Cardinal

Bonus Chapter - William

"What does she fucking mean by all of that?" I looked at Steel with fierce determination. I couldn't believe it. "I know you went through Julie's mind. Tell me." I demanded but he could barely look me in the eye. 

I knew but I refused to believe it until I actually hear the confirmation. God, my heart was twisting and twisting. It felt like my power was eating me alive. 

Steel wasn't much of an emotional guy. But something broke inside of me when tears poured out of his face, leaving silent tracks which just about killed me. He was my brother in all ways other than blood. We've cried together. We've suffered together. We share a woman whose heart was big enough for all of us. 

"I'll sacrifice myself a hundred times over for her to never fucking face any of those fuckers again and to never ever fucking experience any of that ever again," Steel whispers, his voice quiet, but the anger reverberating from him speaks volumes. "I'm killing all of them. All. Of. Them." 

"Steel, please clarify what you're saying right now," Damian begs him as he shakes the big guy's shoulders. His eyes were wide with fear and it was palpable in the air. Like he was just actually considering the fact that this was all real. 

However, the truth was apparent in our faces. Her words weren't making sense earlier but now, they were. 

"They had her for weeks. Every high-ranking Mortem knew her..." He looks at Keenan with horror in his eyes. His eyes begged our defacto leader to save him from this torment of knowing. "They knew her...God, the horror in her eyes in that compound...I can't fucking get it out of my head." He says as his head falls into his open hands, his fingers pulling his hair from his roots like he's trying to get the knowledge out of his head. 

I didn't want to believe it. I don't want to. I start pacing like a madman, thinking and considering all of the possibilities. My parents? Oh god, I didn't want to believe it. 

I didn't want to. I surmised all of the different realities in my head. 

But only one made complete fucking sense. Why had she been so different after coming back? Why had she been so scared when we first saw her? I was so mad at her reaction to us finding her that it clouded my judgment. 

Why had all the attacks been increasing since getting her back? Why, why, why? 

It seems like my world was crashing around me. The reality was finally seeping through the fog that my brain seemed to be in. 

After a heavy silence, Steel lifts his head up from his hands, his hair in the same disarray as our emotions. His sadness is apparent but he whispers something that changed our realities forever-a truth that rang true. 

"Bath and Alfonso told her to stay away...at the order of our parents and the rest of the magistrate" 

No...no, no, no. My head was killing me like I was seeing the truth but I wasn't. 

"So they knew..." Keenan whispers, his hands running through his already greasy hair from the days of running it through them-his nervous tic. "They fucking knew..." 

Something crashed in the background as Keenan's fire exploded from somewhere. Damian stares at nothing as he pieces it all in his head. 

I can't fucking believe they did this. 

"Get your asses up, we're going to get this fucking figured out right now. " Keenan angrily puts the fire out he started and leaves us in the room as we file out, stomping angrily towards the Escalade in the garage. 

The drive to the academy was tense. There were more security measures now after what happened in the gala and it took us twice the amount of time to get through everything as we would usually do.