Page 20 of Mayhem

Nichlas must have thought he was finally getting through to me because his shoulders loosened by a fraction. “I found out more afterward. About them. About you too.”

“About me?”

“Your family.” He watched my face closely when he said it, and the second my expression changed, he grabbed hold of it like he’d finally found something useful. “I know who they are now. I know who your fathers are.”

For a moment, I just looked at him. Then I laughed, and the sound made his fingers tighten around my wrist. Of everything he could have chosen to threaten me with, somehow he had landed on the four men who had raised me to become exactly the thing standing in front of him.

“You know my fathers.”

“I know enough.”

“Oh, baby.” I leaned in until there was barely any space between us. “You don’t know shit.”

His jaw tightened. “I know what people call them. I know what they’ve done. I know the kind of men who raised you.”

That made something sharp twist inside me, but it wasn’t fear. “You knew me for years and didn’t figure that part out yourself?” His mouth opened, and I smiled at him. “That’s actually embarrassing.”

“Echo, I’m warning you.”

“No, you’re trying to scare me with my own family because apparently getting me killed once didn’t teach you anything.”

“If you keep coming after me, I can tell them who you are.” The desperation was showing again, but he forced the words out anyway. “I can tell the Kings everything. I can tell them exactly who your fathers are and what you came from.”

I should have cared more about that. Less than an hour ago, Malakai had held me around the waist in a crowded hallway and said my name before I’d given it to him. Now Nichlas was telling me the Kings already knew enough to be watching. Any sensible person would have heard the warning buried in that.

Instead, I looked at Nichlas and realized I was having fun. For a year, every version of finding him had ended with his death. I had imagined the blood. The fear. The satisfaction of finally putting an end to the search. I had never considered what came before it because I had assumed the killing would be the best part.

Watching him shake might actually be better.

I let go of his shirt only to catch him by the throat. His eyes widened as my fingers closed around him, and his pulse kicked hard beneath my palm. “You think I’m scared somebody’s going to find out who raised me?” I tightened my grip just enough to make the next breath harder. “Go ahead. Tell them. Tell every person here whatever little bedtime story somebody handed you. Then explain why the daughter of those men crossed the country to find you.”

His face drained. “Echo—”

“You know what’s funny?” I watched him struggle to keep his breathing even and felt the decision forming before I could talk myself out of it. “I thought about killing you every single day for a year. I had plans. Some of them were really good.” His hands closed around my wrist again, but I barely noticed. “And now I’m here, and you’re doing this, and I think killing you today might actually piss me off.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

The question made me grin. “There you are.”

I released his throat and punched him across the mouth.

His head snapped sideways, and blood appeared almost immediately along his lower lip. When he looked back at me, he stared at the red on his fingertips like the hit had finally made everything real. I flexed my hand once, more interested than I should have been in how good it felt.

“You can’t touch me.” His breathing had gone thin again. He wiped at his mouth and backed along the wall until he ran out of space. “I’m protected. Do you understand me? Hunter Hansen runs this place. The Kings know what you’re doing.”

“I noticed.”

“Malakai knows who you are.”

That name landed differently now. I could still feel the weight of his hand at my waist, the extra second he had left it there, the way he had watched me while pretending there was nothing unusual about already knowing my name. So Nichlas was right about one thing. The Kings were paying attention.

That should have made me hurry.

Instead it made the game more interesting.

“You don’t know what you walked into,” Nichlas said, mistaking my silence for fear. “These aren’t people you can fuck with and walk away from. They’ll stop you.”

I stepped toward him again and watched every scrap of confidence disappear from his face. “Then they’d better be fun.”