Free Warlord (Anathema Book 1) by Lana Grayson Page B

he lived behind bars confident I’d
never reveal just why I wept in joy at his arraignment.
    But some things
were more terrifying than my father.
    Anathema was the
ultimate terror.
    And my brothers
delivered me to its leader.
    They escorted me
to Pixie in formation. Keep leading, Brew tailing, and my car caught in the
middle of their rumbling engines, composing its own dirge with humming tires
and the roaring heraldry of Anathema. Just how they preferred. They tuned their
bikes loud enough to echo the streets with their presence. The rest of the
world noticed, recognized their rockers, and then pretended they hadn’t felt
the vibrations through their feet.
    I didn’t have
that luxury.
    And I knew what
awaited me at the end of our makeshift procession.
    Two prospects unlocked
the gates behind Pixie. They open carried, each wielding one visible gun. They
probably packed more. But when Dad was VP, they didn’t have the barbed wire
fence bordering their parking lot. Or the active guards. They bought security
cameras—most businesses in the area used them—but the motion sensors and lights
were new.
    Keep mentioned
thousands of dollars of upgrades to the bar and warehouse. Additional security
measures. My brothers forbid me from frequenting Pixie because they feared what
would happen when Exorcist outgrew his hole across the river. The block would
transform from shady industrial district to Syria in one gunshot. Pixie’d be
reduced to smoldering rubble, and Anathema would declare World War Three.
    So why did they
force me to the front lines?
    I kept my mouth
shut. My brothers didn’t deserve a single word from me—even if it was to curse them
with every expression they taught me as a child. They crowded me into the bar,
and Keep stashed my bags in his office. I matched their scowls. If nothing
else, the Darnell family was easy to read.
    Brew pointed. “This
way.”
    I remembered the
bar. The narrow steps upstairs led to old hotel rooms from the fifties—the ones
with flowered wallpaper, twin beds, and powder blue porcelain in the bathrooms.
Keep undertook some modern renovations and designed some practical, but
charming, rooms. He offered the lodging to the officers.
    I guess that
included me.
    Except I didn’t
get my own room.
    Brew and Keep
knocked on the suite at the end of the hall. They pressed me before them, each
one hovering over one of my arms. They might have meant to protect me. It felt
like they’d be there to hold me down.
    They delivered
me into the bedroom of a known murderer.
    My feet stilled
at the door’s threshold. Brew didn’t care. He nudged me forward, grabbing my
arm and shaking me to stillness before I stumbled into the room. He held my
elbow a little too tight.
    I ignored it.
    I had to.
    Everything below
my trembling lip went numb.
    Thorne waited
for me.
    He sat at a
carved table, his shadow darkening more than just the reach of night. His phone
conversation ended, and he tossed the cell on the table. Next to a .45 millimeter
handgun.
    Thorne didn’t
need weapons to intimidate me. He didn’t need to sit in silence and watch as my
brothers presented me to the true anathema like a sacrificial lamb. He stared
at me with eyes as gray as gunmetal and as dark as the intent of each bullet.
    I wasn’t a fool
or a coward. I knew when it was appropriate to be frightened. It wasn’t
weakness. Fearing Thorne was survival instinct. A man like him expected people
to cower.
    Someone who
showed no fear wouldn’t be awarded his mercy.
    I adopted the
guitar as my preferred instrument. Thorne chose a gun. I might have played my
fingers to callouses, spent years in dedicated study, and practiced music as if
it were my only salvation from the wickedness of the world, but one of us was
more proficient with their instrument. I only hoped he wouldn’t demonstrate his
skill.
    Thorne studied my
body. An appraisal head to toe. He scrutinized every part of me, from the
wayward curls slipping from behind my ear to