Reign of Wrath (Dirty Broken Savages #3)(108)

“Right. That’s because you’re not supposed to,” he says. “No one but a very few people even know it exists.”

None of this is making any sense, but the longer he speaks, the more worried and weirded out I get.

“What the hell are you talking about, Carter?” I demand, sick of his rambling half-answers.

“The Kyrio Society controls a lot of what happens in this city. They operate behind the scenes, the people behind the major players. Criminals, big and small, do their thing in Detroit. Selling drugs, smuggling illegal goods, getting into turf wars, fighting for territory. But behind it all, unbeknownst to most of them, the society members are pulling the strings.” He takes another deep breath and lets it out. “Ivan St. James was in the society, one of the most powerful people in all of Detroit. There are seven members, and his death left an opening. Julian Maduro wanted in.”

Julian wanted to join a secret society?

I knew he was trying to work his way into the upper echelons of the Detroit elite, but I had no idea he was also trying to join some powerful, clandestine criminal organization.

Carter sounds as serious as a heart attack about all of this, and it leaves me reeling a little while I try to keep up with everything he’s saying.

“Why are you telling me this?” I press, studying his strained face.

“Because you’ve caught the eye of the society,” he replies, shaking his head. His usually styled hair is unkempt, a lock of it falling over his forehead. “And you don’t want that. Believe me. I can try to help you, but you have to help me.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my heart pounding heavily now. “Help you with what? And how the fuck do you know all of this?”

He bites his lip and drags his fingers through his hair, looking almost desperate. “Because I’m in the society too,” he tells me, his jaw clenching. “And I want out.”

What?

I open my mouth, half a million questions on the tip of my tongue. There’s so much I want to know, and I’m about to press Carter for more answers, but before I can get a word out, his body jerks hard.

His face goes slack, and then he crumples on the wooden slats of the dock, limp and lifeless.

My stomach drops down to my feet, a rush of adrenaline chilling my veins.

Fuck.

Someone just shot him, but I didn’t hear it or see anyone.

The Kings all react immediately, drawing weapons and closing in around me as they scan the dimly lit docks around us, trying to find the source of the threat.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice says, rising out of the shadows where the dock meets the shore.

My gaze whips toward the sound of the voice, and I blink as I see someone moving toward us, back-lit by the street lamps in the distance.

“I have men posted all around,” the voice continues, smooth, masculine, and collected. “If any one of you shoots, you’ll all be dead before you can pull the trigger again.”

As he finishes speaking, the man takes another step forward, and at last, I can make out his features. He’s middle-aged, with light brown hair and an aristocratic face.

A face I recognize.

Alec Beckham.





45





River





I blink, staring at the tall man I’ve only seen a couple of times. I know him as a billionaire, the man who hosted the party Julian wanted to go schmooze at, a man at the top of the pack when it comes to the wealthy players in Detroit.

But what the fuck is he doing here?

A second later, it becomes abundantly clear that he wasn’t lying. He has a bunch of men with him, and they emerge from the shadows to surround me and the guys, boxing us in on the corner of the wide wooden dock as water laps at the piles below us.

There’s no need to even wonder if they’re all armed, since their guns are drawn and pointed right at us. I can feel the Kings shifting their weight on all sides of me, tense and angry, not sure what to make of this.

Yeah. Me neither.

Alec glances down at Carter’s crumpled body and shakes his head before nudging him with his foot. The FBI agent’s body is as limp and lifeless as a sack of rocks, and my stomach churns at the way Alec gazes down at it like a piece of trash.

Then Alec looks back up at me, smiling calmly. Something in me shrinks away from that smile. There’s no joy in it, no actual happiness. It’s too smooth, too cool. Utterly calm and controlled.

“You know, for a long time, I thought you must have been acting on someone else’s orders when you killed Ivan St. James,” he tells me. “I thought you were just a pawn, following commands, though admittedly good at it. I didn’t realize you were the queen on the board.”

My heart is racing and my mouth feels dry. Everything in me is screaming at me to run, to fight, to do something, but I can’t. We’re trapped, surrounded, and Alec Beckham clearly isn’t fucking around. He just had his men shoot and kill an FBI agent, so he wouldn’t think twice about murdering all of us.

I’m rooted to the spot, trying to process all of this as fast as I can.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap, my fear manifesting as anger like it often does.

Alec just keeps smiling, unhurried and unbothered.

“I was the one who pulled Ivan’s body from the river and put it out on display,” he says. “I knew there was a rat in my organization, a traitor who was no longer playing by the rules. Someone trying to leave the Kyrio Society, to get out. I thought Ivan’s death was related to that, and I was trying to smoke out whoever it was.”