Sancte Diaboli

I crack my neck, my fingers tapping the door handle. This will for sure be the start of a fucking war, but I’m good with it. I’d kill and be killed before anything touched Saint.

“No witnesses.” I flick my gat around my fingers.

“Agreed,” Bishop murmurs as the car slows.

There are about five people standing in a parking lot, two cars parked on the curb. No doubt whatever they’re doing is shady as all fuck. About as shady as us rolling up to murder them all. “Wait and Bleed” by Slipknot spills from the speakers as my window rolls down. My mind moves in slow motion, as if it doesn’t want to miss a single fucking detail.

Bishop rests the AK on the windowsill and pulls the trigger. Bullet casings spray behind him, but not before I flick my hoodie off my head to expose my face, raise my gun up and point it right between the eyes of Elijah Garcia who stands right beside his father. Ru

“Go! Drive!” Bishop moves back into his seat as our driver speeds off with the rest of The Kings behind us. “Fuck, you got Elijah?”

“Yeah.” I rest my gun on my lap. “By the way, not how I wanted to do this.”

“I fucking know,” Bishop says to me. “Which is precisely why we had to do it like this. Too messy and not enough time.”

“You guys are forgetting that we killed the Dux of The Gentlemen and his beta. Not their whole crew.”

I sit on his words as we drive toward the next phase. “Well aware, but still felt fucking good.” I’m not going to pretend we know a lot about The Gentlemen, because we don’t. We don’t know how much they’ve expanded over the years, and although Elijah’s murder wasn’t exactly how I had it pla

“Well, fuck. Phase two come the fuck at me,” Bishop says smugly.

The cemetery is no different than others, only a little edgier. The sites are aged, yet maintained, but there are more tombstones than there are gravestones with most of the families choosing to display than to bury. We’re all standing in the middle of the Hayes tomb when Hector and the rest of The Fathers walk in, Hector’s jaw tight.

“I take it that was all of you?”

Max, Raguel, and Johan stand beside Hector, as Gabriel hovers toward the back.

“You boys have sure not made my life easy,” Gabriel mutters from behind, shaking his head. Gabriel, Nate’s father, is the Peacemaker of The Kings. It’s almost comical to picture Nate filling that role of his family; it makes more sense to have him on the school board instead.

“Boys, I said one kill. You all took out five, and they’re not men you wanted heat with.”

Bishop leans forward, resting his hands on the large boulder that sits in the center of the space. A small fire burns in the middle, flames licking the darkness and offering a smudge of orange light. “Who were they?”

Hector sighs, pinching his eyes with his fingers. “We will talk about that later. For now, let’s just continue with the phases.” Hector moves through the speech, speaking in Latin, and I watch as everyone slices themselves on their finger to drop their blood inside an old rusted bowl. Truthfully, I find the rust shady as fuck more than the blood. Hector continues speaking the six commandments as we all take a sip of the whiskey spoiled blood. See what I did there.

Saint—the guy Saint—is the final one to take a hit before placing it on top of the boulder.

“As you know, you’ve all come to fulfill your duty and placement in the Kings’ world. You all contribute to how we remain strong in the universe, unbroken. For generations, this has never cracked. I will be going a separate way next year, which will furthermore make our line strong.” He pauses, and my eyes find Bishop, who looks between Nate and me. What the fuck is he talking about, going a separate way? Hector continues. “Where I am going will be extremely beneficial to our world and will be opening even more doors. Hunter will be coming with me.” I still. “Who will serve as my right hand. You will know. More details soon, but for now and always” —Hector smiles at his son, lifting the rusted bowl and bringing it to his mouth—“we reign.”