Tales of Darkness & Sin - Pepper Winters Page 0,76

right and wrong blurs and I don’t stop for a second to question if there’s something wrong with me, too.

He’s a dark prince—a king. And as I watch him circle his prey, I realize I’m ready to be his queen.

Saint drops to his haunches, yanking the tape off the man’s lips.

“Here’s what is going to happen, you’re going to tell me who sent you. If I don’t like your answers, I’m going to saw your fingers off, one by one, until you tell me what I want to hear.”

Saint stalks off, heading to one of his walls that’s adorned with weapons used for torture. He plucks two instruments off, turning around with a quirked brow, waiting for a response. The man lets out a whine that’s a mix between fear and pain. I take in the blood slowly pooling around his legs from his wounds and realize this is only going to worse before it gets any better.

“Who sent you?” Saint demands again, but this time, it’s clear he expects answers.

“I don’t know who. I was paid to break in with a team of other mercenaries and retrieve the girl, that’s it!”

Saint glances at me over his shoulder and a zing shoots through my chest. It’s as though he’s silently telling me to keep watching. He turns back around, a sinister calm, terrifying air surrounding him, and when we both least expect it, he slams the blade in his hand down, over the man’s finger.

He screams. The sound ricochets off the walls and leaves all the hairs at my nape standing at attention. Blood pours from his finger, dripping steadily onto the concrete beneath him.

“I don’t like that answer. Try again, or I start sawing through bone,” Saint grits.

The man sputters, his face pale, sharp cries ripping from his chest as his body works to accommodate the pain.

“I told you!” he sobs out. “I don’t know who sent me. All they mentioned was the key. Save her and she’s the key!”

My heart kickstarts in my chest as my pulse pounds vigorously, so much so, it’s hard to think over the sound of it. Over the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears. His words strike a chord in me.

“That’s not enough for me. Maybe you need a little incentive?” Saint goads before he works the blade back and forth, sawing off the man’s finger, before he moves onto the next, doing the same. The bound man’s wails fill the room. They wrap cold and savage around my heart as I try to make sense of his words.

The key…what does he mean the key?

I slam my eyes shut, wracking my brain.

The key.

She’s the key.

“You sure about this, Sir?” Banks, our driver, questions my father. Their voices are low and nearly impossible to hear. I keep my back plastered to the wall, straining to listen in on their private conversation.

My father has been yelling on and off the phone all day. The name Monroe and Vitale being volleyed back and forth. I couldn’t piece together what was being discussed, but I gathered it was important, important enough that my father would forget that it’s my fifteenth birthday.

“Of course, I’m sure. This is the only way.”

“She’s still a child.” Banks’s tone is filled with disapproval.

“She won’t be one forever. She’s the key to everything, don’t you get it? The girl is my very own skeleton key. If I play my cards right with her, with all of them, they’ll never see it coming. I’ll plant the idea in his head. Make him think it’s his own. As though I can’t allow him to do such a thing.”

A long stretch of tense silence passes between them before Banks speaks again. “And the girl, what will you tell her?”

“Nothing. It’s better that she doesn’t know how much power she wields.”

“Is that wise?”

“Families are built on secrets. The less she knows, the better for us all.”

My heart screeches to an abrupt halt as the memory fades. My stomach churns uneasily, and my mind whirs, latching onto every detail of the memory.

They were talking about me.

This whole time they were talking about me, and I never even realized it.

I’m the key.

For whatever reason, my father thinks I’m the key. To what? I’m not all that sure, but I intend to find out.

I snap out of my internal musings when I feel eyes on me. His eyes.

Saint watches me with a deep curiosity. I force a thick swallow, keeping this news close to my chest until