Cruel War (The Gilded Sovereign 1)

My phone blares through the speakers. With a quick glance at the screen, I tap the green button to answer. “Dad.”

“Bring the girl to the lake house.” Every word he utters turns my body cold, my blood freezing in my veins.

“What?” I choke out, pulling off the road before I get to the church. If she’s already there, I don’t want her to witness this conversation. He doesn’t know what I learned, and I can’t tell him over the phone.

“You heard me.” Paper crinkles over the speaker, then shuffling, and then something that sounds faintly like a gun cocking. “Bring the Milton girl to the lake house, take her to the cellar, and wait for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will once you get there,” he tells me. There’s no discussion; the line dies a second later, and I’m left staring at the screen. I’m not sure what the fuck the plan is, but I have an awful feeling about this.

Tapping out a message to Philipe, I hit send and give it time to be delivered. Once I see it’s been read, immediately, three gray dots dance as he types his response. My heart is in my throat, thudding painfully.

I can’t let Dad know I know the truth. And I can’t tell Dahlia yet. If he wants to meet her then he has a plan, and if she knows what Billy showed me, she’ll lose her shit in front of Abner Lancaster, and that will be the death of her. I don’t know when I started giving a shit, but I do. I can’t deny it anymore because as much as I want to hate Dahlia Milton, I can’t. Because I want her.

At first, I wanted her to pay. I believed the lie I was fed, but now, the truth is a bitter taste on my tongue. Philipe’s message comes through a second later.

Don’t tell her anything. She needs to be unaware of what her father did.

Shaking my head, I sigh. He doesn’t know. Or perhaps my brother does know about our father’s actions, and he’s hiding it from me. Maybe he’s played into this whole society for far too long, and he’s in too deep.

I’m not sure what to say to him right now, but if he really has no clue, then I can’t be the one to tell him. Abner made his bed, he needs to lie in it, breathing or not, dead or alive.

Turning the engine, I speed up the hill and come to a stop beside Dahlia’s car, which is parked beside the building. She’s still sitting in the driver’s seat when I reach the door.

Her wide eyes lock on mine, those beautiful blue irises stare up at me as questions dance wildly in them, and for the first time since she arrived in town, I want to protect her rather than hurt her.

22

Dahlia

He stares down at me, opening my door and helping me out of the car. The way his fingers curl around my hand, the heat of his skin on mine, it all turns my body hot with desire. The way Ares is merely touching my hand is in no way the same as any time Josh was near me, or inside me.

“You came,” Ares says, his voice low, a whisper of something warm lingers in his words as if affection is something he’s giving me. I don’t believe it. Not right now. He hasn’t yet told me anything, and I’m still on edge from the last time I was here.

“I have to know the truth.”

He nods. “You do. There are things your father kept from you.” He helps me close the car door, before leading me into the abandoned building. Everything is exactly how I remember it. The cracked tiles, the altar, and with the full moon shining through the shattered windows, it casts an eerie, silvery light over the cold church.

Ares releases my hand, and I head to the small pew that’s been pushed against the wall and perch myself against it. Even though I’m not comfortable, I cross my arms in front of my chest and wait.

“Your father grew up here,” Ares speaks as he paces the floor. I watch him run his fingers through his unruly hair, and I wonder if he does it on purpose to give him a messy bedhead. “This town comes with its own set of rules; it comes with a society whose roots are firmly planted in the soil.”

A laugh escapes my lips. “A secret society? That’s such bullshit, Ares.” I push off the pew and head for the door. “I thought you brought me here to tell me the truth, not to make up a lie about fantasies that you and your little friends hold.”

I’m near the exit when his hand wraps around my arm, holding me hostage. “Listen to me, this isn’t some made up story.”