𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐎 𝐔𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 - 𝟏𝟖+

F O U R T E E N

K Y Z E R

I was a simple man with three simple rules. I didn't live up to my reputation, I was a killer, yes, but there were all kinds of killers, all sorts of monsters who were always at odds with each other, but not me, I was all of them, all the ugly realities behind a pretty face and serpent eyes. I believed in squeezing the lemons life gave me because fuck knew no one had the time to make a fucking lemonade.

The last rule was to never go after the same woman again unless I wanted something more than her cunt, and that something wasn't emotions.
I didn't do emotions.
Period.
Sure, I loved my sister, but I'd always done that like a duty, not that it seemed like a duty most days, she was a part of me, but she didn't know every part of me, and I was sure I didn't either. Keira had been different ever since she came back eight years ago, and I knew that was not for the lack of hiding on her part rather on my observant streak.

I knew I'd always existed between the mist of my demons, I didn't even know when I'd befriended the darkness that loomed inside me; when I'd started resenting people, but it happened. I was calmer than my sister, she could be impulsive, I wasn't however, I remained on the sane side of things with a touch of insanity so brutal it could sniff out everything inside me.

Watching Chernov watch her was interesting, he was a man like me, except he had to make friends with his demons, I'd wanted to be friends with my devilry. I needed it because I knew all saints were men who sinned in the dark, and sinner like me? We feared the light because it was when we had to masquerade, so I suppose saints preferred the praises like a hypocrite because after all, they came to the altar of the mortal sinners when night fell and their darkness scared them.
The point was, no one was innocent. Innocence was such a vague concept, I often had to suppress the urge to laugh at it, sure a baby was innocent, but its blood was never a novice. Blood carried the sin like the wind did the whispers, and my blood was filled with something much more than sin. It was venom.

I'd figured my sister had history with the fucker who'd threatened the lives of people just like him with such nonchalance like he could care less about our vengeance. The others thought it was arrogance, and it might've been, but beneath it all, it was his revenge. When Keira wanted to stay, I'd tried pushing her for answers knowing she was just as secretive as me, and when she refused to answer, I resorted to my ways. I never imagined the answers I'd find though, I always thought Keira and me were fucked up since we were born but now as I'd seen her laugh so freely, I knew her brand of fucked-up was different than mine.

Except that Keira's history with Chernov put us all at an impasse, he wouldn't help us, and Astley was closing in, and I needed Astley and the other three gone before the year was out. It was mine and Keira's rightful throne, and the others had always been accessories to the throne, and it was time they were dropped, but not without a plan. A pawn had a job to do, and they'd live until they finished their fucking job, and then I'd take great pleasure in removing them from my board. If you're thinking I was the king on the board, I'd say you didn't know me. I wasn't on the board. I was a man puppeteering both sides, killing off people I didn't want, but maybe what I needed to remember was that forgotten little details came back to haunt like a broken melody.

I knew Chernov wanted my sister, he just hated her more, and rightfully so, she'd been brutal when she left him, she introduced him to the dark side with no one to help his immoral heart. I'd probably have killed Keira by now if I was in his place, but it was a good thing I wasn't because I didn't know what love felt like. I'd felt a warmth eight years ago when a girl had hugged me after I pulled her down from the top of a building in Chicago at fucking three in the morning, but that was just the unfamiliarity of the moment, I didn't even remember her face, and since it hadn't happened again I was almost certain I'd imagined it in my hammered state. Maybe it was for the best, distractions were a luxury for my hyperactive mind.