by Mason, V. F.
No one interacted with me. No one told me what to do, and no one wanted to help me find Arianna. Spying on them didn’t help, and besides, they had so many protégés it was hard to guess which one was my Arianna.
Slowly, anger was replaced with resentment, and with that came the sadistic desire to prove Lachlan wrong. I formed my own friendships with the Four Dark Horsemen, Sculptor, Psychopath, Callum—even though we barely stayed in touch—and a few others too who are on my side if I ever need them.
I built my business, tripled my fortune, while always keeping an eye on Laura who smiled brightly yet never spoke about what bothered her. I created the illusion of both brothers, while continuing to kill whomever I saw fit.
I mostly lived in Chicago while occasionally traveling all over the world, but Lachlan’s words about Arianna’s vengeance always stayed in my head. I never touched the founding five, because I wanted them all to be there for her anger.
She deserved it.
And I had a feeling she would come back on an anniversary, so I planned accordingly, taking my rightful place as the mayor of the city once Patricia’s father retired.
I couldn’t find Liam, but I knew he was waiting like a predator lurking in the grass, ready to jump on the prey as she strolls over the field.
What he didn’t take into consideration?
I was no longer a seventeen-year-old boy who only thought with his pride, anger, and ego.
And that I was willing to do anything for the people I loved.
Anything.
Eudard
Pulling up to the gates of Lachlan’s mansion, I wait for them to slide open while I focus on the castle in front of me, my attention zeroed on all the flowers. When the gates open, I drive through, my sports car roaring loudly in the night while the wind slaps my face—not that I feel a thing.
I’m incapable of feeling anything since he took her away, dumping me in the familiar pit of despair and agony. There is nothing that can dig me out of this hole but Cassandra’s presence.
It has been two weeks since I last saw her, touched her, felt her, smelled her, tasted her.
Two weeks without her while wondering where she went.
Two weeks without her while searching fucking everywhere to find her.
Two weeks of almost going insane that, once again, he took something of mine right from under my nose.
Because I never for a second believed that letter they left for me. My woman loves me, and she wouldn’t leave me if he didn’t make her.
Liam probably watched me from a surveillance camera and enjoyed the experience, while I had no idea how his sadistic ass would be torturing her.
Until today when the video arrived in my inbox from an untraceable IP address.
Speeding up, I finally pull up by the main door, honking several times, slamming my fist over and over again on the horn so the whole fucking house will wake up and see I’ve arrived.
The doors open and Levi runs down the stairs, holding on to his robe. His eyes widen when he sees me. “Eudard.” We haven’t seen each other in over a decade, yet the man hasn’t changed at all, still working for Lachlan and remembering his protégés by name. “What’s going on?” he asks softly, but I pay no attention.
Instead turning my gaze on the door, I honk and honk, waiting for the devil to show up and accept the gift I’m about to give him in exchange for his help.
“I think—” Levi’s words die on his lips, because Lachlan comes into view, wearing his suit without the jacket, and his gaze stays brooding. His metal cane swings back and forth in his hand while he walks down the stairs, not hurrying yet drilling his stare into me like he is searching my every thought.
He doesn’t have to guess.
I’ll gladly give them to him.
Getting out of the car, I walk toward him as he stops on the last step, regarding me calmly, almost relaxed, like I came for a fucking visit.
Placing my gloved hand on my back pocket, I hear Levi gasp. “Don’t do this, Eudard.” Does he think I came here to kill Lachlan?
Is that even possible?
The man in question though doesn’t even twitch, continuing to watch me like the devil he is.
Why would he be afraid of death?
The screen of my phone glistens in the moonlight while I do something I promised myself never to do… ever again… under any circumstances.
Kneeling in front of the man, holding his gaze, I see his eyes widen in surprise, and dread fills them even though he says nothing, but he’s not stupid.
He knows there is only one reason why I would ever swallow my pride and do something like this.
“Please help me, Lachlan.” Each word is like a nail is being hammered in my throat, but I push back the acid and fear. “Please help me.”
“Oh no,” Levi whispers.
Lachlan fists my sweater, dragging me to stand and seething into my face, “Don’t ever kneel again, Eudard. I saved you from that life so you’d never have to do it again.” He shakes me harshly. “Snap out of your shock. Tell me what the fuck is going on. Now,” he orders me for the second time in my life. He snatches the phone I hand him and turns on the flashing video I’ve played over and over again.
While destroying half my house in the process.
Liam’s laughter echoes in the video with a pitch-black background, and then he announces to me, “I have your phoenix with me, Eudard.” Then the light comes up, streaming on Cassandra lying on the surgical table, thankfully unhurt and looking like she is just sleeping. “Isn’t she pretty?” he asks with awe and then comes toward her, wearing a fucking clown mask. “But then all pregnant women are.” There is so much love in his voice it makes me sick. The ringing in my ears comes back just like all those years ago as Liam softly touches Cassandra’s cheek. “Just like her.” Then he looks directly into the camera. “I was going to kill her and send you the video, but this little darling kept on vomiting all over the floor. And voila, it turns out she is carrying a baby. Your baby.” He claps his hands. “I consider it a debt paid, Eudard. Now I will have the family I wanted… with your baby.” His voice grows stone-cold. “And this baby will love me and never betray me. Don’t try to find me.” He chuckles. “You haven’t succeeded in ten years, so you won’t now either. Look at her good, Eudard.” He points at Cassandra. “Because that’s the last time you will ever see her. A woman fell in love with you, but now she will be the mother of my child. I will keep her with me, I think. I always needed a queen for my plan, didn’t I?” Then the video goes blank with his laughter sounding over and over again.
“Help me,” I repeat the phrase, because I don’t know where else to go.
Banished or not… they are the only family who can help me.
Lachlan grabs my head, giving me silent support, and then orders Levi, “Gather everyone. I want them to come here right fucking now, no matter where they are.” Levi nods and rushes upstairs while Lachlan turns his attention back to me. “We will find her.”
“We need to find her before she goes into labor,” I say, even though there are eight months to go, but even that might not be enough to find Liam.
Lachlan waits for me to elaborate, but when I stay silent, numb to all the fear inside me while focusing only on my mission to not fail my family again, he shakes me again, asking, “Why?”
“Liam’s mother was pregnant when Uncle killed her. He was the one who took the baby out of her. Liam was five. His baby brother didn’t survive.” I raise my head to meet his eyes. “That’s what he wanted all along, a brother. First, he put the role onto me and now on my baby. And you know what happens when a serial killer gets what he wants?” He doesn’t say anything, maybe too afraid to voice it in my presence, so I do it for him. “Once he recreates his memory and Cassandra successfully goes through delivery, putting a different ending on his nightmare, he will kill her, because in his scenario, mothers always die, and he stands alone against the world with his brother.”
Under no circum
stances will I allow that.
I will cheat, steal, and kill some more while begging on my knees.
I’ll do everything in my power to save them both from Liam.
This time around, he won’t win.
This time around, he won’t take what’s mine.
This time around, I will die first rather than give him an opportunity to kill my loved ones.
Vincere Semper.
I always win.
What Liam doesn’t understand is there are no winners in this war, and he can keep repeating those words all he wants.
For I’m willing to lose if it means saving them.
Chapter Eighteen
“Sometimes there is strength in my weakness.
But monsters don’t know that, because they forget about one simple fact.
Monsters hide their true fear of themselves behind their dark deeds.
But sinners like me?
We own our sins along with fears, ready to face the world no matter the cost.”
Cassandra
Somewhere in the world…
Seven months later
Cassandra
A gentle breeze caresses my cheekbones, swooshing my light summer dress over my legs before blowing it back. Smiling at the sound of seagulls cawing loudly in the bright, clear sky, I step close to the ocean where waves continue to crash against the rocks, the sound soothing me a little bit.
Wiggling my toes in the water, I see several colorful rocks under them and wonder if the hues are the same as the ones back home. I remember when we were around five years old, the twins and I collected some to build a mosaic in their mom’s studio.
I’m about to lean down to take one when a kick in my stomach stops me, hitting my ribs firmly, but my mouth spreads in a wide grin along with a pang in my heart.
Placing my hands on my belly, I rub it gently and murmur, “Do you enjoy the ocean, little bean?” Another kick, and I see how my skin stretches through the thin material of the dress. “Your daddy likes it too.” Stepping deeper into the water, I swish my leg back and forth while gazing in the distance at the water sparkling under the sunset.
The blue-green color of it reminds me of Eudard’s eyes that always gazed at me with possessiveness and belonging. I close mine and imagine him next to me, wrapping his arms around me.
Giving me his cocoon of protectiveness, an embrace in which nothing can hurt me and gives me peace.
The baby kicks again, and I place my hands on it, holding back the tears wanting to escape, smiling despite the sadness filling every bone.
“I don’t like the ocean. I much prefer the desert,” announces the disgusting, razor-edged voice from behind me, and I see a shadow fall next to me, indicating he is approaching. “You shouldn’t lie to the baby.”
Fear rushes through me at his presence, but I continue to watch the horizon, replying quietly, “Eudard loves the ocean, and he is this baby’s daddy.” By the intense change of energy, I know he doesn’t like what I said. He despises any reminder that the baby I’m carrying is not his.
He grabs my elbow harshly, spinning me around, and I almost fall but balance myself at the last moment. He fists my hair, throwing my head back, and grits through his teeth. “Do not utter his name!” Even though prickles of pain travel through my scalp, I don’t show it on my face.
Instead, I lift my chin higher and tell him, “It’s the truth. Accept it or not, this baby is not yours. And never will be.”
His face becomes red and he screams, raising his arm high, ready to slap me.
But he stops at the last minute before his palm can connect with my cheek. He fists his hand and lets me go, stepping back. He takes a few calming breaths before smiling brightly at me. “I apologize, Cassandra. But you shouldn’t have said what you did either.”
I stay silent, turning my attention back to the ocean. The only reprieve in this nightmare is while he continues to talk, his mood swings back and forth.
This one is the happy one.
He has about twenty of them per day; I’ve gotten used to them in the past seven months.
On the night he kidnapped me, he put a blindfold over my eyes before dragging me to the car and then to a helicopter, taking us somewhere far away, but I’m not sure where. He injected me with a sedative, so I was out of it most of the time.
When I woke up next, I was lying on a white mattress, surrounded by white walls, wearing a white dress.
As I later discovered, it’s Liam favorite color, because he thinks it reflects the purity of his soul. I almost laughed out loud when he told me that, since I’ve never seen a more vicious monster.
He constantly told me how he will kill me in the harshest of ways, describing and showing me photos of his previous victims. He even dragged his sword around, digging it lightly into my back but never pushing farther than that.
After a week though, he changed. Evil started crossing his face, and he would drag me around by the hair, hitting me on the back so I’d land on the floor a lot.
My mouth would fill with blood, and I’d wished to run away, but there was no escape. Based on what I understood from his manic sharing sometimes, his father left him an island somewhere far away that produced diamonds for him. That’s how he managed to build a huge fortress here, stocked with the latest technology to spy on everything Eudard did, and continued his hideous business.
Even his guards, who are the only people living on the island aside from his victims, are afraid of him, never raising their eyes or tone in his presence.
Eudard will never find him, because he mostly stays here, hiding in the hell that he has built under a different name.
Everything changed, though, the minute he announced to me that I was pregnant. From that day on, he’s controlled himself in my presence: watching over my vitamins daily and kidnapping a poor doctor to the island, ordering her to watch over me all the time. The girl was barely out of med school.
But while physically he hasn’t touched me again, psychologically, he has been slowly killing me every single day of my life here.
He brings his victims to me, almost like trophies, puffing his chest and killing them in front of me. Despite how sick I get or when I want to run away, he doesn’t let me, telling me the baby needs to know he will always be able to protect it.
I begged him once not to kill a young girl who spilled coffee on his shirt, but he wouldn’t listen to me and instead made me watch him torture her hour after hour.
He only stopped because I kept getting sick, and he worried for the baby.
The only salvation comes at night while I listen to the ocean rocking in the distance and sleep tightly, always praying to see Eudard in my dreams, because at least it gives me some solace.
But morning always comes, and with that reality, I know my time is getting close, because it’s harder for him to control himself around me, and he’s asked the doctor many times when the perfect time to deliver the baby is.
I’m not stupid. His sick mind wants the baby for something if he is ready to pretend it’s his and rein in his desire to kill me. Surely he plans to get rid of me once the baby is here, and I can’t allow that.
I won’t let him near my baby, but I’ve tried so many times to somehow send a signal, but it’s useless.
No one wants to help me out of this hell.
“You are the mother of my child.” His annoying voice pulls me back, and he grabs my shoulder so that we are facing each other, and I can see his cut-out eye in all its glory.
It always gives me satisfaction that Eudard did that to him, and now Liam has a deep scar crossing half his face and he covers it up with a patch.
He’s also bragged about how many surgeries he’s had and how he’s dyed his hair so no one will recognize him.
The length this man has gone to deliver his revenge astonishes me. He lives in his own reality and makes up stuff that doesn’t exist.
I’m about to deny his claim when he says, “I believe before this baby comes�
��” He touches my stomach lightly, but I push his hand away, not welcoming his touch ever, and he grits his teeth.
He hates the fact that he can’t touch or feel the baby. He forced me once, but the baby wouldn’t kick at all.
It’s like our baby showed him a big middle finger, thwarting his desires.
“I’m tired. I want to go to bed.” This is my favorite excuse lately, going to bed after five and lying there without having to see this monster.
He huffs in frustration. “I’m trying to tell you something.” He exhales heavily and then says quickly, “As the mother of my child, you deserve a gift from me. My father gave one to my mother.” He makes a weird comment about his mom again, but whenever I’ve asked for details, with the hope of this giving me a clue how to handle him, he always closes off. So I’ve dropped the subject. “Ask for whatever you want. I give you my word you will get your gift.” He watches me carefully, awaiting my answer.
My heart stills for a second and then starts beating wildly again, fueled by something I thought I’d lost.
Hope.
Thousands of thoughts swirl in my head, but I push them all back, because he’ll never agree to it. Even though Liam may act crazy, he is smart, and I know he will get suspicious if I ask for the wrong gift.
As long as his logical mind can accept it, he will agree to it.
The loud screech of the seagulls makes me watch the sky and then land my gaze on the ocean again, the idea popping in my head so swiftly I almost have whiplash. “When I was a little girl, my parents used to take me to the beach at the island town near ours.” He frowns and I swallow. “Mom told me once that when the sun there shone on her stomach, I kicked for the first time, and it was a magical place to be during her pregnancy.”
Surprise and confusion flash in his face. Maybe he wanted me to ask for Eudard and that’s why he offered a gift?
Well, fuck you, Liam. You are not the only smart person here.
“I always dreamed about visiting it if I were to ever become pregnant.” I sniff for good measure, rubbing my stomach. “To feel closer to my mom.” There is a harsh edge in my tone that I can’t hide no matter how much I try.
