Page 20 of Vengeful King

I want to ask which brother it was, but I’m too nervous. So I lean in and listen, hoping they’ll bring it up themselves.

“She should have known better,” Desire argues. “I mean, God. The one rule we have that you absolutely can’t break.”

Lilah fishes for an answer. “Maybe she was in love. Maybe—”

“In love? With one of the O’Reilly brothers? Yeah, because they’re so talkative with us.”

“Well, maybe he was with her.”

“Lilah, Lachlan hardly talks to any of us, and technically, he’s our boss. He’d have plenty of reasons to if he wanted to.”

“But it wasn’t Lachlan,” Lilah says, arching a brow and smirking. “You know it was Connor.”

Desire laughs. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

At least it wasn’t Lachlan,I think. But it doesn’t help much to know it was a different brother that the last dancer was after. I just wish I knew more about it. Were they caught? Was it the brother who fired her?

Is any of it actually true?

It’s all just rumor now. I can’t know if it’s true; all I can do is try to finish what I came here to do, as hard as it’s going to be.

And maybe it’s not as bad as I’m thinking. Maybe, since one of the brothers already slept with a dancer, the rule is possible to break sometimes. Maybe it means that I’ll get my chance, and it won’t matter that it’s a fireable offense.

Because hopefully, I’ll be long gone.

I get up from my vanity and peek out from the backstage area, wondering what’s going on outside. I can immediately see the brothers gathered at the bar. They look relaxed.

Well, most of them look relaxed. Not so much Lachlan, although he seems more at ease than I’ve ever seen him before. He’s still stoic, though. Reserved. There’s distance in his face and I can see it even from this far away. He’s handsome but remote.

I shake my head. I can’t look too long. Instead, my gaze lands on the women—the wives. Rose and Willow. I’ve heard their names in passing, but this is only the second time I’ve seen them here. Rose is blonde and perfectly proportioned. Willow is petite, her dark curls gathered at the nape of her neck.

The women are standing aside, but it doesn’t look like they’re being excluded. They’re huddled together, laughing about something, their heads bent as they talk. Not a care in the world.

There’s a pang of jealousy in my gut that I can’t help when I look at them. When I see their bond, the way they seem to look out for each other. All of them seem to look out for each other, even if they’re criminals. Even in their drama and horror, they have each other.

Which is more than I can say about myself.

I don’t have anyone that will look out for me the way they look after one another. I don’t have a family, blood or found, to fall back on. I don’t have support.

I don’t have someone willing to kill for me.

Instead, I have myself, and a mother I would kill for… but who barely remembers my name.

I shake off the thoughts invading my mind. I have a job to do, and it’s almost time for my set to start.

I have a small spot in the middle of the night’s routines. Lachlan peppered me in among the other dancers—never in the limelight, but close enough that he can gauge my performance. It won’t matter how well I dance if no one watches.

The songs aren’t my choice. They were picked for me, and I kept my mouth shut about the options. I knew better than to argue. I just went along with it, made a routine, and started going on stage.

As I dance, I try to forget. I forget that I have to kill Lachlan and I think only about dancing. I think about myself as just another one of the girls, just another dancer doing the work for the money. I pretend I got this job on my own, and the money I could make will all go to me. I won’t have to worry about paying for anything or budgeting my meals.

It’s a nice fantasy, and it helps me let go of the sadness that clings to me like a cobweb and focus on putting on a good show.

I’m in the middle of the first song when there’s a disturbance in the crowd. A male voice catches my attention, angry, raised loudly enough that it jars me from my fantasy. I look up… and my heart stops.

Shit.

It’s my ex, Casey. The one my mother was asking about the other day, the one she always forgets that I left. He was controlling and petty, and I walked out of his life the second I felt like I could get away. I thought it would be clean and easy. We never really loved each other, so our breakup was inevitable.

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