Devil's Pass (The Harlequin Crew #.5) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,32

end I'd fly, but I was already falling. And it looked like it was a long fucking way down with nothing but rocks at the bottom.

I headed down to the kitchen for breakfast, checking my phone as I shot a few texts to Rogue to check she was good, but I guessed they were all still sleeping because the group chat was dead.

Fox was in the kitchen in his boxers, eating cereal as he sat at the island and he looked up as I entered, pushing the box of Lucky Charms towards me. Fuck, I loved a bowl of Charms. I grabbed a bowl and some milk then sat beside him, eating the sugary goodness with large bites. The thing about dumping a dead guy in the water who'd harmed Rogue was that it should have been traumatising. But to me, it had been kind of invigorating. All that blood had been fucking exciting, especially when it had come from the head of a guy who'd tried to hurt my girl. I kind of wished I'd kept the poker. Was that weird? Seemed like it was okay to me, but maybe the guy who wasn’t bothered about dumping a dead body didn’t have it all together to decide on the weirdness of that.

"Wanna head to Sinners’ Playground soon?" I asked and Fox nodded quickly.

I pushed a hand into my hair, wondering if I should wash it before we left, but that thought died as Luther strode into the kitchen and stole all of my attention. He had a leather jacket and jeans on, his blonde hair pushed back away from his face and tattoos crawling up his neck.

"Morning, boys," he said crisply, his dark green eyes falling on his real son first then shifting to me.

I was grateful and all for him taking me in when I was a kid, but now I knew I wasn’t family it made a whole lot of sense. Fox was the only one of the Harlequins who treated me like I was his real brother, but I’d always gotten the feeling that Luther didn’t see me that way. I knew he thought I was worth less than him and for the most part I didn't give a shit. I’d stopped calling Luther ‘Dad’ the moment he’d told me I was adopted, even though he’d fought me hard over it. He’d taken me in when I was two years old after one of his men had died and I’d been left orphaned. If there were pictures of my real dad, I never got to see them. And I guessed I resented that on some level. The more Luther tried to make me a Harlequin, the more I resisted. And my nature meant I naturally butted heads with Fox which Luther didn't like so much. He liked to remind me where I was supposed to stand in the pecking order. Which, as far as I could tell, was firmly beneath the boots of him and his son.

"Hey Dad," Fox said with a tight smile as Luther pressed a hand to his shoulder then looked to me.

Luther Harlequin always brought a tense energy to a room. I guessed that was what it was like being the big bad wolf in town and I'd always been drawn to that about him, trying to figure out how he managed it. I was pretty sure it came down to two things: his reputation and his unpredictability. I had the unpredictability down but the only thing I had a decent reputation for so far was beating the hell out of assholes who threatened my friends. Though now I guessed I could add disposing of a dead body to the list…

"We have a problem." Luther moved to stand on the other side of the kitchen island and spread his hands on the surface as he looked calmly between us. But those dark green eyes which were the same shade as his son's weren't hiding anything. There was something wrong and my heart started to thrash in my chest as I waited for him to spill it. "Axel Phillips washed up in the cove this morning with his head caved in."

Dead, cold silence roared in my ears as he delivered that blow. I fought the urge to look at Fox, keeping my features neutral, making sure there wasn't a single flicker of guilt in my eyes for him to detect. I'd perfected my lying face a long time ago and Fox had it