Page 37 of Cup of Lies

Wait.

How do I know this?

My mind whirs with clarity despite the thundering headache. The haze that still had its hold on me seems to finally lift. Was it the hit to the head? Maybe these guys just did me a favor.

I need to start talking and fast.

Otherwise, who the hell knows what these men will do to me.

They think I’m like my father or Gareth or Bastian or Solomon. Scum of the earth. Someone who preys on the young or mentally vulnerable.

“You see what we want you to see,” I bite out, meeting the eyes of the hard man. “You’re lucky to have found what you found. In fact, it was probably put there on purpose.”

“To everyone else, we’re powerful and men who move the world forward. But we can’t ever let those far beneath us assume we’re weak. If they know, even through rumor, what we’re capable of, they’ll respect us, Caius. Don’t forget that.”

Koyn’s eyebrows furl, which makes his scar pucker in an odd way. “You’re saying what we know about you was planted there?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past my father.”

“You sound like you don’t agree with him,” Koyn murmurs. “Is this your way of pussying out to protect your own skin?”

The other guy, Copper, approaches, still fuming with anger. “Why were you at Krista’s house? Answer the question or so help me, Dragon is going to make you spray like a fucking water hose at a house fire.”

As if to punctuate this statement, the blade burns hot into my skin. Blood, mixed with sweat, races down the side of my neck. My carotid artery pulsates wildly just millimeters beneath tissue and muscle, barely protected from Dragon’s knife.

“That was my old house,” I hiss out. “My parents used to live there. They were killed in an accident. I was put into foster care and then bounced around until Dad, er, Orion adopted me.”

I leave out the whole mindfuck part of my life at the facility because I don’t know these guys and am not about to spill my story to them.

“Bermuda,” Koyn barks out and stands.

“On it, Prez.”

A few seconds later, another man enters my line of vision, showing Koyn something on his laptop. Who would’ve thought that roughed-up bikers would even know how to use a laptop, much less own one?

“What was your name before the adoption?” Koyn demands, again looking down on me as if I’m filth on the bottom of his scuffed-up boots.

“Johnny Caius McElroy.”

“And why are you here,Johnny?” Koyn waves off Bermuda before cracking his neck in a menacing way. “Why are you witha teenager who looks nothing like you? What exactly were your plans for her when you got her alone?”

When they put it that way, it does seem creepy.

Guilt stabs me in my chest. “I’m trying to help her. This was the first step in slipping off my father’s radar. I swear.”

Koyn scratches at his beard and then cocks his head as if to implore me to say more.

I don’t hesitate.

“They have my woman,” I rasp out, pain lancing through me. “They put me through their fucked-up brainwashing shit and I’m only just now finding clarity. All I want to do is help LuLu and find my girl.”

“Even if that means taking your new daddy down in the process?”

I meet his gaze with a hard one of my own. “I’m fucking counting on it.”

Romy

The monster is…small.

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