Max Dread
I ’d been stewing in the bathtub for at least an hour. My mind on the last person I wanted to think about here. But I couldn’t get the asshole out of my head.
Landon Scott thought I had a hero complex.
I would’ve laughed if it weren’t for the outrage coursing through my veins.
Since we were kids, his White Knight complex had been shoved in my face. The minute he became Kingston’s bestie. His right hand. Which had somehow given him the impression he was always right.
How he made that leap? I had no idea.
But then, the guy seemed easily confused. Even though I had to chalk that up to memory problems now.
Whatever the fuck that was about.
So, he lived with wool over his eyes. So what?
I’d be damned if I let him throw it over mine. Damned if I’d let myself be fooled when I’d seen what it took to get to where he was. To be what he was.
Next time he got in my face, I’d make it clear.
I knew exactly what he’d done.
Right now, I needed to fucking chill. I needed to see Quinn, but she texted when she got back to Pendragon that she needed time with Kingston again tonight.
She’d gone somewhere with him earlier.
A nice update I’d received courtesy of a group text with the bogus King and Golden Boy.
I’d left the chat immediately, of course.
Though, I’d been glad to know where she was. If I hadn’t, I probably would’ve been busting down walls searching for her the minute I’d returned from the cabins.
But Kingston thought of everything, didn’t he?
I should’ve pretended I never got it. Taken the opportunity to break some things in this goddamn house.
I hated it here. Hated the reminders.
And it was worse now.
Worse since that bitch?—
My phone buzzed beside the tub, distracting me. I grabbed it at a speed I refused to acknowledge, only to glare at the screen, tempted to throw it across the room.
It wasn’t Quinn.
The number flashing across it turned my vision red. It bled into the edges, and I nearly crushed the device in my grip.
I hadn’t talked to him since the night of the Maiden Selection. Why the fuck would he call me?
I silenced the call, sending it to voicemail, but a second later, it buzzed again.
Fuck. Off.
The third time it rang, I picked up.
“What the fuck do you want?”
His grating laugh filled my ear. “Now, now. Is that any way to talk to your own flesh and blood?”
I growled. “You’re no family of mine.”
“DNA tests say otherwise. But potato, potato.”
My hackles rose. “Since when did you start saying that?”
“What? You’ve never heard it?” He chuckled. “It’s cute.”
He knew damn well I had. So, the only question was, when had he? How?
“Don’t fuck with me right now, asshole. What do you want?”
The snap of his fingers came through the line, like he’d forgotten. “Oh, yeah.” He toyed with me the way he always did, and fear crept up my spine. “I assumed you left the family group chat, so I figured I’d call with the news.”
My heart kicked up a thunderous beat in my chest.
“Time of death: 10:01 p.m. last night. Check your phone.”
A vibration alerted me to an incoming message, and I pulled up the app to open it. The image in the text thread shouldn’t have surprised me, but the familiar playing card stole the breath from my lungs.
Big brown eyes stared up at me from a picture pasted onto it. Golden-tan skin. A hint of a smirk on red-painted lips.
A warning.
His voice turned cold. “Thought you might need incentive to do your part, so I took the liberty of getting that for you...”
Nails sank into my neck before dragging down my back.
“Time to pay the piper, little brother.”