People call Killian unhinged and impulsive for his rage issues, but actually, he spends more time keeping them in check than not. People don’t see that. They see a bottle of beer flying across the room and smashing into a wall and think he’s such a loose cannon. They couldn’t be more wrong. When he finally lets it out, that’s not impulse. That shit is finely calculated. The rage is always there inside him, but he knows when he can get away with it and when the time isn’t quite right.
It wasn’t always like that, though.
The first time I met Killer, he was gunning for me—really amping up into a nuclear explosion that was destined to end with my teeth on the pavement. All these years later, I can’t even remember what set him off, the fucking psycho. He was bigger, even then. We were barely eight years old, and both little shits to boot. I knew right away this kid could chew me up and spit me out.
I still fought back.
I think that’s why he came back the next day, striding up to the corner store my mom worked at, shiner and all, to ask if I wanted to go play a game of HORSE on the court by his house. Killian and Tristian are both North Side blood. Killer likes to bicker about that—fucker thinks there’s something worthwhile in the cred—but I don’t give a shit where his dad came from. He can tattoo himself all to hell and act just as hard as he wants, but deep down, the guy’s all North. He’s never gone to bed hungry and mad at the world because of it.
He and Tristian have never been dicks about it. Hell, Killer bought me my first keyboard, sick of always waiting for me to finish lessons at old man Kinley’s house. Tristian got me my first piece of proper recording equipment, demanding I put down a sick track for his twelfth birthday party. If they had something, then one of made damn sure I had it, too.
But they don’t know what it means to feel like trash because their shoes have holes. They’ve never needed to carry their jacket close because it’s the only one they’ve got for the whole winter, and every other kid you’ve met has had sticky fucking fingers. They’ve both seen hard times, don’t get me wrong—plenty of rough to go around in the North Side, too—but they can never really know this kind.
Story could, though.
I saw it in her the first time we met. Those wide doe eyes of hers took in Killian’s house, and I could tell it’d never really be home to her. Too nice, too clean. Impossible to be comfortable there. I got it, though. It should have made me want to get close to her—to show her it wasn’t all bad for people like us. To show her that Killian and Tristian didn’t care about that shit, because they had that privilege. But for some reason, it just made me fucking hate her. Having her there was proof that I could never exactly fit, either. She made me feel humiliated. Inferior.
It was just my own bullshit. It took some time, but standing here, watching Killer cut her shirt down the middle, ripping it open wide, I get that now.
Now that she’s humiliated me intentionally.
It’s a different kind of hatred, because it’s not hatred at all. It’s the one person who could understand, who could really know what it’s like to struggle, to walk in the company of wealth and feel like scum, stabbing me in the fucking back. It’s knowing that I stood there that night, weeks ago, and told her about my old teacher—the one who used to mock and taunt me—only to have her use it against me. It’s that I handed her something small and fragile, only to watch her smash it in my face.
This shit is worse than betrayal.
I may not have the rage issues that plague Killian, but something deep inside feels wounded enough to make it feel like I do. White-hot anger boils my blood, and if Killian hadn’t spoken up earlier, I may have strangled the life out of her.
All the work I’ve done for the past few weeks, the kindness and attention and patience—fucking mind-numbing, ball-aching patience—had been for nothing. She never wanted my approval. She was just playing a game of her own.
Sweet Cherry is about to learn a very difficult lesson.
Lords always win.
And we keep what’s ours.
“You know how the Dukes mark their Duchess?” Killian asks, gently running the tip of the knife between her tits. “They brand her. Tie her up, hold her down, and burn their icon into her skin—wherever she wants it.” I see a shudder roll through her body, and so does Killian. It makes his eyes harden. “The Barons make the Baroness get a tattoo of their pentagram. I like that. It’s got everything; style, permanence.” He snatches up her wrist, sneering at the cuff. “The Lords just have this. Leather and metal. You can take it off whenever you want. It’s against the rules, but you don’t actually care about those, do you?” With a sharp yank, he has it off her wrist in a second flat. “It doesn’t matter. Since you can’t seem to understand your fucking place, we’re going to carve three letters into your skin.” He leans in until he’s nose to nose with her, lips pulled back in a snarl. “And they won’t be LDZ.”
Story laughs, not even struggling against mine and Tristian’s hold. “That’s your big punishment? You’re going to cut me up?” She strains forward, mouth pressed into a crooked twist. “Here’s a secret, Big Killer. I don’t care. I stopped caring about what you did to my body somewhere between the tracker and being in your bed of nails.”
He plants a hand in the middle of her chest, driving her back. “You drugged me, tied me up, and then fucked me. You know what that’s called right?”
This makes her eyes go tight, smile sharpening. “A taste of your own medicine.”
He puts the blade to her sternum, right between her tits, and gazes pensively as it presses into the flesh. “Here’s a secret for you, Story. It didn’t work.” Voice lowering to a hiss, he tells her, “Your pussy felt good, little sister. Best fuck I’ve had all year, really. You should reconsider your lifestyle if that’s your idea of revenge.” To me and Tristian, he says, “Hold her.”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth, she goes stiff, me and Tristian clamping hard on her shoulders, pinning her to the wall. From the bloodless expression on her face, I’m thinking she’s going to scream.
But she doesn’t.
The moment Killian drags the knife down her chest, blood bubbling up around the metal of the blade, she throws her head back and looks like she wants to. Her throat swells with it, like it’s a living thing clawing up from her lungs, but she won’t let it free. She won’t give us the satisfaction. Killian connects the lines of the ‘K’ slowly, making it just as neat and tidy as he always is.
And then he hands the knife to Tristian.
Tristian takes it, letting Killian take his place at her shoulder. “The next time you pull something like this,” he says to her, caressing her breast with the tip of the blade. “You can imagine me sinking this knife into your chest, because that’s exactly what I’ll do. Are you listening?” He grabs her chin and roughly wrenches her gaze to his. I thought I’d seen the worst of Tristian that night on the docks when he torched the yacht, but I was wrong. He’s never looked as scarily inhuman as he does now, nose to nose with Story. “You threaten my sisters again, and I’ll kill you.”
Her face goes slack, right before screwing up in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? I would never—” Her voice garbles off, jaw clenching shut as Tristian carves the ‘T’ below the ‘K’.
When he hands me the knife, my fingers fist it hard enough to ache. We switch places, which gives me a perfect view of their handiwork. The cuts are too shallow for my taste, two lines of blood crawling slowly toward her navel, and I have to wipe it away to see the skin that’s about to bear my mark.
I reach up with my bloodied fingers, smearing a messy smudge over her cheek. I’m expecting her to grimace and turn away, but she disappoints me, turning into it instead. There’s a crazed mania flickering in her eyes that’s almost fascinating to see. It’s what makes me speak next. “You know I actually started to feel bad about what happened that night? I was thinking to myself,” I press the tip of the knife into her skin, “maybe if we’d taken our time, been nicer, we probably could have had you without all the fuss. We could have…” I dig the tip in, following her wince with a surge of my body. “…wooed you. Truthfully, I have no fucking idea what that would have looked like. But I found myself thinking about it. Isn’t that funny?”
She gasps at the line I make, no doubt deeper than the others.
“But like you said, I do know how to handle you. I knew how horny you were that night, remember? I whispered it in your ear. I felt how wet you were. You’ve always been easy for me to read.” But I pause, lifting the knife. “Which letter should I choose, Cherry? ‘R’?” I follow her gaze, waiting for her eyes to blink open to sneer, “Or ‘D’?”
I can see her pulling that steely defiance around her like a comforting blanket, and it doesn’t waver. Not even when she parts her lips to say, “Go ahead. It’ll be the only ‘D’ you’ll ever give me.”
My knuckles go white around the hilt of the knife, and for a moment, I want nothing more than to raise it over my head and slam it into her cheek. Jaw clenching hard, I swipe the blood away and finish my initial, undeterred by her full-bodied wince.
When it’s done—all our initials carved into her flesh—I step back and look at it. I’m not like Killian, who’s probably going to get off at the sight of it. It doesn’t make me happy to see it. It doesn’t make her feel any closer to being mine. It doesn’t make this gaping maw in my chest any better. Looking at Story, she might be a little stiff and pale, but her eyes are pure steel.
In the end, it’s kind of underwhelming.
Sharing a glance with the others, it’s clear they feel the same way. It’s not like we talked about it, but we all know what we wanted out of this. Tears. Sobbing. Begging. Promises that she’ll be better. We wanted this bitch to throw herself at our feet, or at the very least, fight back.
Instead, we get the defiant jut of her chin, and it doesn’t matter that she’s acting.
She looks bored.
Tristian, all the fine details of his carefully composed mask cracking, pushes her to her knees. She goes down easily, as if she’s been expecting and preparing for this all along. Fuck, maybe she has. Maybe this whole thing was part of her plan. Maybe she’s right and we’ve created something unbreakable.
Doesn’t mean we won’t try.
Killian’s there to grab her wrists, wrestling her arms behind her back. “Let’s see how you like being tied up,” he spits, using her wrist cuff to bind her hands.
She doesn’t look surprised when she sees Killian unzip his pants. But when Tristian does the same—and then when I reach for mine—she laughs again. “Wow, you almost had me with the knife punishment, but this? Come on.” She shakes her head. “So predictable.”
I allow my jeans to sag down my hips, taking my cock in hand. I coax it to hardness, watching from my periphery as the others do the same. “That wasn’t the punishment, Story.”
Tristian works his palm over the head of his cock, scuffing closer. “That was a deed.”
She arches an eyebrow, all that steely challenge still sparking in her eyes. “A deed?”
“A deed of ownership.” Killian gives his cock a few firm tugs, eyes boring down into hers. “And now we’re going to enjoy our property.”
“We’re going to cover you in our come, Sweet Cherry.” I grab the front of her hair, forcing her eyes to mine. “We’re going to force you to eat it. Swallow it. Take it.”
Tristian adds, “And then you’re going to walk out of here with your head held high like nothing happened, and do you want to know why?”
Killian is the one who answers. “Because that’s what whores do.”
