Lawless Kingdom (Reign & Ruin 1)

Bri followed him back to the trunk to assist with Erin.

“Yeah, about that. When do we leave?” she asked.

“Soon. They know we’re coming already. I’ve only got a few last things to tie up.”

“You sure Riri is going to be willing? I really like her. I don’t want to kill her if this goes completely sour.”

I stared Bri down until she diverted her attention, letting that be answer and warning enough.

“They took away two of ours. We need to return the favor by gradually taking every one of them. They won’t exist once our famiglia has finished raw fucking them up the ass for the second time. But I’m keeping Rhiannon. End of discussion.”

“He’s ready,” Gavin sung.

“Get him out.”

Erin was lifted from the trunk and dropped onto the muddied terrain like he weighed nothing, his muffled pleas affecting none of us. We were desensitized to all of this. It was just another day for us.

He was just another body in the many we would have to take care of in our lifetime. All he’d do was apologize, but he wasn’t sorry for what he did; he was sorry this was the consequence.

I didn’t care if he’d simply tripped her. No one was to touch her. He would have done something else the next day. Maybe even the next. Using fists was a temporary solution. Now he wouldn’t have the chance to so much as breathe in her direction. Perhaps it was extreme, but, with the way I grew up, it was necessary.

I would go to much more extreme measures in our future. It came with the territory.

One end of rope was attached to a hitch beneath the car, and excess rope had been knotted around what was already binding him together. The rest I’d secured around the base of my tree.

“Let’s go. I need to call my papà with an update. Let him know it’s not Maisie and get a mule out here.”

“With the mess this is going to make, have him send two,” Owen replied.

I climbed into the passenger seat, leaving Gavin to drive and Owen and Bri to hop in back. I watched in the mirror as Gavin drove downhill, the rope extending behind us.

It would snag soon, and Erin would either feel his bones and a few tendons disconnect, being left alive until a mule arrived to finish him off with a bullet to the head, or he’d be torn apart.

I would be satisfied with either option.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rhiannon

The next week was uneventful.

Judas picked me up and took me to school, behaving as his usual asshole self, and Audrey took me home. School had done a total 180. No one said shit to me anymore or tried anything, making the place tolerable.

If my parents knew what was occurring in their daughter’s melodramatic life, they weren’t saying anything. They’d officially entered a kiss-ass stage I didn’t care for. I wouldn’t hold a grudge against them—even moms and dads could screw up—but I wasn’t ready to play happy family, either.

Not to mention the weirdness going on in our house. I’d waited for one of them to ask why I wasn’t driving my car. Why it was sitting in the driveway with no visible issues and not being driven.

It had been returned with my key fob in the cup holder by a massive sized man named Tony. The fob might as well have been a decoration. The car didn’t run. It didn’t do anything.

Mom and Dad hadn’t asked about Dax either, or if I was still hanging around Judas. I was positive they’d seen him picking me up a few times, but they hadn’t said a word about it. I wasn’t forbidden to see him, even knowing he was exactly that.

Forbidden.

In their eyes at least.

I knew for whatever reason that they wanted me to stay away from him.

Thing is, I couldn’t.

He was like the mole on your body you weren’t all that fond of but accepted. Eventually, you might even grow to like it. Them telling me I couldn’t have him only made me want him more. I’d yet to admit a damn thing to him, though.

I passed by one of gymnasiums, walking towards the exit of the building. I needed to get to math on time today if I had a hope in hell of passing the test, we were expected to take every Friday. I had fifteen minutes to pre-study.

I’m not entirely sure why I was trying so hard. My grades had always been okay without the effort, though the courses were about one hundred times easier as well.

I guess after meeting with the guidance counselor here and them eyeing me as if I were a zoo animal sent in for examination, I was wondering what the point was. I wasn’t following any of these people to college. I knew it was because of Judas that I’d been approved to even be here. Plus, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. At all.