Page 53 of These Monstrous Ties

There are things I still don’t get.

“Why are they coming after him? After you?” I ask, gesturing toward her. Finding out Mayhem is her brother blows my mind. It makes burning down her house all the worse.

“I’m surprised they took this long. But you don’t just get to leave a gang like that and survive to tell the tale, Sid. They came for me as a warning. I met Jeremiah at one of his clubs. They would have had eyes and ears all over the city. Theydohave eyes and ears all over the city. I’m dead to Mayhem. He wouldn’t lose sleep after burning down my house.”

I need another shot but I’m momentarily speechless. A cult of rich pricks that are loyal to one another to a fault but abandon their true family over something as ridiculous as sex and made-up oaths on Halloween night.

I drum my fingers on the table, staring at nothing in particular.

“Sid?” Brooklin whispers.

I incline my head in her direction, wondering what fresh new wave of information is coming.

“If you hurt Julie—”

“I’m not going tohurtJulie.” My eyes snap to Brooklin. “I’m going to kill her.”

Brooklin visibly recoils. She might be the estranged sister of an Unsaint and my brother’s current toy, but she clearly isn’t suited to this life, even after what her own family did to her.

“If you do, Lucifer and the rest of them will come after you.”

I flash her a smile. “I hope to God they do.”

Chapter Seventeen

Halloween, One Year Ago

The first thingI feel is the pain.

My head is spinning, my mouth is dry, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. And my legsache. I try to open my eyes, but they’re so unbelievably heavy, it takes a herculean effort.

When I finally manage to pry them open, I close them again, immediately.

The light is too bright.

I register that I’m lying on the forest floor. And everything from the night before comes rushing back to me in painful waves.

The gun on my hip, now gone. The walk from my apartment. My plan that had been torn to pieces. Lucifer. His mouth. His tongue. The knife. His voice. His scent.

The Unsaints.

The pregnant girl.

Ria.

The fire.

The rum.

The asylum.

The Death Oath.

Oh God.

I try to open my eyes again, but then I feel something dig into my side.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.”