Page 13 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
It occurs to me that I was sixteen when I had sex with them all. That they’re much older. That it should be wrong. Yet, whenever I close my eyes and fall back into that moment, all I want to do is relive it. See, told ya I was fucked up.
“What was Kian like?” I ask, because as much time as Grey and I have spent getting to know each other, we don’t really talk about Queenie or Kian. It’s too painful, I think, to look at one another and know that the people we loved the most were both lost because of underworld politics and bullshit. “My sister must’ve really loved him. I found some … writing that she left behind. She likened their relationship to Romeo and Juliet.”
Technically, it wasn’t writing that I found, but words scratched into the baseboards of the old party house in town, a crumbling manor known to locals as The Artefact. Just semantics.
“Kian was … ruthless,” Grey admits, reaching up to rub at the side of his face. His fingernails are coming in nicely, taking up about a third of the normal nailbed. “He was the perfect person to take over this nightmare.” He waves a hand loosely to indicate … well, his father’s entire crime syndicate, I think. “But when he met your sister, something changed. He started sneaking out and disobeying orders, stopped sleeping with other girls, started lying.”
I look back up at the ceiling.
“Do you know how they met?”
Grey shakes his head in response to my question.
“I can only guess that it was at the casino?” he queries, and there it is again, mention of the casino. It’s what kept him from dying that day, and the only reason Cat took that gun out of my hand.
“What’s up with the casino anyway?” I reply, wondering how much we can say without getting into trouble. I assume Grey knows our limits here better than I do, and decide that if he’s not worried about our conversation, then I won’t be either. It’s not as if the mafia’s going to let us go regardless of what we do or don’t know.
“I have no idea,” he admits, and I can sense that even though that’s the truth, he has his theories, theories that he won’t be mentioning in the presence of the cameras. “All I do know is that Kian loved your sister; they wanted to run away together and start a family.” He exhales sharply and when I glance over, I see that his eyes are squeezed shut. “The day he died, I was supposed to be helping them. But I went to the casino with my friends instead. I figured he’d gone through his entire life without asking for my help, so why did he need it that day?”
I think about my last words to Posey—fuck off. That’s the last thing I said to my sister before she was tortured and killed. I understand the regret and longing in Grey’s words. You never really know how much a single moment matters until you find out it’s the last.
“Where did he die? How did he die?” I ask, because I’m trying to understand. There are so many things here that don’t make sense. Queenie was in love with Kian. Even if Cat was going to forbid them from being together—which he most certainly would have—why go after the guy and kill him? He would’ve known that was a guaranteed way to start a very personal war with an immensely powerful group.
What was the point?
And why, on that day of all days, were we home without any of those dickhead officers around to help us?
That’s the part that confuses me the most of all, the piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit into any of my theories. Killing Kian was enough to start a war all on its own, so it wasn’t for the excuse. Cat just told his boys that a mafia brat raped his daughter and bam, gauntlets were thrown.
“He was waiting at a park for your sister. My father’s men found him hanging from a tree.” Grey’s voice breaks, like the conversation is just too much for him. I don’t blame him. I feel that way too sometimes, like talking about the pain is akin to summoning it, casting a spell of melancholy that makes you wish you’d died right alongside your loved one. “He wasn’t just hanging though. There were … he’d been tortured.”
We both stop talking for a while.
Did Crown do that? Sin? Grainger? Beast must’ve been involved. If they believed what Cat told them about the rape, they’d feel justified. But how much of my father’s lies went through his officers first? How much did they really know?
That’s a question I’m not likely to get an answer to.
