Chapter 20
DAMIAN
We graduated from Astor Prep on a Friday, and the following night, had our graduation party at the Salvatore Estate. I couldn’t have cared less about any of this.
Marcello was over by the bar, drinking with his best friend, Sonny Cormac, and the newest addition, Aiden Wellington. Alex’s brother became fast friends with them despite being two grades ahead. They would all be members of The Devil’s Knights one day.
I found Bastian on the right side of the ballroom and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m bored.”
He turned to look at me, grinning. “I’m sure you can find something to do until the party ends.”
I leaned into his arm and lowered my voice. “I’d like to do you, but you haven’t touched me since Alex—”
“Damian, for fuck’s sake.” He scowled, then scanned the surrounding space to ensure no one overheard me. “My grandfather is right there. If he hears you, he will kill me.”
Bastian couldn’t handle anyone—especially not his piece of shit grandfather—finding out about us.
Fitzgerald Archibald Adams IV was one of Bastian’s few living relatives, and he treated him like garbage.
After our parents died, Fitzy took both of us in for a few weeks.
Those days of being locked in a dark basement without food or water were worse than hell.
Our parents hadn’t been in the ground for more than a few days when the beatings started.
Some days, we woke up in our piss and shit.
He got into Bastian’s head by calling us dirty, filthy animals as if we were still the little boys trapped in the basement, wasting away in the dark.
I was a disturbed kid and discovered I enjoyed inflicting pain. My father used that rage, showing me how to hurt evil men who did horrible things. Like Fitzy, they deserved to die. Whenever I killed a man, I imagined it was Fitzy beneath me, begging for his life.
Bastian’s grandfather had brainwashed him.
He didn’t know about our sexual desires, but he saw our relationship as wrong.
We didn’t conform to what Fitzy considered the norm.
We were too close for his comfort. And so Bastian saw us as something dirty and disgusting—a secret we needed to hide from the world.
“We leave in the morning for initiation,” I whispered. “I need to be with you before we go.”
There was no time for doing the usual post-graduation shit. No senior week or vacation before we started college. Our family wasn’t like others and had a duty to The Devil’s Knights.
“D, it’s over.” Bastian sipped from the highball glass. “Luca is keeping Alex.”
“No, I’m not,” Luca said, appearing beside us with a drink in hand. “You want her? She’s yours.”
“You claimed her, and we’ve backed off since then,” Bastian hissed. “And you wait until our last night with her to change your fucking mind?”
Luca smirked. “I’m a dick. What can I say? A little celibacy will do you good with us being trapped on Skull Island for the next two months.”
He did this on purpose.
To fuel our rage.
To turn us into weapons.
All Knights must train on Skull Island before being admitted into the organization. We would endure the nine circles of Hell and hopefully live to tell about it when it was over.
“What the fuck, Luca?” Bastian’s nostrils flared. “The last few months of school were all bullshit, weren’t they? A fucking game to mess with our heads.”
He shrugged. “I did it more to fuck with her head. But sure, if you want to take it personally, go right ahead.”
My blood felt like it was boiling inside my veins, and I was ready to snap my brother’s neck.
Luca was a lot of things.
An evil mastermind.
A genius.
And one day, he would lead our family. I respected him, but right now, I wanted to grab my hunting knife and cut out his black fucking heart.
“You were jealous, weren’t you?” I asked him. “That day in the bathroom set you off, and you haven’t been the same with Alex since. You didn’t just play her. You played us, too.”
“I don’t get jealous,” Luca said with venom in his tone. “But make no mistake, that girl is mine. She will marry me and give me an heir.”
“Whatever,” Bastian interjected. “But we had a deal, you jealous fucking prick.”
“And I intend to keep it.” Luca took a sip from the glass, tugging on his tie. “She’ll be my wife in name only. You can have her when I’m done. Or if you prefer, we can share her.”
I wanted to kill him.
He made us believe she was off-limits. Neither of us had touched her since. She probably thought we didn’t want her anymore, when that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Bastian sneered at Luca, then grabbed my arm. “Let’s go, D. I need some fucking air.”
We exited the ballroom and headed toward the back of the house. On the veranda, dozens of people drank and smoked at tables. I ignored everyone and bolted across the pavers, seeking my favorite grassy spot at the cliff’s edge.
It was where Bastian and I went when we needed to leave the house. When we first became Salvatores, we felt suffocated all the time. Arlo was always trying to teach us new things. And before Evangeline died, she was horrible to us. I hated the sound of her voice. And the way she looked at us.
Once we had Arlo to ourselves, he taught us how to become men. How to handle our finances. How to shoot a gun and how to fight. He even showed me how to kill without getting caught.
My adoptive father understood my dark desires and helped me to embrace them. But there were moments in our childhood when we wanted to run. We wanted to return to Bel Air, where we lived with our parents.
Our parents let us do anything we wanted, but not Arlo. There were rules from day one. He had schedules for us to follow and specific tasks we had to complete each week. We are better men because of him, but it felt like torture back then.
I was shocked to find Alex standing at the cliff’s edge, a black dress blowing in the wind across the backs of her legs. She kicked off her heels and stood barefoot in the grass, long curls draped over her shoulder. Even from behind, she took my fucking breath away.
I glanced at Bastian. He nodded, and we each took a side, sandwiching her between us.
Bastian bent down and whispered against the shell of her ear. “Are you okay, Cherry?”
She startled at the deep rumble of his voice. “No.”
His hand slid onto her hip. “What’s wrong?”
She studied each of our faces before taking a deep breath. “Luca.”
Bastian cupped her cheek. “What did he do?”
“He’s acting like his old self. Luca said it was all a game to him. That he never liked me.” She choked out a sob. “He called me white trash.”
“I’m sorry, Cherry. Luca is an asshole. I don’t think that about you. Neither does Damian.”
Bastian hooked his arm around her, and I watched this rare display of affection. He wanted this to work with her. And I needed both of them back in my life.
I was sick of not having them.
“I thought you didn’t want me,” Alex said, a tear dripping down her cheek. “You guys stopped touching me.”
“Because of Luca,” Bastian admitted. “He fucked with us, too. I’m so sorry, baby.”
His lips brushed hers, and I expected her to step back after not looking at either of us since Luca sank his teeth into her.
Bastian fisted her curls and parted her lips with his tongue. She opened up for him, their tongues tangling in harmony. It was a sweet kiss at first, but Bastian was more aggressive once they got used to each other.
He kissed her the way he sucked my cock. Like he was desperate for more and didn’t want to come up for air.
I was so fucking jealous.
He rarely kissed women and refused to kiss me, but maybe this was what he needed to get us back on track. As their mouths separated, Alex was breathing hard.
So was Bastian.
He cradled the side of her face and stared into her eyes. “That was some kiss, Cherry.”
She smiled. “I’ll say.”
Alex turned her head to look at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking until her eyes settled on my mouth.
Did she want me to kiss her?
I needed to fuck her before I thought about any other human connection with her.
Bastian didn’t get repulsed at the thought of skin-on-skin contact.
He hadn’t slept in a grave with a dead body beside him.
My brothers didn’t know the true depths of my darkness.
Most of the shit I had done stayed with me.
“We leave in the morning.” Bastian twirled one of Alex’s curls around his finger. “You won’t see us for a while.”
I already knew Luca would stalk her from a distance. He had been doing it all year and monitored her cell phone and emails. She would never know the meaning of privacy. Not as long as we were in her life. And she was stuck with us for the foreseeable future.