Page 1 of Sweet Violence
PROLOGUE
Joseph
Icouldn't keep the grin off my face. Excitement fizzed in my stomach as I rushed up the path to Avie's holiday cottage. I was beginning to warm to its charm; the more I saw the thatched roof, floral climbers, and perfectly square windows, the more I associated it with my mate, and happiness, and being completely at home in her presence.
Taj snorted behind me, full of derision. "He's fucking skipping now."
"Shut up," X muttered before I could snap a comeback to my grumpy, asshole brother. "I don't see why weallhad to come anyway."
"Because we're all worried," Arkan replied, emphasising theall. He'd been even colder than usual these past few hours, shooting death glares at us when our stress led to bickering. I knew he missed our mate too, but he'd never admit it.
Especially after a day like today, when we needed to present a unified, strong front to anyone who might be watching. The Eidolon who'd been trying to kill us for months to get to Taj—the prince heir of Hell—stalked Avie to a vineyard and attacked us all. Which was bad enoughwithoutlearning that our whole syndicate had been wiped out, everyone murdered all down to accountants, lawyers, and fucking cleaners.1
I felt bad about every single death. Maybe some of the mobsters and criminals we employed deserved a light stabbing, but every building we owned, leased, and dealt with had been turned into a bloodbath. All those families would be waiting for their loved ones to come home, and they never would. Just like my parents never came home when I was three.
I grew up in Hell, out of place among those unfeeling bastards who'd rather shove a hot poker in their eye than submit to a hug. Weirdos. Hugs were the best. I was going to hug my mate for ten minutes, maybe longer. Maybe a whole hour.
"Worried." Taj laughed coarsely behind me, a growl in his voice. "Speak for yourself, asshole."
Silence stretched for long, sticky moments, enough to tell me Arkan was doing the death glare thing again. I ignored their arguing and grabbed my lock picks from my coat pocket.2
I knelt and fit the first pick into the lock, but the door swung under my hand with a little creak. I stared at the door, surprised.
"Damn, you get faster at that every time," X said with a grin, coming up alongside me when I rose to my feet. But the smile slid off his pale face when he saw the look on my face.
"Avie's door was unlocked," I said, blood starting to rush in my ears. "And open."
I shoved the door wider and stormed inside before I'd even finished speaking, an apprehensive chill crawling up my arms and back down my spine. Something was wrong. Avie never left her door unlocked; Ialwayshad to pick the lock.
I froze on my third step as my mind processed what I was seeing. One of the floral-print armchairs had been tipped onto its side, a photo frame lay smashed on the carpet, and a lamp had been knocked down, throwing a semi-circle of light onto a corpse.
"Where is she?" I hissed, my skin prickling all over, my reaper form itching to take hold. "Where's our mate?"
Arkan
There was a dead body in our mate's home. I stared at it, frozen one step into the room, everything strangely silent in my head. No whirring of thoughts, no manic plans, no furious rants—pure silence.
I moved on autopilot towards the body, kneeling beside him and assessing the state of his decay. Joseph would have a better idea than me, but I'd guess he'd been dead a few hours.
"I told her to stay put," I said, eerily calm compared to the storm pounding blood through my body.
"Looks like she did," X replied, uncommonly subdued. "They came into herhome, Arkan."
"We should have been here," I muttered, looking at the handprints burned into the corpse's crumbling face, my gaze snagging on a swirl of pink sticking out of his mouth. I pinched it between numb fingers and pulled it up his throat. The half-dissolved spun sugar made my chest seize hard. "Shekilledto defend herself, and she's still not here."
"She probably took off, ran back to whatever hole she crawled out of," Taj said derisively but his voice was brittle. I was prepared for him to provoke a fight—it was how he coped—but not for X to let out a chilling snarl and launch himself at Taj.
"Just because you don't like her," X snarled, his pretty face twisted into monstrous rage, "doesn't mean you have to gloat that she's gone!"
"She didn't leave," Joseph said firmly, brown arms crossed over his big chest. "She killed that guy, and look at the room. It's trashed; shefought. Someone took her, I know they did—and so do you, Taj, so stop being a prick."
Here, here.I couldn't have said it better myself.
I stood, tucking the candy floss into the pocket of my trousers and hoping no one noticed. "Find out who this man was; I want to know every detail about his life by the end of the day."
"Ark," Joseph said sadly, his brown eyes bleak when they met mine. "Who are we gonna send him to? Everyone's dead."
I gritted my teeth. Right, of course. For a moment, I forgot our whole syndicate was eradicated, more focused on our mate than our business.
