Sancte Diaboli

“Fine, grumpy motherfucker! But we are partying this weekend! Your house!”

I flipped him off because that’s all we seemed to do lately was party.

When I shoved through the door of the final classroom at the back that led into the gymnasium, I slammed it closed and flicked the lock.

Her body stilled, her long blonde hair moving over one shoulder. I watched as the corner of her mouth kicked into a smile.

“You’ve been chasing my dick since you got to this school.” I kicked off the door and made my way farther into the room.

She didn’t move. Didn’t answer.

When I reached her back, my hand snaked around from behind until I had it wrapped around the front of her throat, yanking her head backward while kicking her legs wide. “Mrs. Fucking Kilpatrick.” Her wedding ring glistened on her finger as she slammed her hands onto her desk. She tilted her head until she was looking at me over her shoulder.

“What gave me away?” she said in a tone that I had never heard from her, definitely not when she would scream at us to jump hurdles during track.

I cranked my head, while ru

I reached into my pants just as a door behind me opened. Fuck. There were two doors. She froze beneath me, but I didn’t allow her to move.

I slowly turned to look over my shoulder to find Nate standing at the threshold, his eyes on us, fist in his mouth. “Well, shit. Gotta say—”

“—go

His eyes flew to Mrs. Kilpatrick. I mean, it wasn’t that she was ugly. She wasn’t. She was a forty-somethin’ hot as fuck woman who, I’m guessing, knew exactly what she was doing. It’s what I needed. I never touched high school chicks. The closest to my age I ever went were college girls, and even then, the sex was too basic for me. Too vanilla. Too clean. Literally.

Nate took the steps he needed while finally locking the second door behind him. “Yeah, fuck, I’m game.”

She wriggled beneath my grasp. “Brantley. If you break it, you gotta buy it, honey.”

“I’m not here to buy shit, I’m here to ruin you, so that the next time your husband shoves his cock into your cunt.” I sank my teeth into the flesh of her neck before finally whispering, “He’s going to wonder why his wife has been split open.”

Present

So, yeah. About that. I kept that happening for most of the year. Never wanted it from girls my age. Something about them reminded me too much of my childhood.

Too much. Too close. Too familiar. So, I kept it to older women. Married women. Having a married woman sucking my dick before going home to kiss her husband amused me. Knowing he’d be wondering why there were bite marks all over her body…

“I get that,” I say, since no one fucking else is going to. Eli, I get. He’s the youngest out of all of us, and aside from that, he’s not interested in the drama between Madison and Bishop. His brain doesn’t tick to the same clock that most people’s do. “But it’s out of character for you. Someone who chased her down to the ends of the earth, just lets her walk.”

Bishop shrugs. “That was the fool me once I just spoke about. Can’t have a weakness. So if she really wants me, she needs to show that she can handle it.” He looks around the table. “Anyone else have anything they want to add, because speak now or forever hold your fucking peace.”

Silence.

“I think Tillie is talking to her.” All of us turn to Nate.

He shuffles in his seat.

“What the fuck do you mean?” Bishop growls, and I can see his easy demeanor slowly shift.

“I mean, I’ve caught her on the phone a couple times, and every time she sees me, she hangs up the phone, and when I ask her who she’s talking to, she says Bran Bran—” His eyes come to mine.

Fuck.

Fucking Tillie. I know I’ll be breaking our silent code of loyalty if I tell them it wasn’t me, but I’m a King before I’m anything else.

I shake my head. “Not me, fam.”

“Eh, what I suspected.” Nate shrugs, leaning back in his chair.

“But are you really surprised?” I say to Nate and then look between the two of them. The realization of everything dawns on me and I start laughing. “Damn. Love really turned you both slow as fuck.” I roll my eyes as the door opens and Hector enters. “Tillie is a girl’s girl. She looks after her friends. How are you surprised that she’s talking to Madison? If anything, at least you know she’s not fucking dead.”

I kick my legs out as Hector takes a seat on the opposite end of his son. The table is long, with ten seats, but both ends are for him and Bishop.

It’s tense when Hector clears his throat, and I don’t know if there’s something else happening between the two of them, or if it’s the whole Madison ghost that hovers over everything.

“You think she’s been talking to her for a while?” Nate asks, and I have his full attention.

I shrug. “It’s Tillie.”

Hector pulls out a cigar from the humidor and clips the end. “We’ve got something else we need to discuss, where’s Cash?”

“Out with Be

The table grows quiet. I roll my eyes again. “He’s my cousin, not the fucking Devil.”

“So he’s out racing?” Hector further says, an eyebrow quirked.

Bishop shrugs. “Someone has to keep that going.”

“In my defense, I wanted to,” Eli says, raising his arm.

We all ignore him.

“What is it?” Bishop says to his father.

He flicks the ash off his cigar. “The old Riverside is reopening.”

“As in the old schools?” I fucking loved the old school. Was pissed when we had to be moved to the new building.

Hector nods. “The very same. We’re closing the one in the Hamptons and classes start back after the summer break.”

“I thought it was too old to have kids in, which is why they moved the school to the Hamptons?” Bishop questions Hector.

Hector shakes his head. “Not entirely true. We didn’t tell you all right away because you were only just stepping into your roles. We didn’t want to overwhelm you.”

I snicker. Pretty sure learning that our school was moving to a different location would be the least shocking lie we would learn.

“So what’s the story?” Nate asks.

“Since you’re taking the gavel this year, son, you will need to know all of the little cracks that we’ve hidden from you, and over time, you will know everything. But for right now, we need to talk about this.” His eyes flick to Nate. “Your father has pushed this, too, by the way. Pushy fucking bastard. He’s getting worse with age.”

“Why does it matter if the old schools are reopening?” I ask the question no one else seems to want to know, a

“Well, a few reasons,” Hector answers, and we all wait in silence for him to say what he needs to say. “And all of them impact each of you in one way or another.”

That has my attention.

“You.” He points to Bishop. “Because you’re going to be on the frontline to a decade long turf war. You.” He points to me. “Because you have something, or someone, in your possession that is far more valuable than you know, and you,” he finally says to Nate, and I have to pull in all of my instincts that are screaming to ask him what the fuck he means. “Because I promised Stuprum that I would protect your child from enemies, and I’m a man of my word.” Finally, he leans forward, unclasping the button of his suit jacket and resting his elbows on the table. “You should all, I, we, every King, be on high alert right now. Things are happening behind the shadows. There are movements happening that we’re not comfortable with.”