Chapter 35

I blinkthrough the darkness clouding my vision. Voices, too many, ring in my ears.

"What do you wanna do to the girl before he gets here?" a man asks, but it's like he's far away, or like I'm underwater.

"We wait. Nothing happens without my say-so. Got it, Roy?"

I instantly shrink back.

That voice…it causes a gasp to escape.

I know that voice. Heard it countless times.

This can't be happening.

This isn't real.

I can't breathe.

Can't run.

My body, it feels like lead.

Anger and fear tangle furiously inside me as I pant, reeling from the realization of it all.

I've been betrayed.

"I want to see the look on his face when I slit her throat."

Every hair on my body wakes, and I'm instantly doused in absolute mind-crunching panic. The kind that seeps into your marrow and wakes up every nightmare you've ever had.

Why? That's the question that plays in my head. Why would she do this?

"Oh, look, she's awake." Someone yanks the blindfold off me and I blink faster, registering her face.

The woman I trusted, the one who was like a mentor to me, was nothing but an enemy.

Professor Montgomery snaps my chin, turning my head both ways, a gun in her other hand.

"You're not hurt, right?" She feigns concern while quiet sobs rip from my throbbing chest.

Her forehead is bandaged, but she's clearly fine.

"I thought the accident was a bit too much." She rolls her eyes, glancing back at the man behind her. "But the boys can be a little dramatic."

Her laughter makes my sobs grow louder.

"Now, now," she tsks. "I know this is all scary, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

"W-why?" I wrangle out the word, sticky in my throat. "Why would you do this to me?"

My wrists pinch, tied behind me on the cold floor in a building of some sort.

"I'm not doing it to you, sweetheart. I'm doing it to Scott. Or Devlin." The scrape of her laugh is like a knife puncture to my throat. "If he hadn't betrayed us, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Us?" I whisper. "You're…"

My head spins. She can't be. How? Nothing is making sense.

"Yes, sorry." She hikes up a well-manicured brow. "Getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning. My name is Lordes Palmer. I'm the youngest daughter of Francis Palmer. Nice to officially meet you, Eriu Quinn." Her eyes narrow, a seedy look within them.

She's a Palmer. She's one of them. How the hell did she manage this?! Is she really a professor? Did she start working at the school because of me?

"See, Devlin betrayed us to the feds. And after we killed his brother, they came for my dad and my brothers. My father killed himself to avoid prison, and my brothers finally got out recently."

Her heels clack as she ponders the rest, gripping her gun tightly in her grasp. I just need to keep her talking long enough to survive. I have to believe Devlin will save me.

"Is Roy your brother?" I ask her.

She freezes, snapping those cold eyes at me. "One of them. The other two are with our men downstairs, waiting to kill your husband."

All the blood leaves my body.

"Please don't. I beg you! Don't you want to move on from all this?" My chest shakes with each word. Maybe there's some hope to convince her to let this go. "I know you're hurting, but killing his brother should've been enough."

"Enough?" She laughs, then her face goes hard. "No. It'll never be enough. I made my father a promise that when he was gone, I would continue his legacy and I, me…" She slaps a palm over her chest. "…would bring our family justice." She grabs a fistful of my shirt and nears her face to mine. "And that will only happen when I hurt Devlin by hurting you, right before I kill him."

I pant with silent whimpers. She won't let this go. I've never seen her this way. Never knew she hated me this whole time.

She releases a dramatic exhale and drops her hand off of me.

"I've always wanted to prove myself to my father. You see, he never saw me like one of my brothers. I was a girl. Weak. Pathetic." She rolls her eyes. "But I wish Dad was still alive to see what I've managed to accomplish." Her chin inclines with indignation. "Sometimes it takes a woman's touch, don't you think? For these men to see us? It's what you fight for, isn't it? To be seen by your own father?" That gaze takes me in coldly. "It's a shame I have to kill you. I saw a lot of myself in you."

"Please," I cry. "I don't want to die. Please don't do this!"

"Hush now. Save your tears. There's nothing you can say to change my mind."

My body sags, and I continue to sob. "D-d-did you really work with Mason? For what?"

Her grin spreads. "We've been following Devlin and your family for years. I knew Devlin, and I knew he'd never wanna get married after his brother, even if he did like you." She runs a finger through the hair lining her face. "But see, I also suspected that if I paid off some asshole to marry you, Devlin would wanna take his place, especially if you decided to sell your virginity."

"W-what?" I can barely speak, not sure what she's trying to tell me.

She laughs. "I mean, I didn't know if you were brave enough to go through with it, but bravo. You fell right into my trap."

The room spins as my mind races, taking short, shallow breaths.

I don't understand what's happening.

"How would you even know about the club?"

"Knew about it?" She scoffs. "I made sure you went." With every footfall, she comes closer until she's kneeling in front of me, the back of her hand gliding down my cheek until I recoil. "Wanna know how?"

But I don't. I can't take any more. My chest snaps so tight I can barely breathe.

She continues to look pleased with herself, straightening before glancing behind her shoulder at her brother. She tilts her head to the side in a quick snap, and I have no idea what that meant, but I'm sure it's not good.

My entire body tremors, gasping for air, the pulse in my ears louder.

Her brother disappears for a moment, and in the next, another guy returns with him, dragging someone.

Not just someone.

"Karen? Oh my God! Don't touch her! She has nothing to do with this!"

But the professor simply laughs like I've said something ridiculous. "Nothing to do with this? Oh, she has everything to do with this. Don't you, sweetheart?"

"What?" I whisper, my eyes growing large.

"Please, Mom! Don't do this!"

"Mom?" I gasp.

And in that split second is when the realization finally hits and everything changes.

Everything I believed, everything I've clung to, simply vanishes. And in its place is darkness, so black I can't see through it.

Fresh tears blanket my vision, nausea swirling, my head spinning until I feel as though I may pass out.

"Nonono!" I whimper, my chest heaving while fat tears roll down my face.

But no matter how many times I close my eyes, I see the same thing: Karen stands in front of me, her eyes glassy, face blotchy, calling this woman Mom.

"Karen? What's going on here?! Please tell me she's not your mother! That you weren't… Oh my God."I crumble, sinking deeper into the cold floor, weeping and shaking my head.

My best friend stands there calling this woman her mother. She lied to me? Was our friendship all a lie too? Were all the people I trusted just out to hurt me?

"Oh my God." I can't breathe.

Karen doesn't meet my gaze, and every ounce of blood rushes out of my body.

"Karen?" I sob. "Look at me."

But she still refuses, peering at her mother through red-stained eyes. She looks nothing like the well-put-together, confident woman I've always known her to be. In her place is someone broken.

"You stupid girl!" The professor slaps her hard across her cheek. "You got too close, and now look at you!" Her upper lip curls in disgust.

Karen weeps, holding her face.

"Don't you remember what Scott did to your grandpa? Your uncles? We lost everything because of him, and now he gets to feel what I did all those years!"

"But, Mom," she whimpers. "It's not her fault. Please, please, if you love me, you'll let her go!"

Professor Montgomery blows a disappointed breath. "This is why you'll never be in charge of this organization when I'm gone. Your twin brother will have it all. He has our interests at heart. You, on the other hand, are a constant disappointment. You couldn't even attend the wedding so we could take her then. Because of you, we had to do something drastic."

She was going to take me at my own wedding… She's insane!

"I'm sorry," Karen whispers, finally looking at me, and for a moment, it feels as though I have my best friend back.

But she was nothing but a lie.

"Shut up!" her mother hollers. "She isn't your friend. I know I had to constantly remind you of that."

The professor's bemused smirk lands on me.

"Karen being my daughter must come as a huge shock. I mean, she did do her job. I have to give her that." She gives her daughter a passing look. "When I found out you'd be transferring to the same university as her, it was like fate. I easily got a job there thanks to a fellow colleague and told Karen to befriend you. And my plan of getting back at Devlin seemed easier than ever."

Karen quietly sobs, shame lining her gaze.

"The club, that was an added bonus. I knew Adam's father. So I asked him for a favor, and that is how you got the invite. All Karen had to do was make sure you went and joined the auction. I must say, I had very little faith she'd actually do it. Isn't that right, darling?"

Her eyes narrow at her daughter, and I almost feel bad for Karen, if that's even her real name.

"I'm so sorry, Eriu!" She cries, shaking her head. "I had no choice!"

"Shut your damn mouth!" The professor glares, and Karen shrinks into herself.

A sudden loud smashing sound causes me to jerk, my heart racing until it feels as though it'll jump out of my throat.

Please, let it be Devlin and my family! Please!

"Go check with them downstairs," she tells Roy, who immediately does, leaving us alone with her and the henchman who's holding Karen.

The professor kneels, lowering her hand to her ankle, and pulls out a flip knife. She eyes me with a brutal stare, strutting up toward me.

"I hope that's him." She grabs my hair from the back and lines the knife against my carotid.

"Mom!" Karen sobs. "Please don't hurt her!"

But she ignores her, staring ahead, waiting for Devlin.

She doesn't wait long. The door flies open, and he rushes in, holding a young man in his grip, a gun pointed at the guy's temple.

"Get your hands off my wife!" His eyes go to mine, and in them, I find pain, so much of it.

"Ah, there you are. Took you long enough."

My scalp burns as she yanks harder, making me wince.

"Been listening to every word you said, Lordes. It's a shame it took us this long to meet, wouldn't ya say?"

"Believe me, I've been waiting a long time for this. Now, drop the boy and come fight me like a man."

The guy holding Karen points his weapon at Devlin, and my nerves can't take it anymore.

"I don't think I'll do that," Devlin says. "See, you've got a knife to her throat and I have a gun to your nephew's head. And I have a feeling you'd rather me kill your daughter than him, isn't that right?"

At that, Karen wails, and I wish I could hold her. I know she betrayed me, and I'm so angry, but I can't help but want to comfort her too. Clearly, she didn't have a good family life.

"Fuck you, you traitor!" The blade deepens against my skin. "Let my brother's boy go! Or I kill her right now."

The boy isn't that young, a few years older than me.

"You're gonna kill her anyway, so why would I let him live?" He tightens his arm around the guy's neck. "See, you thought you were smarter than me. That your people would easily overpower me and I'd let history repeat itself. But not this time. So, what will it be? Blood for blood, or do we let them go?"

"I will kill you!" she snaps.

"You could, but I have the place surrounded. Got the Irish, the Italians, and even the Russians ready to light your arse up. So, you may kill my wife and me, but you'll all be dead too."

"You bastard! My father trusted you. He treated you like a son!" she hollers. "And you gave us up like we meant nothing. And for what? For some junkie brother who would've ended up dead on the street with a needle in his arm anyway?" She snickers. "I'll never stop hunting you. No matter where you go, I'll be there, taking everything from you. It's why I needed you to marry her. Being together wasn't enough. I wanted to take her from you in the worst way. To make it hurt as much as I could."

"Well, you've done that. Now let her go and take me."

"That'll never be enough, and you know it. Not after the way you destroyed my family!"

I pinch my eyes closed, my body trembling, gasping for breaths that never come. Fear for Devlin and for myself hits me hard.

This could be it. Our future could vanish right here and now.

"My father never paid much attention to me," she goes on. "You never even met me because I was never a part of the business. But little did my father know, I watched him and learned everything." She sounds proud of herself. "You may have not known me, but I knew everything about you. I knew how you'd react if someone like Mason married her. I mean, he was already an asshole. Didn't take much to make him threaten Eriu about her virginity."

Devlin's face contorts with rage, even while he tries to remain calm.

"I figured that would make little Eriu desperate enough to join the auction to avoid marrying him. I love being right." Her voice mocks. "The only hiccup was if you'd actually marry her. I wanted her to be your wife when I took her from you. When I made you watch as another person you love got taken from you. If you'd been loyal, none of this would've happened. It's all your fault."

Devlin grunts low in his chest, glancing at me, jaw flexing. "I did what I had to do to keep the feds from taking my brother to prison."

She claps, slapping one palm on her other forearm. "Bravo. Except he ended up dead anyway. Prison would've been better."

"It's over, Lordes," he warns. "Give up now."

"I'll never go down like a coward. She's gonna?—"

Pop.

I gasp, screaming as a bullet flies through the window and enters her temple.

And in a flash, another enters the man holding Karen.

He falls with a thud.

"No!" Karen runs toward her mother's dead body lying on the ground. "Mom! No!" she shrieks. "Mom!"

There's a sudden pang in my chest from her heavy wails. No matter how terrible she was, that's still her mom.

The whole thing hasn't really hit me. Karen and my professor were mother and daughter. How did I not see any of it? But Karen never mentioned much about her family. Now I see why.

"Devlin!" I call to him while he throws the nephew on the ground.

The man holds out his hands in front of his face, breaths hitched. But nothing will stop a bullet.

Devlin shoots him once in the head, and my chin trembles. He just killed someone. Right in front of me.

I pinch my eyes shut, muttering and whimpering to myself as I cry.

"I've got you, lass. It's okay. I've got you."

Devlin.

He cuts the zip ties from my wrists, and my arms jump around him. And when he holds me, when I feel his intense breaths, that's when everything in me cracks like a dam. Feeling his heartbeats next to mine, his hold around me tightening, my body sags.

I'm safe. He's safe.

We're okay.

"I thought I'd lost you." His own emotions wreck through him. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

My hands grip his shirt in tight fists.

"Let's get you out of here." He lifts me in the air and gathers me in his arms, cradling me.

When I look around, I see familiar faces: Gio, my sister, some of the Messinas. They're all here. They all came for me.

But someone else is here too. Someone I didn't expect to see. My stomach churns.

The last time I saw him, I was on stage losing my virginity.

"Hello, daragaya. I see you're in one piece, and what a relief that is." His mouth tips up.

Konstantin.

They all must've killed the men downstairs, the ones working for the professor. I look for Karen, not seeing her at first, until I find Rogue holding her by the arm.

"What do you wanna do with her?" he asks Devlin.

"Kill her."

"What?!" Spasms wrack my muscles until it seems like my bones will snap, and I force him to put me down. "No! You can't!"

"Please," Karen cries. "Please, I swear I won't say anything. I'll disappear. I—I'll get out of the country. Just don't kill me!"

"Devlin." I grab his arm and give him a stern look. "Don't do it! You can't!"

"Mo stoirín, she hurt you. I can't let her live." His finger brushes across my lips.

"You have to," I plead. "You have to do this for me, or we have no future. I won't forgive you for this."

His eyes slowly close, and he inhales a long breath.

"Fine. But if we catch wind of you here again…" he tells her. "You're dead."

She sags with relief, and Rogue lets her go.

"Eriu." Tears roll down her face. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I swear I didn't know how far she'd go. I never wanted you to find out because I love you. I wasn't lying when I said you were the best person I knew."

I swipe under my lashes. "Is Karen even your real name?"

I don't know why that's important in the grand scheme of things, but somehow it is.

She nods. "Yes. She made me become your friend, but I need you to know my feelings became genuine." She wilts like a flower, slowly dying right in front of me. "I had no choice. Not with her."

I nod with some form of understanding.

"You'll never see me again. I promise. Bye, Eriu. Please be happy."

Her lips quiver into a broken smile, and with a final look she turns and heads toward the exit.

Pop.

A bullet pierces the back of her head and she falls instantly.

"No!" My agonizing scream pierces through the echo of the gunshot as I run for Konstantin, his weapon still pointing in her direction. "No! Why?" I bang my fists on his chest. "Why did you kill her?! Why?!"

He just stares at me and lets me hit him, completely unaffected. "You never leave loose ends, daragaya. That's how you get killed."

With my hands quivering, I stare up at him with grief-stricken eyes, and I run for my friend's dead body and drop to the ground beside her. Laying my cheek on her stomach, I hold her as blood seeps from the hole in her head.

She didn't deserve this. She deserved more, a mother who loved and protected her, but instead she ended up a casualty in her mother's war for vengeance.

"Why did you do this? Why couldn't you talk to me? I could've helped you!"

But she doesn't answer. She can't say anything else ever again. She's gone. Just like that.

I don't know how long I stay there, holding her that way. But I can't seem to let go.

DEVLIN

The place is no longer filled with people. It's just Eriu, Karen, and me. She sobs over her dead friend while I want to choke the life out of Konstantin.

He did the right thing. I can't tell her that, though.

Karen could've come after her. Give someone enough rage, enough years to feel it, and they can do anything.

We managed to kill everyone who was at the abandoned sawmill where they kept Eriu. All the Palmer siblings are dead. And anyone left will be wiped out too. This needs to end once and for all.

"Baby, we have to go now." I lower beside her, and she doesn't even glance at me, her face hidden against her friend.

"We have to bury her," she whimpers. "We can't leave her here."

"Of course we will. I promise. The guys will take care of her properly once we're gone, and you can choose the spot, okay?"

She sniffles and nods, finally lifting her head upward. "I can't believe it. I really can't believe it. I trusted Professor Montgomery. I thought she cared about me. That Karen cared about me."

"I know. I'm sorry. I missed it too."

I slip my hand into hers and lift her to a standing position. She stares down at her friend and starts to sob again. But this time, she buries her face in my chest, and I hold her against my own broken heart, hating that she had to endure this much hurt, wishing I could do something about it.