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The flight was long. Longer than I wanted it to be. I slept for the better part of the trip, but it still felt long. I still can’t get over the fact that the founding families own a damn 747.
I’m gathering up all of my crap after landing when P hooks her arm in mine. “We all have to get our tattoos while we’re here.”
I freeze, one hand on the strap of my backpack and the other clutching my phone.
“Why?”
We start walking toward the exit. “Well, because you can only get the tattoo here. Something about the ink, and then there’s this whole ceremony thing that we all have to go through—” We make our way down the stairs. I shiver as the cool air whips around me. I am well aware of the ceremony and what it entails, but I didn’t think we would do it right now. Amongst everything else that seems to be going on, getting marked seems diminutive.
Four jacked out black Range Rovers are parked in front of us. Men dressed in dark suits and dark glasses standing guard at each one.
“So, you’re in?” Perse asks, nudging me.
“Sure,” I say, just to get her off my ass about it. Truthfully, I don’t want to be here, and I don’t know why. I think I’m ready to be back in the US and back to usual touring. Usual shows. I don’t want to be here, in Kiznitch. I just wish I knew why my stomach and heart ached being on what’s supposed to be my homeland.
“Tell me more. More. More. More.”
The walls are tightening around me, the closer they get, the less I can breathe.
“More.”
“I don’t know!” I scream so loud my eardrums pop.
“Sass! In here…” Killian calls out. Our tension swallows everyone and everything around us whole. “Now.”
“Just go.” Perse pushes me toward him. “He’s not going to let up.”
I slide my glasses over my eyes and follow his orders. This once. Mainly because I don’t want to cause a scene in the middle of an airstrip. As soon as I’m in front of him, he grabs at my fingers and leads us around the Range Rover that I thought we were getting into.
“Where are you taking me?”
He pulls out a set of keys from his pocket and points.
I pause. I know the extent of their money, but wealth is hard to digest when you’ve been fed poverty all your life.
The matte black Lambo lights up as he points. “Get in.”
“Why?” I ask skeptically, making my way to the passenger side. “Why not ask someone else?”
He pauses, reaching for his smokes in the back of his jeans. He puts one in his mouth. “Why do you always analyze everything?”
“Like you don’t?” I throw back at him.
He stills, then slowly flicks open my Zippo and lights the tip of his cigarette. “Get in the car, Hellhound.”
I sigh, taking in my environment. The other cars have all started to pull away, displaying an airport in the distance.
“Fine.” I pull the handle until the door slides up. Sinking into lavish leather, I try really hard to ignore the way it buries my skin with its velvet touch. He slips into the driver’s seat, his cigarette polluting the prominent scent of freshly stitched leather.
He pushes the car to start and the deep rumble of the engine vibrates beneath us. Pushing the gear into first, he drives us out of the airstrip, whizzing behind the line of affluent and exclusive cars.
“I don’t know shit about you, but you said you’ve been here before?” I don’t know if that was a question or a statement.
“Hmmm,” I answer. “Yeah, I have. When I was little.” I turn to look at him, but he simply puffs on his smoke and hits the stereo. “Why am I here?”
He tilts his head to stare at me. “I’m curious.”
“About what?” I ask, though he’s still watching me closely. I shift my attention to the road ahead of us. “You might want to watch where you’re driving…”
He smirks. “Ever seen Fast and Furious?”
I shuffle uncomfortably. “Yes, and you’re not Dominic Toretto.”
He winds his window down and flicks his smoke out just as the car swerves into the other lane and he drops the gear back down to second, flying past the line of cars.
“Oh my god, Killian!” I grab onto the handle of the door as he continues to gain speed, along with my heart rate. A semi-truck is coming closer and closer, in direct line of us, but there’s nowhere that Killian can swerve into because the line of cars are driving too close together.
“Killian…” I warn, my palms sweating and heart thumping.
“What are you hiding from me?”
“What?” I glare at him sideways.
He stares back at me through narrowed slits. “Answer the question because I know that you heard me.”
“Nothing!” I yell. The truck is flashing his high beams at us now, signaling us to move.
“Why do I not fucking trust you?” Killian’s jaw clenches and he cuts in front of the SUV at the front of the line, just in time for the truck to pass us, honking.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I scream. I want to hit him.
“Fear acts as a truth serum for humans.” He looks over at me briefly and then back to the road as he finally drops to a more acceptable speed. “Why do you think people are tortured? The fact that they’re going to die, instills fear inside of them.”
“What has that got to do with me?”
He shakes his head. “It has everything to do with you.”
I ignore him for the rest of the trip, somewhat a
People stop and stare with a mixture of expressions flashing over their faces.
Shock.
Lust.
Hunger.
Beauty.
Games.
Killian hooks down a side street.
“Where are we all staying here?”
He chuckles. “At one of the founding houses is where we will all be staying. Delila has her own plantation here, and all the others do also.”
“I’ll stay with Kenan.” I’d feel more comfortable with him or Perse, but I know that Perse and King are still in that nice, honeymoon stage, so they probably don’t want someone hanging off them for however long that we’re here for.
“Like fuck you are.”
I drop down onto the bed that Killian put me into, curling my legs beneath my butt. The Cornelii plantation is oddly haunting. Cold brick held up by Victorian style windows, but that really offers only a small detail of what it’s really like inside. The walls are half white and half dark burgundy, with grey trimmings and aged drapes. There’s a four-post bed in the room that I’m staying in and an old wood fireplace on the opposite side. A large dresser and a closet sit on the other side, right beside a door that leads into a bathroom. To the left of me are white lace curtains that hide the small balcony which overlooks the entirety of the back yard. In the yard, there’re old statues, and a large stone swimming pool with bright blue lights illuminating from the bottom. It hasn’t been lived in, in probably years, but it’s quite obviously been kept up. Killian also wasn’t kidding about the founding houses. I think they’re all in a circle. Each plantation style home is acres away from each other, with a large forest right in the middle of them all. In front of the Cornelii house is the number II. I know the complexity of The Four Brothers of Kiznitch and the world that they operate in, but I never completely immersed myself in finding out what a lot of the terminology or rituals that happen really mean. I’m guessing that II means his standing down the line, with King being I. I would have rather stayed at any of the other houses, and I tried to fight him to not stay here, but he didn’t budge. Eventually, I gave up so long as I stayed in the wing that he wasn’t staying in. He agreed.