The Keys (Ethos Society Book 2) Read online




  Copyright © 2019 by Chloe Gunter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Design by Triple Witch Graphic Design

  Proofreading by Bookish Dreams Editing

  Created with Vellum

  To Redvines:

  You’re better than Twizzlers,

  I don’t care what Mercy & Lana say.

  Kat & I know the truth.

  Contents

  Previously in The Rites…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Chloe Gunter

  About the Author

  Previously in The Rites…

  Charlie DeWitt, FBI profiler and all around badass, joined GRAVITAS, an elite government organization that has a deadly reputation. Uprooting her life, she moved to the facility and met her new roommate, Reed, and his boyfriend, Ramsey.

  As their light-hearted friendship grew, so did Charlie’s skills as she began her rigorous training for GRAVITAS. Between an obstacle course of doom and countless seminars, she met a wonderful Agent named Gavin with whom she quickly became involved with, unable to deny the connection between them.

  But everything changed when mysterious black envelopes started appearing. Following the clues, Charlie was kidnapped and offered a chance to join the mythical Ethos Society. After seeing Gavin recruited alongside her, she accepted the opportunity and was thrust into the complicated and dark web of the Rites.

  If that wasn’t enough, Charlie still had to balance her responsibilities to GRAVITAS. At the recommendation of Katya, a profiler and interrogation expert, Charlie was given the opportunity to demonstrate her skills during a tense interrogation. After her success, Charlie forms a friendship with the Assistant Director leading the case, Wyatt Ridley.

  In the meantime, Charlie managed to use her sharp mind to pass the first Rite of Ethos, only to get captured alongside Gavin during the second Rite. Held for hours, tortured and interrogated under truth serum, the two of them managed to escape, only to find out that the whole scenario was an elaborate ploy designed by Ethos to test them.

  Feeling raw and emotional, Gavin came to Charlie’s room later that night and the two consumed each other in a passionate and desperate fog. But the opening of her bedroom door sent Charlie for a spin. Standing there, in her doorway, was the actual Gavin. The man who she had just slept with, who was beside her for those tumultuous hours during the Rites, is revealed to be none other than his twin brother, Gage.

  The three managed to form a unique relationship, Charlie having already fallen in love with both of them. But the stress of her workload, and the mounting tension looming over the upcoming third Rite, had Charlie questioning who she could trust.

  Her suspicions came to a precipice when she lashed out at Ridley, indirectly accusing him of sponsoring her, only to turn around and find out later that night that it wasn’t him. Having finally connected the dots, betrayal and hurt coursed through Charlie when she learned that her sponsor was none other than her roommate, Reed.

  During the final Rite, Charlie was tasked with playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun, having to choose between her boyfriends, Gavin and Gage. Unable to bare putting them in that position, she turned the gun to herself, firing round after round to her head, only to realize the whole thing was an illusion.

  The story concluded with Charlie and Gage’s initiation into the Ethos Society. Gavin, Ramsey, Reed, and Katya were all in attendance, already full fledged members. If that wasn’t enough, one last secret was revealed.

  The Ethos Society is descended from the lost city of Atlantis, their technology and weapons far surpassing anything the world has to offer, and it is all powered by a Spark.

  The book closed on Charlie after her Spark activation with Reed, a painful and shocking experience that had her wondering exactly what she'd done.

  My jaw clenched as sweat beaded on my brow, the intensity of the moment rising and falling as rapidly as my own chest.

  "Which one is it, Ice Queen?" I asked, my voice deadly as I turned on Katya. She was strapped against a vertical board, her head angled so that she had no choice but to view the onslaught of images flickering across the screen.

  One after another, images of convention centers, temples, and schools flashed across the screen. What did all these things have in common? They were all possible locations of where the next biological warfare device could be planted. It could decimate millions upon millions of people, potentially wiping out a tremendous amount of our population all at once.

  And the bitch in the chair just continued to keep her mouth shut, eyes forward. Not really seeing the images on the screen, refusing to give me an inch to work with.

  I wanted to crack her, make her confess to every decision she had made that had led us here. It was my job to make sure that I got the information we desperately needed, and here I was doing an utterly fucktastic job of it.

  Stepping in front of her and temporarily blocking the screen, I leaned into her until our noses were only millimeters apart. I wasn't going to risk the consequences of touching her, but I was sure as hell going to make sure that she had no other choice but to pay attention to me.

  "Listen, Katya," I said, honing in on the blond-haired Russian goddess in front of me, "tell me where you planted the bomb."

  She smirked at me, a laugh of equal parts condescension and surprise leaking from her blood red lips.

  "Surely you don't expect it to be that easy," she taunted, not even flinching when the electrical current pulsed through the leads that were hooked up to her body. "You're going to have to tap into that sweet little mind of yours and work for the answers if you want them."

  Even then, when she was strapped down and undergoing psychological warfare, Katya was still trying to push me. Glancing quickly to the timer on the back wall, the big red numbers blinked a warning at me. I only had a minute left to make her talk before our time expired, before it would be too late to save the nation.

  Stepping to the side, the light of the screen washed over her as I grasped the controller in my hand, switching it to a manual progression as I paused on a picture of a mosque.

  "Is it this one?" I asked casually, changing my tactic, trying to throw her off her game. I switched to the next one, monitoring her pupils for any slight change in dilation. "What about this one?"

  "You're still not getting it. You'll never find where it is if you're not actually trying."

  Not trying? What the fuck is she talking about? I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes in this hell hole grilling her.

  I slammed my palm down next to her head, the action finally causing her to flinch and giving me the upper hand again. The time was dwindling down, and I was losing my carefully crafted composure.

  The next thir
ty seconds were a haze of me using every interrogation tactic I knew, the second hands sinking with the beat of my heart, before a loud jarring noise filled the air and the lights were raised.

  Two agents came through the door behind me and began to remove the leads along Katya's body while we stared at each other in silence. Straps were removed one by one by one before the agent with the pair of nitrile gloves on started to clean the adhesive away from her skin. The other offered her a towel and a bottle of water, which finally broke the connection between us.

  The door opened again and Ridley stepped inside, his face only briefly pausing on me before turning to Katya.

  I took the brief glance for what it was: a dismissal. As though we were barely acquaintances. I was just another agent in his arsenal. An agent who had failed to deliver. He dismissed me like I had dismissed him last month, and the chasm between us made my heart heavy and my guilt swell.

  "Points will be tallied and updated on the scoreboard tonight," Ridley said simply. Then he walked out of the room, the agents and Katya trailing behind.

  I followed after them, thinking of how the alerts would go out on everyone's tablets tonight with updates on the GRAVITAS Games. Only the top five agents in each category proceeded to the final round, and honestly, with my performance in this second round, I wasn't sure if I was going to cut it.

  Failure was not a good look on me.

  I was tired. So fucking tired of the way my body buzzed and my thoughts thrashed in my head. The time I had taken away from the very situation that was distracting me clearly hadn’t helped like I’d hoped.

  Truthfully, some part of me knew deep down it wouldn't, but my self-preservation instincts had kicked in and I ended up shutting down. But now, now it was fucking with my career, and that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  Maybe it was time to finally face it. Face him.

  But right then, there was one person I could face. Pushing my thoughts away, I called out to the blonde walking ahead. "Katya," I started out, watching her pause in the hallway with the towel slung over her shoulder.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Ptichka.”

  “That wasn’t my best performance. I know that,” I said, consciously crossing my arms.

  “You know I’m not talking about what happened in there,” she challenged taking a step closer, her icy topaz gaze sharpening.

  “I needed that time,” I defended tersely. “I’m not running away from my responsibilities, but my whole damned world was turned upside down, Katya,” I said softly, wanting her to see where I was coming from.

  Katya glanced around the empty hallway before her gaze settled back on me. “Then you need to start embracing it. Leaving that energy coursing through you right now unintegrated is a recipe for disaster. Not only that, but you could have easily won in there today. I gave you all the clues you needed to discern the truth, if only you were in tune with yourself.”

  “What do you mean? What did I miss?” I asked, quickening my stride to meet her as she turned to walk down the hall.

  “Something you would have caught if you were in in sync with your Spark. It has added benefits--it’ll give you better senses, improved health, longer life—“

  “What?” I questioned, completely lost. Integration? Better senses?

  I found myself swimming in a sea of confusion more often than not lately and I hated it. Katya stopped and placed a hand on my shoulder, her grip firm but comforting.

  “Talk to him, Charlie. You both need to put your emotions aside and talk to each other, before it gets dangerous,” Katya said, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

  “Dangerous? That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair and looking away. “More secrets, more things that I’m left in the dark about. I’ll talk to him and do what needs to be done.”

  “I’m surprised the guys haven’t pushed you to clear the air before now,” Katya said, stepping back, and I knew she was referring to Gavin and Gage. After the shit that went down in the third Rite and finding out who my sponsor was, we had been closer than ever before, the three of us cohabiting when I had needed some space from Reed.

  “They’ve been beating around the bush about it. I think we’ve just been trying to enjoy each other while we can.”

  “Yeah, I heard about their assignment. But hey, at least we’ve got the tech to make it as seamless as possible.”

  As our conversation wrapped up, now with a goal in mind, I headed to the sleek modern building that housed the apartments. Letting myself in, I began to move around the place, gathering the majority of my clothing that had made the transition here. When everything was together and ready to go, I made my way to Gage’s room, knowing that Gavin was consulting.

  Peeking my head in, I saw his medium-length brown hair haphazardly spread around his pillow as the grey sheets laid low on his hips revealing his tanned torso. I sat on the bed and was quickly snatched and pulled on top of him. My thighs settled on either side of him as he captured my face between his palms, his cerulean eyes shining at me in the afternoon light that shined in through the gap in the curtains.

  “Mine,” he said, nipping at my lip. I let out a laugh before pressing a kiss to chest.

  “Good afternoon to you, too,” I teased, knowing he had stayed up late working on an assignment. The dark web sleeps for no one.

  “So, when are you going back?” Gage asked, straight to the point as I stared down at him.

  “How did you know?”

  “Besides the sound of you zipping up all your stuff in the living room?” he asked with an arched brow. “It’s time, and we both know it. Whether you're sleeping here or there doesn’t matter. We can continue to work something out, but you need a resolution with Reed. I can feel your body humming against mine, Bird. And he’s the only one that can help, unless you want to go to Ramsey. But you know that would only be a temporary solution to a problem you’re going to have to face regardless.”

  “I know. I’ve known for the past couple of weeks, but I’ve just been too fucking… hurt.”

  “It’s a huge change. But everyday that I work with Gavin and the others, it gets easier. Plus, you care about him. So do the both of you a favor and make up. The first step is always the hardest,” he said as he ground his hips up into me, making me feel how hard he really was.

  “Mmm,” I groaned, “you’re making it really difficult to leave.”

  He swatted my ass playfully, before rolling me over and completely getting out of bed, leaving me there to admire him in all his glory. Tanned skin, toned and smooth filled my vision, my eyes following the brown smattering of hair down his body before—Gage pulled on a pair of sweats.

  “Go take that first step, Bird. Make amends and take some of your stuff back over. Then, bring your ass back here for dinner, and if you’re a good girl, you might just get a double helping of dessert.”

  He threw me a wink before offering me a hand and giving me one hell of a kiss goodbye.

  It shouldn’t have been so hard to open a fucking door I had been through a million times before.

  Between escaping to see Alicia and a week of soaking up time with Gavin and Gage, I hadn't been back to the apartment in a couple of weeks.

  Gage ever so bluntly asked me why it was different for me, why I had reacted so strongly to the situation when he himself was in the same boat. I didn’t have an answer at the time. But suddenly, in front of the door of a place I once considered home, I realized why.

  The bottom line for me was… Reed had betrayed me. Ethos wouldn't have known about my relationship with Gavin and Gage without his interference. Reed shared details of my life he wouldn’t have known if we weren’t friends, and used them against me in the final Rite. He crossed a line between our work and our personal lives.

  I had needed some time to come to terms with everything. I didn’t have an issue swallowing my own pride and trying to work things out with Reed, but it had taken the past few weeks for me to accep
t what I had become.

  A modern day Atlantean.

  Talking to Reed was just the first step in what was sure to be a cascade of even more changes in my life. Good thing I liked a challenge. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and scanned my keycard, opening the door.

  “Hey, babe. I was just throwing in a casserole for dinner later,” Reed called out without looking as he bent to slide a dish into the oven.

  “Smells good,” I offered casually, moving to set my bag in one of the empty chairs at the dining table.

  His entire body snapped to attention as his eyes widened at the sight of me. I gave him a nod, indicating he had forgotten to close the oven door.

  “Thanks, Char,” he said hesitantly, taking a second to clear his voice. “I thought you were Ramsey.”

  “I know,” I said quietly, trying to figure out where to start. Instead I blankly stared at the man, my mind a million miles away even though only feet separated us.

  His black shirt was stretched tight across his chest, his muscles clearly defined through the thin material, tattoos poking out, as his hands were clenched at his sides. His sandy blond hair was cut shorter, making his piercing green eyes stand out even more as he continued to stare at me intently.

  “Did you want to join us?” Reed offered tentatively and broke the spell. “I made plenty.”

  My eyes flicked away from his form before racing back. “No, I-I told the guys I’d have dinner with them again tonight. They’re leaving soon, and they both have the night off for once.”

  “Yeah, no worries, that makes sense,” Reed said, his hand running through his beard as his shoulders fell. He turned away, hands fluttering over the countertops as if looking for something to do, something to break the awkwardness between us. It broke my heart.