Page 9 of Ricochet
But my father has played this game for far longer than I have, and just before we exited the house, he gripped my arm, stopping me in my tracks. The smile was gone, replaced by the sinister look I was familiar with.
There he was. The dragon. The Devil. My nightmare.
Faster than it started, all the hope I had diminished with his words.
“There will be some,” he cleared his throat, “revelations tonight. I need you to work with me and not ask too many questions. Can you do that?”
Two oceans were clashing in the staring match between the two of us. I hated his surprises. He was planning something, and whenever the wheels in his head were turning, I ended up with yet another person to kill and a body to bury. It wasn’t like I could say no, or run away. The things he showed me were enough to strike fear into my heart, and to understand that no matter what, the Syndicate would always find me.
I nodded like an obedient little child, and the pleased look on his face told me I was out of trouble. For now, at least.
“Good.” Placing his arm around my shoulder, he started walking to the car where my mother already sat inside. “You’re good.”
Good? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? I kept glancing at his satisfied face. He looked like a cat that ate the canary. What was he up to?
I sat next to Mom, trying to ignore the twitch in her right hand, and the looks she kept throwing at my father. I knew those looks—she was due for her next fix. Nope, not my problem anymore. If she could give me to the wolves like this, I wouldn’t care about her disease.
Absolutely not my problem.
The Nightingale house was only ten minutes away from ours, but it felt like an eternity, being trapped with the two of them inside the car. Nobody spoke. Hell, I almost held my breath trying to be as quiet as possible. Ava was pissed at me, my father had something planned, my mother was high as a kite, and I had another assignment tomorrow.
We pulled in front of the large, mahogany doors where like an entourage, the Nightingale family stood, including the twin brothers. Tristan was nowhere to be found. Was he not joining us tonight?
My breath hitched as my eyes raked over Kieran’s body, my heart racing inside my chest. Both of the twins started walking toward the car with Ava trailing after them. My door opened in the next second, and I found myself in an embrace so tight, my air supply started cutting short.
“Kieran,” I wheezed. “I can’t breathe.”
“Little bird.” He squeezed me tighter, almost lifting me off the ground. His lips connected with my temple, and I felt that kiss all the way to my toes. “Look at you.” He took a step back, holding my hands in his. The smile on his face hurt my heart because in the next second his eyes connected with mine, and whatever he saw there banished the happiness he was enveloped in. He kept glancing between my father and me, a scowl marring his face.
“You know,” he started, lowering his voice. “Don’t you?”
Swallowing a needle in my throat, I carefully nodded, inching closer. “We need to talk.”
I noticed Ava standing behind him, a puzzled look on her face. She was still pissed off, and she had every right to be, but dealing with her emotions would have to wait—at least for now.
“After dinner, little bird?” Kieran asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
I didn’t miss the worried look he sent my way, or how he tightened his hold on my shoulders. Ophelia from one year ago would revel in his attention, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. Today, his attention was the last thing I needed.
I just needed to know how to move forward.
“Let’s go inside, yeah? They should be serving dinner soon, and the sooner we get that over with, the sooner we can talk.”
“Son,why don’t you take a seat next to Ophelia?” Nikolai Aster said to me as soon as we entered the dining room, while my father took a seat at the head of the table, a smug smile on his face. I wanted to punch both of them and get the hell out of here.
They were the monsters parents warned their kids about. The greatest nightmare any of us could have, and I had to call them family when I wanted nothing more than to see them suffer for everything they did. I couldn’t even imagine what Ophelia was going through living with Nikolai and her deranged mother. That look on her face earlier told me everything I needed to know.
She was in.
I always knew she would end up being part of this darkness, this madness consuming us all, but I never expected it to happen so soon. Just last year she was saying goodbye to Cillian and me, sending us back to college, excited about what the future would bring her. Some things were inevitable, but I thought she had time—the time to be a normal teenager, to be free of all of this, because once you were in, you weren’t just committing yourself to the job.
No, you were selling your soul to the Devil.
And in our case, Nikolai Aster and Logan Nightingale were Abaddon and Beelzebub reigning on Earth. My father was a cruel man, but Nikolai… that man put everybody else to shame. The depravity swirling in the pit of his soul, if he even had one, and the chilling detachment he acted with—he was everything I never wanted to be.
And now, Ophelia… She was just a kid. An innocent girl. What sick fuck could make his seventeen-year-old daughter kill a man? The one standing next to me, obviously. If she passed the initiation, he was already training her, shaping her to become like him, to become like all of his soldiers—a psychopath, an assassin, a cold and emotionless human being.
