Chapter 2

Genevra POV:

Brinley stepped past the threshold without knocking, letting the heavy door click shut behind her.

Draped casually over her slender shoulders was Kingston’s black-and-crimson club jacket, the embroidered Southern Alliance skull crest glaring across the back. On her right index finger, she lazily spun a heavy brass carabiner holding the keys to his custom Harley-Davidson.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The heavy brass skull fob tapped rhythmically against her manicured acrylic nails, filling the quiet bedroom with an arrogant, metallic chime.

"My sister," Brinley purred, her green eyes glittering with vicious, triumphant glee. "I see you managed to drag yourself out of the ER after all. Quite the dramatic little stunt you pulled in the bathroom three nights ago, wasn't it?"

I didn't answer.

I turned my back on her, walked over to the wooden chest of drawers, and continued packing my duffel. My movements were unhurried, measured, and completely relaxed, as though I were preparing for nothing more consequential than an evening ride.

My total silence hit her harder than a shouted insult. The smug grin on her face tightened.

"Don't play the untouchable queen with me, Genevra," Brinley snapped, taking two aggressive steps forward. Her heavy, cloying jasmine perfume invaded the room, mingling sickeningly with the scent of leather. "Did you hear what Father said? You're being shipped off to the desert before sunrise. While you're rotting away in California, tomorrow night at the Saint's Den, Kingston is putting his claim patch on my cut."

She stopped beside the wardrobe, crossing her arms and sticking her chin out, demanding that I turn around and break.

"It's not just a private patch-over, either," she gloated, her voice pitched with shrill vanity. "It's a full Church ceremony before the entire Southern Alliance council. The presidents and road captains of six chartered clubs are riding in. Father is paying for an open bar from sunset to dawn. Tomorrow night, I take my vows before God and the patch, and I become Kingston's official Old Lady. His lawful wife. The First Lady of the South District."

She waited for the tears, the screaming, or another hysterical fit of jealousy.

I picked up a dark canvas shirt, folded it neatly along the seams, and placed it inside my pack. I didn't even blink.

The complete absence of a reaction drove her furious. A violent red flush crept up her neck, cracking her polished facade.

"Are you deaf?" Brinley lunged forward, her fingers clawing into the sleeve of my jacket, yanking hard to spin me around. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Her face was inches from mine, contorted with pure spite. The keys in her hand rattled violently against my forearm.

"You think Father sent you to California out of respect for some ancient blood pact? Wake up, you pathetic idiot! The traitors running the Iron Skulls wired a five-million-dollar war chest into Father's offshore account yesterday! You're not going there to be a queen—you're the five-million-dollar scapegoat Father sold to take the fall for Erik's assassination! The moment that rotting carcass flatlines, those savages will execute you for his murder, and Father gets five years of clean campaign funding with no loose ends."

She let out a harsh, mocking laugh, her hot breath washing over my cheek.

"And Father already knows Erik 'Grim' Marshall is a walking corpse. The ambush last month didn't just break his spine—the hit squad coated their blades in venom that chewed straight through his nerves and internal organs. The club's underground medics say he won't survive the month. You're not going to California to be a queen. You're going there to wipe bedsores off a rotting carcass, and the moment he flatlines, those grease-stained savages will feed you to the yard dogs."

She leaned back, her chest heaving, waiting for the devastating truth to finally shatter my spine.

I looked at her with flat, empty eyes.

No tears. No tremble in my lower lip. Not even a breath hitched in my throat.

Frustrated by my absolute apathy, Brinley lost what little control she had left. She shoved my shoulder violently, her voice screeching into the quiet room.

"Why aren't you crying? You think you're still daddy's precious little princess? Your dead mother was nothing but a low-class whore who bought her way into this house, and you're just like her—a discarded, pathetic—"

The air in the room died.

My hands stopped. Slowly, inch by inch, I tilted my head.

The cold indifference in my eyes vanished, consumed instantly by a pitch-black, bottomless fury that burned with the heat of an executioner's furnace.

Brinley caught the sudden, murderous stillness in my gaze. Her hand flew off my jacket as if she had just touched live high-voltage wire.

Before her brain could process the shift, I moved.

My body blurred forward in a single, fluid strike. My right hand shot out like an iron clamp, locking onto her throat before she could even draw breath to scream.

The sheer, explosive momentum tore her off her feet. I drove her backward with brutal force, slamming her spine hard against the solid oak wardrobe.

BANG.

The heavy wood rattled violently against the wall studs.

Kingston's leather jacket slipped off her shoulders, collapsing onto the floorboards like a discarded rag. The heavy brass Harley keys slipped from her fingers, skittering across the hardwood with a frantic clatter.

A strangled wheeze tore from Brinley's chest as the air was violently evacuated from her lungs. Her eyes bulged in pure, unadulterated terror. The sister she had bullied and mocked for years was gone—in her place was a lethal apex predator, entirely devoid of mercy.

My fingers gripped her throat with unyielding pressure, cutting off blood flow through the carotid arteries with terrifying anatomical precision, yet my face remained eerily, unnervingly calm.

"Apologize," I said. My voice was low, rough as gravel grinding under iron wheels. "Apologize to my mother."

Brinley's skin turned a mottled, suffocating purple. Her manicured hands clawed frantically at my wrist, tearing at my skin, but my arm didn't budge a millimeter. Her mouth opened and closed, producing only wet, gagging noises.

"Say my mother's name again," I whispered, tightening my grip just enough to crush her pathetic whimper, "and I won't just break your neck. I will send you down to hell to apologize to her in person."

Her struggles rapidly weakened. Real tears of blinding agony and visceral terror streamed down her flushed cheeks, ruining her makeup. Her right hand feebly tapped against the oak paneling in a desperate, silent plea for mercy.

While her frantic scratching occupied her remaining consciousness, my left hand brushed lightly against the curve of her neck.

The micro-fine hollow needle hidden between my knuckles punctured the soft skin directly in the nerve triangle behind her left ear.

A single, silent depress.

Two hundred milligrams of latent neuro-dermatitis toxin emptied smoothly into her vascular network. An endocrine disruptor with a twenty-four-hour incubation window, set to detonate into violent epidermal necrosis right around the time Kingston tried to drape that alliance patch over her shoulders.

Watching her slip toward unconsciousness cooled the immediate fire in my blood.

Killing her here would be far too quick. Far too clean.

I opened my fingers.

Brinley dropped like a sack of wet laundry, collapsing into a heap on the hardwood floor. She curled into a ball, clutching her bruised throat, coughing and retching violently as she dragged air back into her starved lungs. Snot and mascara smeared across her face.

I stood over her, looking down with cold, clinical disgust.

"Get out."

She scrambled to her feet on hands and knees, a clumsy, trembling mess of limbs. She didn't even dare pick up the leather jacket or the keys she had been gloating over a minute ago. She stumbled toward the door, her fingers shaking so hard she fumbled with the brass knob twice before managing to wrench it open.

Just before crossing the threshold, she risked one final, terrified glance over her shoulder, her voice cracking into a broken wheeze. "You... you're a monster..."

A razor-thin, frozen smile touched the corners of my lips.

The sight sent a visible shudder straight down her spine. She turned and bolted down the corridor, her frantic, uneven footsteps slamming against the floorboards until the distant stairs swallowed the sound.

The bedroom door clicked shut. Silence returned.

I walked over to the small steel sink in the corner, pulled a sterile wipe from my pocket, and slowly, methodically disinfected every single finger that had touched her skin.

I raised my hand and looked at my fingers under the lamplight.

Not a single tremor. Completely rock-steady.

Tonight, this body tasted violence for the very first time.

And this was only the beginning.