Prologue

Jack

August 2001

Why did I get in the car with a 26-year-old man? This was fucking bullshit, and where the fuck was Greyson? I saw him once, driving away in the back of Beckett’s car, but I hadn’t seen him since. Why was he being kept separate? Why was his training different than ours?

I leaned back in my chair, legs extended out before me, arms crossed over my chest as I stared at the solid wooden door across the hall from us.

Azrael and Everett sat on either side of me, both just as irritated as I felt. We had been going through intensive training for the last couple of months and we were exhausted, angry, and bitter. We needed our rest if he wanted the best out of us, it was that simple.

Malachi had promised us a better life than the ones he plucked us out of, and yet here we were, work horses for a bullshit criminal mastermind who cared for nothing but making the world pay for what they did to him.

We still didn’t know what had been done to him to make him so angry, but the fact that the three of us were sitting out here on our only day off was fucking bullshit.

“Where is Greyson?” I asked Everett. My favorite brother, by far.

Greyson was weak and Azrael was strange in the worst possible way. He should have been put in an asylum when he was born, kept there until they fixed whatever had cracked inside his mind, but Malachi saw potential in him just as he saw potential in the rest of us.

Everett shrugged, inspecting his nails. He had missed a few specks of dirt under them. Malachi wouldn’t approve. He cared about appearance. Even after a day of training, we were expected to look our very best, act our best. Perfect little gentleman. As gentlemanly as a trio of killers could be.

As much as I hated his rules, I’d abide by them without arguing. This was far better than what I left behind. Although anything was better than that.

Azrael spoke freely of his hate of religion. He had no idea what hate truly was, I was sure of it. Nobody could hate a religion as much as I did. Nobody.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to that door. Greyson always got special treatment. I had my suspicions that his training was nowhere near as intense as ours, which grated against my bones. If we had to go through this unethical training process to earn our spots, he should have been there too. Bleeding right alongside the rest of us.

“He’s too soft,” Azrael spoke in that creepy, emotionless tone of his. “Malachi sees potential in him, but not the same kind he sees in us. He has a heart, we don’t. That’s the difference.”

I pressed my lips together. “We have hearts, we just don’t allow them to control us.” Emotions were dangerous in this kind of game. We all had our weaknesses, the program shifted for each of us just enough to force us to confront those weaknesses. Mine was anger, although I believed that we all had our issues with that particular emotion.

All four of us were found wandering the street in different cites in Washington. All of us coming from fucked up lives, trying to escape, runaway, whatever. We all had good reasons to be angry. Every single one of us.

Just because Greyson was softer than the three of us, didn’t mean he shouldn’t have to deal with the same shit we did.

I mean, Azrael was 8 for Christ’s sake, Everett was 10. If they could do it, then so could the 13-year-old.

I glanced over to Azrael just as he pulled out his old silver pocket watch from his pocket. He always carried that thing everywhere. Even if you couldn’t see it, it was always there. Always on his person. He was always watching the hands as if time were about to run out.

I almost felt bad for him. Maybe time had run out for him. Beckett had found him in the woods in Seattle, covered in blood, strange marks on his body that looked like gashes. Whatever his aunt and uncle had done to him, it had been far from kind.

Everett, however, had been found wandering along the street in Index, Washington. A little nothing town located at the foot of the Cascades. He had been talking about ghosts and Skinwalkers.

He freaked me the fuck out, still not as much as Azrael, but sometimes he said things that made my skin shiver.

Greyson’s dad had killed himself in front of Greyson, his mom gone. Out of the four of us, his trauma was the least, I suppose. Beckett had found him in Riverside, Washington, splattered in blood in the middle of winter.

Me?

I watched my mom kill my dad, my sister, my dogs, and then she set the house on fire, burning alive with my baby brother in her arms.

I could still hear his screams.

I had barely made it out alive, gunshot wound to the leg. But Malachi found me an hour later after I escaped the firemen and police officers. I wanted someone to pay for it, he told me I could make the whole world pay.

The door finally opened, and I sat up straight as Malachi stepped up to the door and nodded for us to come in.

We stood and followed after him without hesitation, Azrael shutting the door behind us.

Malachi walked over to his desk and took a seat, papers stacked everywhere, large binders lining the bookshelves. All a secret. Something we wouldn’t get to know until we were fully initiated, and even then, I had my doubts we would ever know everything.

“I’m sure you three are wondering why I called you here on your day off.”

“Yes sir,” I nodded, folding my hands behind my back.

Malachi leaned back in his seat, taking us in, our posture, the way we looked upon him with respect and strength. Everything was a test here. All of it. From the way we ate to the way we shit, it was all a test, and if we failed, we were terminated. One quick bullet between the eyes to protect the sanctity of whatever it was he was trying to build here.

“Greyson is excelling in his training,” he told us evenly. “You three are doing well. I see a good future for the four of you in my organization.”

I could just hear the pride dripping in his voice.

I held in my own eyeroll.

“This program has been well thought out, well-built. I’ve worked a long time to get it to where it is. To get it to the point where I can start testing it on people and have the high success rate I want. With that being said, I have a task for all three of you regarding what I have built.”

Tasks. That’s what he called our assignments. I wasn’t sure if it was because he thought the word was less intimidating or what, but I hated that he didn’t just say what it was. An assignment. A hit, a robbery, a business meeting. Those weren’t tasks, not to me. Not to them.

“I’ve been considering opening this program up to my people. As you know, I put several men through it before I redesigned it to what it is today. They failed, tragically, but you three seem to be thriving. So, if I’m to consider this, opening it up again, then I’ll need notes, essay’s, about how this training program seems to help you. What you think could be better, what you believe is too harsh for a grown man.”

“If it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for the adults,” Everett pointed out.

Malachi offered a small smile. “You three and Greyson are special. There are no other men in the world like you. I’m renaming it the Shadow Initiation Program for our future endeavors. Here are your notebooks,” he went on, pulling out three black composition notebooks. “Find the time to write everything down. Everything. Is that clear?”

I stepped forward, picking up the three notebooks for my brothers, my brows furrowing. “What about Greyson?”

“He’s still training with Beck. He doesn’t need a notebook.”

Special through and through.

“I’d like to commend you for treating him as one of you, despite the difference in training. Some boys just need something different.”

I searched his bright blue eyes. “Why is he so much different than us?”

“Everybody has their part, Jack. Now go or I will put you to work today.”

I frowned and turned back to my brothers, handing them each a notebook. We nodded towards Malachi and turned for the door.

He wanted notes to see if his little worker bees could handle this? Fine. I’d give him notes, but I had my doubts that anyone would make it through the training.

It wasn’t for the weak of heart. After all, there was a reason Malachi had brought in the four of us. Four boys with tragic backstories and rage in their hearts, willing to give their very last breath to someone like him?

Why go outside of his organization if he had what he needed here? Nobody could get through this, not unless they had something inside of them that was as fractured as what grew inside of us.