Page 116 of Ravaged Devotion

“Perhaps I was wrong,” Rhys surprised them by admitting, until he kept going. “Disowning him now that I no longer have to placate Eulalie is the better option. He’ll inherit his family’s fortune, but as Mr. Easton has already pointed out, I have more money than the Vadim’s. With my influence, I can have Rue banished from the planet and you,” he pointed to Ryker, “grounded. If the two of you won’t stay separate, then I’ll be forced to—”

The gunshot was somehow surprising.

It shouldn’t have been.

One second Rhys was threatening them, and the next his eyes were wide and there was a hole directly between his sharp brows.

Ryker had just shot his father.

“What did you—” Rue was shoved to the side by Bowie, who rushed the Black Hart.

He slammed into Ryker, catching him off guard, and the two of them fell to the ground with a heavy thump, almost at the same time as Rhys’ legs finally gave out.

Bowie had a knife, one Rue hadn’t known he was carrying, and drove the five-inch blade straight through Ryker’s stomach. He let go, grabbed the gun from the floor, and moved away, aiming the weapon at the Black Hart.

It happened too quickly to follow.

Rue was stunned for a moment, unable to process what had happened.

One minute, the creature after them was dead and they maybe had a minute to breathe, and then suddenly Rhys was there, using his oldest friend as bear fodder, threatening them.

Now Rhys was also dead, and Ryker—

Ryker struggled to sit up, the knife still protruding from his gut. His hands shook as he reached for the handle, but he didn’t pull it out, shifting as best he could until he was propped up against the side of the check-in counter, facing Bowie and the barrel of the gun. There was fury written across his face, but it was the pain that caught Rue’s attention and snapped him out of it.

“Stop!” Bowie pointed the gun at Rue for a split second, just long enough to get him to stand still when he made to go to Ryker.

Rue froze, wishing the gun had stayed on him when his friend turned it back on the Black Hart.

“He killed his dad,” Bowie rushed to explain. “It’s the drug. It’s—”

“I’m not drugged, asshole,” Ryker growled, but it was obvious it took him effort to do so. “I haven’t lost my mind. I did it because he fucking deserved it.”

Had the knife pierced through something vital?

Rue felt panic bubble in his chest and wildly shook his head at his best friend. “You’re wrong. He didn’t do it because of a drug. He did it for me.”

No one knew the type of life Ryker had lived under his father’s thumb, not like Rue did. After days of running for their lives, desperately trying to keep each other safe, of course Ryker would resort to this at the threat of them being torn apart.

Especially since the threat had been very real.

And nonnegotiable.

Rhys was the most powerful person on the entire planet. Even if they managed to make it off this mountain, if he had decided to prevent them from ever seeing one another again, there wouldn’t have been anything either of them could have done to stay together.

If Rue had been the one holding the gun, he honestly couldn’t say with absolute certainty he wouldn’t have shot Rhys as well.

They were all monsters here, really.

“You’re never going to be able to see him for what he truly is so long as he’s around. So

I’m going to help you.” Bowie didn’t even give Rue the chance to reply. He pulled the trigger.

There was a click, but nothing else.

The breath that Rue had held exploded out of him on a whine, the relief not coming fast enough to fully chase away the sheer terror that’d consumed him in that fraction of a second.

Ryker laughed. “It’s empty, moron. Used the last one to take out my old man.”