1- Remy

“You should have locked the door, baby.” Those were the words I said to my fiancé before I smashed my baseball bat into his face for cheating on me with my best friend. Or the bitch I thought was my best friend.

I never loved him.

But he knew how hard I worked to become this version of myself.

And he made me feel stupid for trying.

Three years. Three years of pretending to like him. Three years of faking moans, hiding my tattoos, quitting smoking, and trying so goddamn hard to be normal.

To be someone who could go to brunch and talk about weather and not think about how easy it would be to snap a man's neck if he looked at me wrong.

And this was what I got for it? His dick in her mouth while she wore my sweater?

I should have killed him. Why didn't I fucking kill him?

“Where to?” The taxi driver asked as I slipped into his taxi and slammed the door.

“The Iron Clad compound, please.” I pulled out a cigarette from my jacket pocket, placed my bat on the seat beside me, and lit it.

He stared through the rearview mirror. “I don't—”

“Everyone that owns a cab knows where the compound is. Don't lie to me. I'm not patient. Especially today.” I rolled my eyes as I placed the lit cigarette between my lips. “I'll pay you two hundred dollars if you drive me there. Five hundred if you shut up. Deal?”

Now, I didn't have any money on me, but he didn't know that. Plus, he agreed instantly, and we were off before I could clarify.

I cracked the window and bit back a laugh.

Three years of being Remus Calloway. Like what kind of name was Remus? For a girl? But I did it because I wanted to be a civilian. For once in my life, I wanted people to treat me like I was human—not something to be feared or treated like a baby.

I wanted to try normalcy. But look at me, losing my shit the second the man I didn't even have feelings for put his dick in my best friend's pussy.

Maybe this was who I was. Who I'd always be.

Daddy's little psycho.

And now, I needed to make sure everyone—including me—knew it.

“We're… we're here.”

I looked away, staring now at the big-ass black gate with skulls hanging on the large walls. I walked out of the car, blew out the smoke, and said with my hands on my waist, “Well, fuck me, they've still not decorated this place.”

A gunshot rang through the air, hitting one of the tail lights of the taxi behind me. The man screamed. I raised my hand up to him, holding back a groan. “Baby, you don't turn on your fucking lights at the Iron Clad gates. It's like asking to get shot. Turn it off. Go on.”

He did as he was told. I nodded. “Good boy.”

I placed my bat on my shoulder and pulled out the phone in my purse to make a quick call. It took only five seconds. “Hey, your rookies are shooting at me in front of the gate. I do hope a bullet goes through me so my father rips them apart limb from limb, but yeah, you should come save me or some shit. Or them. If that's how you like to roll.”

Then I ended it.

“C-Can I go now?”

Ah, yes. The driver.

I walked back to him, lowered my head down to stare at his sweaty and panicked face, and smiled. “Look, I know you wanna get out of here before something happens to you—which I can't promise won't happen—but at the very least, you gotta get your five hundred dollars back, no?”

He shook his head, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “N-No, I don't think… I don't think I want the money anymore—”

I grabbed his shoulders and squeezed gently. “I don't think I'm comfortable with you not getting your—”

The sound of the large gates opening cut me off as my attention instantly turned toward them.

The Iron Clad gates took their time opening, contrary to my legs. But when they did, I could feel something choke me right in my throat as a face I thought I had buried deep inside appeared.

Salt-and-pepper hair, sharp jawline, and muscles for days with a leather jacket that read REAPER KING. VP of Iron Clad.

The man I had called personally to come pick up. My father's second in command. Decker Kane.

And the reason I left three years ago.

I smiled and walked to him. “Before you ask too many questions, give me five hundred bucks. And I know you have it, because you walk around with a shit ton of money in your wallet for some reason. Hand it over.”

Decker Kane stared at me like he always did since the moment I could recognize his face. Exhaustion. But he gave me his wallet. I returned to the driver, paid him off so he could go on his merry way, and came back to Decker. “You look… so much older than I—”

“Is he alive?”

I smiled at him. “Did you miss me? I missed you too—”

“Remy.”

“If he were dead, I'd get rid of his body the way you taught me how to. No worries.” I joked, trying to see if he'd crack a smile. He didn't. My insides turned, my body burning.

Hell, all he had to do was stare at me, and I was already getting turned on?

“You still act like a child.”

His words settled somewhere in my skin, burning me like fire branding it. I could feel the rage in my chest growing, demanding that I slam the bat somewhere on his face—or I try to, but that'd prove I was a child more.

And that's the last thing I needed.

“I was one when I ran away, Kane,” I said, whispering now so only he could hear me. “I was hurt that you fucked all the girls your hands could reach and somehow decided I was just not good enough for you.”

“I don't find you—”

“But that's fine,” I cut in, smirking. “Because I'm not running away this time. I'm done with it. This time, I'm gonna make myself such a big fucking deal here, and you, Decker Kane, will be unable to resist how powerful I am. You're gonna be so irrevocably in love with me that you won't remember what life felt like before me.”

I saw his jaw tighten, his grey eyes shift like a storm, and his chest rise and fall like he was debating locking the gates and keeping me out.

But I ignored all of that and slithered past him, fighting the urge to slap him in the ass before stepping fully into Iron Clad soil, raising my bat up in the air, and screaming, “Remy Calloway is back home! Who missed me?!”