Page 10 of Pretty Plaything

My pulse sped up as I pulled out my gun and got out of the car.

Quiet.

It was too damn quiet.

Not even the birds were chirping.

I strode through the field, finding more bodies, blood coating the grass.

And then I found them.

My family.

My father was in a pool of blood, his open eyes staring into the nothingness. One of my brothers was facedown next to him.

I crouched and checked his pulse.

Nothing.

Dead.

They were all dead.

I spun around, looking for the enemy.

Looking for the people who’d killed my family.

But there was no one.

Not even a body of one of our enemies.

How the hell had it happened? Who could’ve killed all the guards and my whole family just like that?

They must’ve taken away their dead so I wouldn’t get my hands on them.

If only I’d been there, with them.

Maybe I could’ve stopped it.

Maybe I could’ve done something.

I snap out of the memory.

My father was always secretive about his business deals, and no one has been able to tell me who he was supposed to meet that day.

All the people who knew are dead, including my father’s second-in-command. Before I could get to him and ask, someone killed him.

I still don’t know why.

Did my father know something he wasn’t supposed to? Why haven’t those people come for me too? How are they sure my father hasn’t told me anything before they killed him?

But if I knew, I would’ve come for them. Maybe that’s how they know their secret is safe, or maybe they have some other plan. Or they don’t think I’m as much of a treat as my father and my brothers were.

I may not have been taught all the ins and outs of the business, but I know enough. The people who killed my family are going to pay because I’m going to find them one day, one way or another, and I’m not going to rest until I figure them out.

Probably the most surprising thing is that no one has taken credit for my family’s murder. If they are so good and so powerful, why are they hiding?

Why not brag about it to the whole world?