Killian, Keaton, and Kyrin walk to the back of the sofa Lilith and I are sitting on, giving them a direct view of Kosta. I can almost feel Killian breathing down the back of my neck. He will know by now. Know why I was put in Midnight Mayhem.
Movement shuffles behind me as lips brush the back of my ear, but he says it loud enough for everyone—including Kosta—to hear. “You deserve a fucking Grammy for your performance.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. I want to say that I didn’t know, but I can’t.
Delila takes a seat on the sofa beside us, closest to Kosta. “You’ve been quite the pain in my ass, Kosta. When will this shit stop?” She crosses her legs, flicking the rings around on her finger.
“Oh, D, still so naïve.”
She raises her finger. “Not so much anymore. I mean, here we are, ready to kill you with enough power to make you and all of your team disappear, and yet here you are, with your saggy nuts and loose morals. Raping girls? You are disgusting. I would say you’re the one who is naïve, not me. Patience has been doomed from the very beginning, Kosta, but now your clients are thinning.”
“Rape, huh?” Kosta grins, looking to me and then above my shoulder. “I’d hardly call it rape if the girls love it.”
My face pales, but my nostrils flare. Before I can say anything, Delila says, “She was thirteen. They were all close to her age.”
She knows?
My fingers twist on my lap. I don’t want to face this music.
“But your daughter, Kosta?” Delila says, unmoving.
I see movement out of the corner of my eye when the Four Fathers enter the room. The atmosphere shifts. Four middle-aged men in expensive designer suits, some tattooed, some not. A couple with longer hair, one with no hair. They stand powerful, strong, without even breathing a word.
I turn to face Lilith, watching as her face remains passive. As if the words don’t trigger any part of her messed up soul.
Delila turns to face me. “So, is anyone going to ask me why I brought in Saskia Dragavei to Midnight Mayhem?” Delila looks around the room, meeting every face that’s in here, before finally resting back on Kosta. “No? No one? Not even you? Did you not think that I damn well knew she was connected to Patience?”
Kosta stiffens.
“I mean.” Delila stands, chuckling. “You have to give me some credit.” She walks directly in front of Kosta, resting her hands on either side of his chair. “I do everything for a reason. But you, Kosta, being the biggest failure of The Fathers ever.”
Poor Lilith. She doesn’t give a fuck about her father’s lack of love. She replaced love with insanity. A long time ago.
“Did you not think that both myself and your nephew would do something about that?” She tilts her head.
My eyebrows pull together.
Kosta doesn’t have a nephew. He only has Lilith.
Delila runs her perfectly manicured finger down the side of his face. “We knew she would fall in love with him.”
Someone steps out from the side, and I watch as Killian flicks a knife around his fingers with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looks over at me and winks before walking closer to Delila and Kosta.
Killian grins, taking the smoke out of his lips and blowing it out. “When Delila finally told me who Sass was, I knew that her mind had been touched. I killed her father, I ruined her life, there was no way anyone was that good of an actor, and above that, I could never tap into that pretty little head of hers. Not completely, anyway.” He continues to puff on his smoke as my throat constricts. “Makes sense now. You trained her to be strong, to not give in to the impulses of Coercive Persuasion. Smart, I’ll give you that, but you’re still a sick bastard. Ever so dark about you not being born into The Four Fathers.”
“Never claimed I wasn’t,” Kosta snickers. Kosta is Kallisto’s brother?
Killian’s eyes come to mine. My heartbeat flips around in my chest as my cheeks flush with heat. “I’ll ask you again, Little Dragon.” He licks his lips and I subconsciously draw my tongue out to wet my own. “Do villains have hearts?”
Everything comes back to me at a hundred miles an hour. It was all there in black and white. He dropped breadcrumbs for me, but instead of picking them up, I trampled all over them.
My chest tightens from his burning gaze. “I don’t know…” My gaze clouds, distancing in and out of view. My thoughts freeze.
My eyes connect back with him, and I see it. The flash of uncertainty in his vision. He killed my father. Ruined my life.
“Yes.”
I watch slowly, the corner of his mouth tips up, curving around his teeth. No one knows what that question means. Only us. Him asking if villains have hearts is him asking if I’m still in there. He knows that I didn’t know what was happening. He knows that I didn’t know I was being a rat.