In Peace Lies Havoc (Midnight Mayhem #1)(86)

My eyes snap to his. “Yeah. Why?”

I watch as his face pales. “Pretty sure the door was open when I passed it.” I shoot up off the bed and we both run down the stairs, out the front door, and straight for our RV.

Empty. The blood puddle where Jack was is empty. I punch the door until it swings open. “Fuck!”

“Yo, we need to go get her. He’ll deliver her to Patience if we don’t.” I can’t even fucking think of Patience right now.

“What is going on?” Delila comes rushing toward us, dressed in her costume.

I dash back inside as Killian explains what’s happening. Searching around the room, I try to find my keys, knowing I left them on the counter when I dumped his sorry ass on the ground. She’s taken my SUV.

I run back out to see that all of The Brothers are here now. “We need to go. She has my ride so I can use GPS to find where she is.”

Three carloads is all it takes.





I shiver in the corner, my fingers flexing around my arms. He hasn’t touched me, but now I know who he is. He was the one who wore the mask in the cell. Who came for me. It was Jack. Was that why King had brought him to me? Whose blood it was on his finger when we were in the forest? Jack had disappeared after that.

Banging snatches my attention from above, and I stop breathing. Who is Patience, and what does it mean?

The door swings open and Jack steps forward. He still looks battered, but you can see he has attempted to tidy the wounds that are fresh on his face.

“Persephone fucking Hendry. The perfect little princess. How much money you are worth?” He tsks, shaking his head. “They’ll be very happy.”

“Who are they?” I ask, and when he reaches out to touch me, I rear backward and sneer. “Don’t fucking touch me!” He swings backward as the back of his hand swipes across my face. My face numbs and thuds with pain, blood filling my mouth.

I spit it out onto the ground. “Fuck you.”

He hits me again.

And again. Until I am sure that I’m going to pass out.

I’m curled on the ground, cradling my head. Jack finally pulls me up to my feet. “You’re going in the shed. You’re going to give me my own show.”

I yank my arm out of his grip. “Fuck—” A sharp needle stabs my arm, and I fall backward as fluid pulses through my blood. The ceiling spins as Jack’s face fuzzes in front of me. He triples. “Get used to this, Perse. This is how Patience does things.” The room spins.

I see grass.

Heavy boots.

Jeans.

His voice sounds deeper, funny, like a broken record or a flat battery. Swirls morph in my vision, everything doubling in effect. My head is slammed against the ground, my body frozen, and my head fuzzy. I don’t know. Where am I? What’s happening?

I’m yanked up to my feet, the smell of sweet marijuana filling the air.

“Dance,” Jack says, but his voice is distorted.

I can hear the distinct tune of Tool’s “Schism” with smoke clouding my vision. Or maybe that’s my brain. Everything hurts as my body sways from side to side. My arm throbs where the sting hit it and I slowly gather what has happened. Motherfucker drugged me.

He grips below my shirt and tears it off, and then works on my pants. Tears roll down my face as I fail to stop him.

Fail to fight. Being robbed of my control. I’m going to die here, or, at the very least, wish I did. Jack comes in again, and I watch as he brings the needle to his arm and blows out a cloud of smoke, injecting himself. He pulls my body into him and dances around the barn with me, lost in a drugged haze, before shoving me down onto the hay. The particles fly up around me, my eyes crossing together as I focus on one stick that’s floating down over his shoulder, slowly dropping and dropping. My eyelids flutter, my vision being cut black every two seconds as I fight sleep.

Jack bites at my breasts, and just as he swipes my underwear aside, King’s face appears over his shoulder, and I know I must be dead. There’s a lot of yelling, but I don’t know.

In a perfect world, King would save me, not want to kill me.

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t be lying here, drugged and vulnerable, all for what? For the mistakes of my parents?

In a perfect world, I wouldn’t be a broken girl trying to find her own way.

But this isn’t a perfect world. King isn’t here to save me, but I go with it. My blinking slows as I lean up on my elbows and watch as King’s figure moves fluently in triples. All I see are King and Jack, and then an explosion of blood. My tongue sneaks out, just as Killian and Delila drop down on either side of me. Metal slips over the tip of my tongue. “Revenge?” I whisper to myself, only to myself, because this is a dream. This is not real.

“Yeah, Little Bird,” Killian whispers, only it echoes into my head. “Fucking revenge.” But then Killian is being torn away and so is Delila.

I inhale, recognizing the smell of fresh burnt ash, leather, and honey. King picks me up in his arms and cradles me into his chest. My head tilts back as I finally lose myself in a deep slumber.

I wasn’t saved by Prince Charming. I was saved by a villain, and fuck being on his warpath.





My mouth feels like cotton, my limbs cemented into the mattress. I groan, raising my body off the bed. The smell hits me first, and then I scrub my eyes and open them. The large glass window to the left. The black leather bed, leather dresser, and large TV. The black walls and large white triangle of Kiznitch painted into the wall above the bed.