“Luca brought my mentor to Devil’s Creek,” I told her. “Madeline is taking over as the new director of the Franco Foundation.”
“That’s awesome, girl. You must be so stoked.”
I nodded. “But there’s something else. I think my brother is alive. Madeline described her new neighbor. He fits Aiden’s description.”
Eyes wide, Kali set her glass on the table. “Have you told Luca?”
I shook my head.
“So what are you going to do?”
I blew out a deep breath. “I need to see for myself.”
“You can’t leave without Luca knowing about it.”
Pain stung my chest, stirring up a wave of emotions that churned the alcohol in my stomach.
“It’s like a part of me died with him,” I confessed. “I need to find him, dead or alive.”
Kali reached across the table and held my hand. “I hope you find your brother.”
Tears burned my eyes, and I forced them back. “If there’s a chance Aiden is living in our old house, I have to know.”
“I understand. This place makes me feel like I can’t breathe.”
I nodded in agreement. “How did you leave town undetected for so long? You made it three years before Marcello found you.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Dom, who stood watch by the door about thirty feet away from us. Marcello was at the edge of the cliff, his gaze flicking between the beach and us. They couldn’t hear us talking from this distance, but we were careful and spoke in hushed tones.
“I planned my escape over months. Living in The Hills makes it easier to move around undetected.”
“What about passports and credit cards?”
“I hired a forger, a man from Beacon Bay who hates the Salvatores. He hooked me up with fake driver’s licenses and passports. I wore different wigs and never used the same identity for more than a month, switching between them as I traveled throughout Europe. I don’t know how Marcello found me. I was so careful. But when I saw him in Bordeaux, I thought I was hallucinating. I’d made it three years… and then I found Marcello standing beside the Garonne River, waiting for me.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran. But that asshole is fast.” She chuckled. “I didn’t stand a chance in heels.”
I stared at the water crashing against the rocks from a distance, wondering how I could sneak away for an hour without one of my armed guards. And then I remembered the secret passage in the library, The Count of Monte Cristo, and the catacombs that led to the beach. Luca showed it to me in case we were under attack, and I needed to get out in a hurry.
This counted as an emergency.
Even if the boy Madeline described wasn’t my brother, I had to see for myself. And I had a plan.
Luca
While Alex was busy painting in my mother’s studio, I assembled the Knights, so we could complete the final ritual for Aiden Wellington. He’d spent the past nine months working to become a Knight. Despite his protests, we owned his ass now.
Aiden kneeled on the stone floor in front of me, out of breath and covered in blood. Marred and dirty, his skin dripped with sweat and stunk of the sea and dirt. With his head lowered to the ground, he released a groan. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week, his limbs hanging limp at his sides.
Defeated and beyond salvation.
Corrupted by the Devil.
We had put him through hell for his Initiation. Each man in this room had endured grueling challenges and took enormous risks to join the ranks of The Devil’s Knights. After Aiden screwed up his first task with The Serpents, he almost got himself killed. I saved his sorry ass—because of her.
And he would get to see his sister again.
The Devil’s Knights formed a circle around us, their faces obscured by the hoods of their cloaks. Aiden completed his initiation, no matter the cost. He was not the man his sister knew. No one could come back from the things he had done in the Knighthood’s name.
“From Apprentice to Master,” I said to Aiden.
He looked up at me with tired eyes ringed with dark circles.
“From Squire to Knight,” the rest of the Knights echoed in unison.
With those words, Aiden became one of us.
Alex
The Present
At night, Marcello sat at my bedside and drank scotch. So I’d searched the bathroom cabinets for painkillers and sleeping pills, anything I could get my hands on. I found an entire bottle of prescription sleeping pills hidden inside a vanity drawer.
Sorry, Marcello.
I had to drug him so I could sneak up to the library. Luca was too busy to notice if I left the house for an hour. And he trusted Marcello to monitor me. His brother had never let him down. Luca had no reason to suspect I would cause him any trouble. I was the perfect angel all day.