.” I shove his head up, and blood runs from his neck and down his body.
I jump back as it splashes me. I begin to gag from the overwhelming smell. Rushing over to Saint, I find he’s also had his neck slashed. My throat burns with bile as my brother’s blood covers my hand and arm. I do the same with Adam.
I take a stumbling step back to see them all hanging there with their throats slit. Hearing a sound behind me, I turn just in time to see the Lord’s fist hurtling at my face.
“Fuck,” I groan.
I blink to clear my blurry vision. I’m still in the basement, now sitting in a chair, my hands cuffed behind it. My father sits on the edge of the table in front of me.
The chair rattles when I go to get up, but my hair is grabbed from behind, and I’m forced back into the seat. They pull my head back at an extreme angle, pinching the back of my neck. I bare my teeth at my father. “You fucking piece of shit.” I spit on him.
He glances down at it but makes no move to wipe it off.
His silence makes my anger grow. “Why?” I demand, my muscles tense and my breathing erratic. I’m all alone. My brothers and Ashtyn are gone.
“Why what?” he asks, checking his watch. A sign that I’m keeping him from something important. As if his brothers’ sons being dead isn’t his main priority.
“Why kill them? They didn’t do anything wrong.” They could have failed their initiations. But that still wouldn’t explain Ashtyn. She didn’t have one. A female Spade has never run Carnage, as far as I know. Unless she was collateral damage.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His nonchalant attitude makes me fucking livid.
“You killed them,” I shout, and the fingers in my hair tighten, holding my head in place.
“Adam, Saint, Haidyn, and Ashtyn. You killed them all.” I give a manic laugh.
“Your brothers are going to make you suffer.” That’s something I don’t want to miss.
My father deserved death long before now.
But what’s that saying? The good die young. Evil lives for fucking ever.
“No,” he argues. “They’re going to make you suffer.”
“Don’t fucking put this shit on me,” I scream, yanking on the cuffs that dig into my wrists. “You—”
“You did this, Kashton.” His voice is much calmer than mine. “You didn’t get to them in time.”
What? He can’t be serious. “You didn’t even let me try.” Panic grips my chest and my breathing becomes labored. He set me up. My father has always hated me. I was never going to be good enough for him.
Now he’s gone and done the unspeakable. He’s killed his brothers’ only sons and framed me for it.
He stands from the table and removes a revolver from the inside of his suit jacket.
Opening up the cylinder, he empties all the bullets into his free hand and pockets them.
Then he places one on the table next to the gun and moves to stand in front of me.
He nods to the man behind me, who lets go of my hair and then undoes the cuffs.
I jump to my feet, and the force kicks the chair over. “Going to fucking kill me, Father?” I challenge. “Then run to your brothers and blame me for you killing their children?”
“I’m not going to do anything, son. You’re going to do it yourself.”
“No—”
He punches me in the face, and it sends me falling to the floor. I’m off balance from the drugs. Getting to my hands and knees, I spit blood onto the concrete.
“I wanted to teach you a lesson, Kashton. Your mother…” He pauses.
“She was too soft with you. Wanted you to be a ‘good boy.’ It’s pathetic and embarrassing,” he shouts.
After taking a deep breath, he huffs. “I left you one bullet, son. As you said, your brothers are dead and so is Ashtyn. You failed them. You let them die. Suffer. Now it’s your turn to do the same. ”
I get to my feet and sway. My vision is a little blurry from the hard hit to the side of my face. I’m so tired. All the anger has left my body and it’s drained me. I’m like a balloon deflated.
“You have sixty seconds.” He pulls the cuff back on his suit jacket and watches the seconds on his Breitling.
My eyes fall to the revolver that is sitting on the table. I’m all alone. My brothers made this horrible life tolerable.
The thought of suicide has never crossed my mind, but I’ve never thought about living alone, either. My brothers and I were in this life together. I had their backs and they had mine. I let them down. They needed me and I didn’t help.
I’ve got one more initiation to pass before I have any power in our world. Right now, I’m just a son of a Spade brother, and my best friends are dead.
Their deaths are on me. My father was right. It doesn’t matter that he rigged the game. He set me up and I fell right into his trap.
“Twenty seconds,” he warns.
Stepping forward, I pick up the gun with shaking hands and open the cylinder. I slip the bullet in, lining it up with the barrel and close it.
“Fifteen,” he calls out.
I lift the gun and point it at his chest. His eyes find mine and the corner of his lips twitch. I hate myself even more. He knew I’d make this move. He fucking knows everything.
“Going to kill me?” He snorts. “Just like you did your brothers?”
“I didn’t kill them,” I scream in his face. “I was trying to save them.”
“Time’s up, Kash.” He steps into the gun, and it trembles in my hand. “You or me?”
As much as I want to kill him, it won’t solve anything. My father deserves to be miserable; he deserves to know what it feels like to suffer, and I’m the only one who can do that. There’s no one left to punish him.
I move the gun to the right of him and fire. “Fuck you,” I shout over the ringing in my ears.
He begins to laugh as he pulls my cell phone from his suit jacket. “You’ve always been weak, Kashton. Not killing yourself proves just how much.” Placing it on the table, he shakes his head before he disappears through the plastic strip curtains.
“Goddammit.” I slam the gun down on the table.
I’m shaking and tears sting my eyes. I fucking hate the Lords.
Everything about them. My father, most of all.
He wants me to hate life. We’re tested to see just how low we’ll go, and I will not give him the satisfaction of killing myself.
I’d rather live and disappoint him. No matter how alone I am.
My cell begins to vibrate next to the gun, and I tense seeing Haidyn flash across the screen. “Hell-hello?” I stammer.
“Hey, man. Where the fuck are you?” Haidyn asks. “You were supposed to meet us at the House of Lords twenty minutes ago.”
“I—” Scanning the basement, I notice the plastic curtains aren’t covered in blood like they were before. Maybe they cleaned them. I glance at the pits and they are empty.
“Kash?”
I make my way down the hallway and see the cell that Ashtyn was in is also clear of any blood, and there’s no table in the center. I continue on to see the room where my brothers’ dead bodies were hanging. Nothing.
I clear my throat. My heart is hammering in my chest. What the fuck is happening? I saw them. The blood, the sound of Ashtyn screaming for help.
“Us? Who are you with?”
“Saint is here with me. Adam is on his way with Ashtyn.”
I run a shaking hand down my face. “I’ll be right there.” Hanging up, I place my cell in my pocket and pick up the revolver on my way to leave.
My father is standing next to the elevator with a scowl on his face.
“What did you do to me?” I demand. “They were dead. I…I saw them.”
“I gave you a hallucinogen,” he answers. “This isn’t on me, Kashton. That was your mind. Your hallucination. You told me your brothers and Ashtyn were dead. I just twisted it to make you believe that it was your fault.”
“I can’t…no.” I shake my head. “I know what I saw,” I shout.
His eyes drop to the revolver still gripped in my hand. His demeanor is much calmer than mine. I think I’m having an out-of-body experience. “Keep it,” he says, referring to the gun. “Maybe one day, you’ll grow some balls and decide to put it to good use.”