Page 4 of Killer Confections

But this is different. I haven’t taken a bounty in a while. Since Rowan, Thalia, and I killed our father, we’ve spent the last year making hard changes.

Rowan is the default leader, taking on the paperwork and implementing the new rules with strict guidelines. Thalia and I are more like the enforcers, ensuring everyone listens, and no one does anything stupid.

One of those new rules, recently passed, allows for outsiders to join us. They have to pass extensive background checks and they have the option to not join the syndicate work, so long as they keep our compound a secret.

We haven’t gone public with the rule change yet, because I had my own stipulations. I wanted Loxley to be the first. She deserved that title more than anyone else.

She was the light—the only person who showed me that, despite what I was born into, life could still be full of happiness. She was everything, consuming my thoughts for the next eleven years after we were separated.

Every move I’ve made within my last years holding influence over the syndicate was forher.

She’s my obsession.

She’s everything I’ve ever wanted and could never have.

She has no idea, but she’smine.

And I plan to take what’s mine, whether she wants to come willingly or not.

Chapter Two

Atlas

Eleven Years Ago

I sit on the bench outside of the principal’s office, my forearms resting on my knees as my bloodied knuckles hang limply. My lip is busted, the taste of copper exploding on my tongue as I keep my head down, eyes boring into the dirty white floor beneath me.

Dad is going to kill me.

The first rule of the syndicate is to protect your own. You protect your family and the twenty others living within the compound.

Getting into trouble draws attention. The more eyes on us, the easier it is for someone to discover the amassed residences on the bought out acreage that lies just twenty miles outside the city limits of Columbus.

The syndicate's treasurer pays a hefty fee to keep authorities at bay, no matter where the hit jobs take our assassins, but dad would rather keep those fees low. He strives to ensure no one ever discovers the heinous acts that go on within the compound.

And maybe I act out as a cry for help.

Maybe somewhere in me, I want that freedom. I want some authority to take me away from that hellhole.

No one ever leaves.

Even if I got away, he would find me—drag me back kicking and screaming. Then he would beat me until Iwouldn’t dare think of leaving again.

My fists clench, opening my cuts further as blood drips down my fingers. Droplets splatter on the floor, marring the white surface in a crimson red.

How will he do it this time?

Last summer, I had the bright idea of sneaking out and going to the lake. The act is supposed to be fun for teenagers. Your adrenaline pumps, and you feel free as your steps take you further and further away from where your parents think you are.

It was the most free-spirited thing I had ever done.

Word to the wise, sneaking out of a house with highly trained assassins living under the roof isn’t bright.

Dad followed me, keeping silent and lingering just out of earshot. When I got to the lake, I was so preoccupied with celebrating that I had made it so far I didn’t even notice as he closed in on me. He gripped the back of my neck, startling me, before forcing my head under the water. As I gargled and screamed, my fingers attempting to pry his hands off me, I had an out-of-body experience. It was like I was watching my old man as he drowned me.

I was watching my own father kill me.

Just when my lungs filled with water and I had accepted my fate, he yanked me from the lake. He yelled and berated me as I coughed up murky water, wheezing to catch my breath, before he plunged my head back under.