Page 113 of The Lost Kings
Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could see blood smeared on a wall, and a dead man’s eyes staring at the ceiling. I could hear a man begging for his life. And I’d feel this darkness begin to swell inside my chest like a thundercloud. It used to be in small increments, anger and rage that would eclipse my good mood. Presley was the sun to most of those clouds, but now, all I could think of was how she’d chosenhim.
She chose Adrian even before she agreed to marry him, so her bullshit excuse of why she decided to agree to this marriage was a lie.
I knew it was coming, and yet hearing the words leave her mouth made every dark place inside me quake. My heart spasmed and everything in me wanted to run in front of her to stop her. I needed to take her back into that room, rewind time and not get up. I wanted to go back and tell her what it meant that she’d let me be a part of taking her virginity. That it wasn’t just something I did to piss off another man.
It meant everything to me. Yet I spewed a different version of truth, hoping she’d accept the lie.
She accepted it just like she did when she was sixteen, and now I was staring at her from across the room, completely out of reach as she stood next to Scotty and her father. She’d changed into real clothes and probably showered to get rid of any trace of us.
Something about that made the darkness worse.
I wanted her to crave us the way we craved her. The way we hadn’t stopped thinking about her for nearly two years. The way even now, we both watched her every move as though she were the person who’d decide if we lived or died, and where our next breath came from.
She was our universe, and we’d somehow convinced her she was worth less than the soil under our boots.
“What’s this about?” Dad asked, glancing between us and where Presley stood.
She lifted her chin, strong and defiant. “The twins have indicated they’d go to war with us, potentially Adrian, and while they haven’t communicated with which army they’d be doing that, the threat is significant enough for us all to talk about it.”
Our father didn’t look surprised, even a little bit. He looked…sad.
I felt my twin stiffen as our father regarded us with that disappointed expression on his face. Amber eyes, same dark hair that was starting to grow silver along the edges, and more wrinkles than I remembered. “Tell me you didn’t.”
How were we supposed to respond? We hadn’t hidden the hearts inked into our chests, but he’d yet to see them. But now, as he stood there, his gaze dropped to my chest, and I felt bold enough to reveal our truth. Tugging the hem up, I revealed my skin and looked over to see my brother copying my movements.
Dad’s throat bobbed as if he were holding back emotions, but it was our mother making her way into the living room who saw them that had me shoving the fabric down.
“What have you done?” The fear in her voice and slight tremble had me backing up the smallest step.
Gio flicked his eyes at me. I saw the same guilt and the same shame I carried.
“Why would you do this?” Dad demanded.
Presley stepped forward, dark brows crumpled. “What did they do? I don’t understand.”
“They resurrected and now lead the thing their father worked nearly twenty years to bury,” Scotty supplied with a blasé tone that had my anger surging.
“We wouldn’t have touched El Peligro if we didn’t feel like we needed an army,” I argued.
Kyle laughed. “You fucking idiots.”
Juan spun and glared at him. “No. Of all the people who will criticize them for this, you won’t be the one.”
“They threatened to take sides against us, Juan. That makes them my enemy.”
My brother tried to smother a laugh, which had everyone glancing at us. “Sorry.” He smiled. “You act as though we’d be in trouble if we were your enemy…what we have built, you would never be able to stand against.”
I added, “You were so busy looking for an alliance for Presley, you skipped right over us. Dad had this powerful tool at his disposal all these years, and not a single time did he offer to pull on the power it could wield. It wasn’t until we went to Mexico and we began to revive it, that we realized its full potential.”
I’d never seen my father angry, not really to the point where tendons bulged in his neck or his eyes watered, but I knew it the second my mother walked up and slapped us across the face that this was more serious than we understood. “You have no idea what you’ve done. It wasn’t a viable option for a reason.”
“I thought I could wield that gang, the power it provided, but then we had a family, Son. We had people to protect and El Peligro isn’t something you carry on your shoulders if you’re trying to protect someone. You think what you’ve done will protect Presley,but it will end up being the death of her. The very reason you can’t look in the mirror, the thing you hate most about your life.”
I bit my tongue to stop myself from spewing all the shit inside my head that swirled and swirled and fucking swirled. Half the shit Presley lived through she wouldn’t have had to if Dad had just asked us to step in and help him with the gang, but he never trusted us.
“We aren’t worried about protecting Presley anymore. She’s proved she can save herself and same with Kyle. I don’t give a fuck what danger faces them. They’re on their own but we have a score to settle with Adrian Adesso. If you align yourself with him, we’ll be at war.”
Presley blinked, and some sick part of me wanted to see her cry again. I needed to know that what we’d said bothered her. Kyle was the one who stepped in front of his daughter and settled his glare on us.
