Page 27 of Dance With A Devil

I consider lying. Hanging up. Swerving the car into a ditch just to avoid answering. But I don’t. “Of course I did.” I chuckle like a man who just stole fire from the gods and got away with it.

“Karter.” His voice turns lethal. “If you came inside her, I swear I’ll rip your fucking balls off with my bare hands.”

“You think I’m scared of you?” I grin. “It was worth it.”

“Get here. Now.” He ends the call.

I toss the phone back in the holder and press my foot to the gas. The engine growls as we pick up speed.

I glance at Athens, asleep and so fucking innocent-looking. I think back to what I told Josie, if you could call it a conversation.

She had the nerve to beg.

Earlier.

She blocked the doorway like she could stop me. “Please… don’t take her from me. Not like this.” Her voice cracked.

I tilted my head. “You already did that when you buried the truth. You think she owes you softness after what you and your little cult pulled?”

Gaia stepped in. “We were trying to protect her.”

I laughed in her face. “You buried her under your guilt and called it protection.” I looked between them, venom rising. “I don’t give a fuck what your reasons were. You stole her past, her identity, and now her present’s unraveling. That box of journals? It’s mine now. She gets the truth, even if it kills her.”

Josie’s face paled. “You don’t know what you’re playing with, Karter.”

I leaned in close. Close enough to smell the guilt clinging to her skin. “And you don’t know what I’m capable of. But you’re about to find out. If you come near her again without her asking.” I drag my thumb across my throat. “You won’t get a warning next time. Just a pine box.”

I turned my back on both of them, box in hand, rage in my bones.

Back in the car, I breathe deep, trying to calm the fire. She deserves the truth. All of it. Even if it guts her.

Even if it ruins us.

I think of Wyck, what they did to him when he disobeyed Bash.

Gone.

Without a word. Without a trace. We were lost without him. Our leader. Our Devil.

The days stretched long. Cold. Quiet.

Then one morning, all of our phones lit up at once. A single message. No name. No number. “A war is coming.”

We didn’t need a name. We knew.

Wyck wasn’t dead. He was becoming something else.

And now? Now we’re the Devils of Cliffside. And we’ve built a kingdom beneath the bones of the old one.

Whatever’s coming for Athens, whatever hell her past has stitched together, we’ll burn through it.

For her.

For us.

And if Bash or anyone else thinks they can rewrite her fate again?

They’ll learn exactly what kind of monsters they raised.