Ruined Castles (The Elite King's Club 8)

Before he can stand from his chair, I have the gun in my hand and I swing it to him, aiming it right in the center of his chest. “I guess they forgot to tell you this brat also carries guns. Get in the fucking bathtub.” When he doesn’t move, his smug smile still boldly on his face, I point the gun to his stomach and do what I do best.

I pull the trigger.

He starts screaming way too loud, so I shoot him again in the leg. Bang. He falls to the floor and I press the gun to his forehead.

“Get up and walk to the bathtub.”

He finally begins stumbling to the bathroom door with a trail of blood in his wake, mumbling apologies, and saying Tillie’s sister’s name in between. I reach for my phone and hit dial on the one girl I know will ride this shit out with me.

I call Tillie.

There are best friends, and then there are my best friends. The kind that eighty-six men with their eyes closed and use their oozing blood as a signature lipstick.

It took five minutes for Tillie to get to the room. Less than that for her to kill him.

I shove Bishop’s hoodie around my body tighter, watching as the trees fly past the windows of the limo. Tillie and Nate are opposite me. I can’t look up. I won’t. Tillie is already disappointed in me for not telling Bishop the real reason, not because she wears my abuser’s blood on her hands. It’s not the blood that disturbs Tillie, it’s the fact that Bishop is still mad at me for something I didn’t do. For the past month, I’ve endured his empty stare, my cold bed, and barren home. There have been occasional parties that they’ve thrown and I’ve attended, but those parties have always ended the way we expected—with Bishop and me scrapping like stray cats, so I’ve found myself staying away more and more. Distancing myself from them all. Even Nate. He has a lot to deal with with Tillie, that I doubt he’s noticed, and even more so, he doesn’t need me anymore.

“Madison…” Bishop demands, and it’s not until I look up at him from behind blurred eyes that I realize the limo has stopped moving.

I flex my fingers, sticky with dried blood. “Yes?”

“If I get out of this car right now, we are done, you hear me? I’m not fucking doing this with you forever. I can’t. I thought I could. And now we have a body to clean up because you both”—he glares at both Tillie and me—“decided to whack your side-piece.”

I don’t blink. My eyes dry and my mouth waters. “I—okay.”

I know this is it. This will be the time that I come clean to Bishop and tell him that yes, despite the fact we’re messy love driven by obsession and fire, that I love him. I’d never willingly cheat on him. Then I’d punch him in the dick for even thinking I would do that—but I don’t. I find the words stuck in my throat, unwilling to come out.

“Fuck that! You’re going to explain this shit once and for all!” There he is. My dark prince with more passion to give than love. Unfortunately, he deserves someone else. Not someone like me. A burden.

“I don’t have to explain shit to you, Bishop! Get out!”

“If I get out of this car, Madison, it will be forever.” There’s no lie in his statement, and the words slap me right across the face.

“Please do.” I don’t finish the last word before he ends the conversation by slamming the door.

“Madison…” Tillie’s voice filters through. I almost forgot she was there.

“Don’t. I don’t deserve him, and there’s so much…” I bring my eyes to hers. “You’ve always said that we love each other a lot. But there’s such a thing as loving someone too much, and that’s Bishop and me, Tillie. It’s not that we don’t love each other enough, it’s that we do so much that it consumes us.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tillie reaches for my knee, squeezing reassuringly.

“Okay.” I smile up at her.

But she won’t.

She won’t see me tomorrow.

None of them will.

Sometimes it takes bringing a life in to know that you don’t want yours out…

I’VE ALWAYS LOVED GUNS. EVEN when my apparent mother shot herself in the head with my father’s shotgun, I still loved them. I’ve never felt so connected to an object more than I ever have with a gun. Well, that’s not true. I liked them a lot more when I was younger, but as I’ve aged, I’ve found myself too busy to go to the range. Despite what people might think, though… I do think that people who own one need to know how to operate it.

I’m not just talking about the logistics of one either.