CHAPTER 2— Kidnap her cat

LEVITICUS DRAKOVIC RHODES.

And the devil fell from the sky, tainting the hearts of men and the souls of the pure.

What a crock of bullshit but I tell you, every man, every woman in this little town of joy thinks it.

I am the devil.

My brothers and I are the devils.

We dare their sons to jump off the ledge, we tempt their daughters to do ‘bad things’, we bribe the sheriff to look the other way and we have the mayor on our payroll jumping as high as we can ask him to.

The only truth is, we embraced our dark side a long time ago and we were going to leave but this town, these people?

They took what was ours. They took Saxen Montero from us.

The irony isn’t lost on me either that here they are chanting loud for their devils on the ice.

And who can blame them when we are the best at what we do?

The sharp screeching sound my skates make against the ice fuels the fire inside me. Holding the stick in front of me like it’s muscle memory at this point, my eyes flick to the guy waiting for me to finish this then in one two three…I shoulder check the schmuck winger headed towards me and shoot the puck to Tatum.

I can hear the gasps and the breaths fanning the plexiglass. That little anxiety weighing in everyone’s hearts whether or not Tatum will score like he has in the last two periods.

I don’t even wait for Tatum to shoot it, no, I look up past the jumbotron to the bright arena lights letting the sting and the cold bite into my skin. I live for this kind of high.

The score on the board changes.

The buzzer goes off and the crowd goes berserk as the smell of sweat and victory mixes together like a drug injecting into my veins.

Then I pull my gaze away from the lights like I’m drawn to the glass that separates the fans and us.

And instead of fans, I see…

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Drex roars, coming up behind me.

By she, he means the little witch holding up two big white signs. One of them is written ‘Murderers’ with a red marker.

“Ignore her”, I urge my brother but it’s getting hard to.

The feisty little thing has been on our necks since she found her sister bleeding to death all alone on this rink. She blames us for Sax’s death. We blame ourselves and her.

“It’s getting kind of hard to ignore her when she’s holding two signs up for everyone to see, Levi”, Drex presses, taking off his helmet to be aggravated better.

I don’t take my helmet off. Neither do I stop my eyes from running down her little outfit and her fit of rage.

Her silver hair, the one she continuously dyes to keep up that witchy appearance, cascades down her shoulders in waves.

Her eyes, green as the envy running in her blood, meet with mine and I cock my head to the side daring her.

Walk away, Sage.

Go back to your boyfriend and stay there.

Let Sax’s death go.

Like she can hear me and somehow chooses not to listen, she doesn’t walk away.

She puts her signs down near what I’m assuming are her feet then she points her middle fingers at us shouting the word ‘murderers’ to the top of her voice.

Before Drex or I can say anything about her antics, Tatum skates towards us and one look from him tells us one thing.

Ignore her.

Pretend she doesn’t exist.

Twenty minutes later after the smiles, the pats on the back from our teammates and the grilling from Coach Marky on what we messed up on the ice, my brothers and I wind up in the locker rooms and this is the part I hate.

The one where we get off the ice and confront the demons waiting for us on the outside.

“Tate”, I start, towel around my waist, “She’s going too far. We’ve gotta do something.”

“She’s everywhere we are. She doesn’t even know how dangerous that is for her”, Rook leans against the wall, that smirk on his lips wider than the anarchy he enjoys doling.

“Did you see those thighs up there? She can call us murderers all she wants but she’s tempting us to put her out of her misery”, Drex adds, taking off his gloves and that’s about the most confusing statement I’ve ever heard.

“We are not killing her. The school is big enough for us to avoid her”, Tatum growls, his word law.

“We’ve seen her more times this week than we did when…Sax was here”, I spit, the words like damn ash on my tongue.

The topic about Sax is sensitive. My brothers and I haven’t spoken about her since her death. I have a feeling we haven’t accepted it either.

“Then we threaten her. Kidnap her cat or dog or whatever hamster she keeps in her bedroom, threaten her or it and keep her off our backs”, Rook has never been the sharpest crayon in the box but that idea doesn’t sound so bad to me.

Keeping Sage away is for her own safety.

“Please. She’d probably kill that pet herself than allow it to be her weakness. She’s not backing down, Tatum. She’s convinced we are the enemy so we show her we are. We end her. I’ll make it easy, no tracks, no media, no cops.”

“You hearing yourself right now, Drex?” Tatum asks, pushing his hair back, “She is Sax’s sister. We…we promised her we wouldn’t touch her. We wouldn’t hurt her.”

Drex grips his stick pointing at our older brother the same way he did weeks ago, “Yeah? The deal was Sax would stay so we wouldn’t go after Sage. She died, Tate. She didn’t stay. I hate Sage as much as she does us so we kill her and put all this to rest because in case you hadn’t noticed, I was one second away from making a mistake. Ten centimeters, Tate. I was ten centimeters away from her and I almost couldn’t stop myself. You all saw it. It’s gonna get worse. We can’t afford for it to get worse.”

Not with the training ahead of us or the games we have to win to get out of here.

“Ronan isn’t doing great either and we know why. Keeping him chained in the mansion won’t change his state. We destroy that which ails us.”

We won a game today, but our goalie, our brother, has been out since Sax’s death.

Two more weeks locked up and he’ll go crazy and his only cure? We can’t provide him with that.

“It’s your call, bro”, Rook claps Tate on the shoulder, “If we are done here, I’m out. I’ve got a lot to celebrate for, boys. Life, brothers, little minxes who’ve got a vendetta against us and won’t quit. It’s a wonderful life we have here.”

It’s not, he’s masking his grief.

XXX

Bellamy’s is known for two things in Nikola Vukovic University aka NVU— the drinks and the drugs.

While I’d never snort anything up my nose because of Tatum’s dictatorial ass and the drug tests, there’s no denying I’ve been itching for a line since everything went south.

The leather jacket on me clings to my skin like the hoorahs and the reek of sex and sweat in here. Music blasts from the speakers, the bass sound of it rippling over the children of Mallow Creek like a hypnotic spell.

“Levi!” A recognizable voice calls for my name and amidst the ass-kissers and the ‘do you want to go for a dance’ chicks, I spot Tim Sully by the counter.

He’s one of the few people I tolerate in this school, aside from my brothers.

“Good game!” He shouts over the speakers, pointing a shot in my direction. I take it and down it in one go, “Man, you’ve gotta leave some of the chicks for us. Levi walks into the room and suddenly it’s like we don’t even exist. I’m the wide receiver of the NVU wolves, baby.”

He’s a sub working his way up but I don’t yuck his yum. Whatever he tells himself to sleep at night anyway.

“Your brothers?” Tim asks, looking behind me. I’m about to answer him that they are in here somewhere when he adds, “Fuck, Kingsley’s coming in hot.”

Fuck me indeed. The last person I want to deal with tonight is Ford Kingsley, Sage’s boyfriend.

“Leviticus Rhodes out in the wild… alone”, Ford yaps behind me, “And they say miracles ain’t real. What? No big bad wolf chaperoning you tonight? Damn, I thought you’d be following Tatum around as per the usual.”

I down another shot, barely feeling the burn as I turn around.

Ford Kingsley and his preppy band of lacrosse boys stand behind him. Dressed and looking like the typical child of the dean, I give him a once over and internally flinch because what ever does Sage see in this guy?

Is it the money? The posh little accent he tries to put on? I can’t see it.

“Walk away, Kingsley”, I warn.

He doesn’t walk away, he never does. I give him bonus points for the guts though.

“Or what? You gonna slash my neck and leave me for dead like you did with my girlfriend’s sister?”

I don’t even think for a second when I fling my elbow and punch him in the fucking mouth.

I’m about to add another one while he’s on the ground when my phone buzzes in my pants.

Pulling it out, I glance at the screen, my anger dissipating and being replaced with panic as I stare at the texts.

TATE: They called from home. Ronan broke his chains.

DREX: Ronan escaped. I repeat Ronan left the mansion. Meet outside.

ROOK: He took his bike. Wanna guess where he’s headed to? It starts with an S and ends with an e. Seems like our maniac of a brother will kill our little problem after all.