I never thought there was anything wrong with Baby S to begin with. He was alive and healthy. Excellent.
I was barely over two months, according to some weird wheel thing the doctor spun around. She asked me a shit load of questions about being sick, tired, cravings.
Aside from sleeping more, I felt the same as I always had. Blood samples were taken, she gave me pills that looked way too big to swallow, and then we left her to set up whatever she’d need to stay around until D-day.
“Sucks about your, um, person,” I said twenty minutes later as we entered the open living area.
Not responding right away, he walked to the fridge and retrieved two bottles of water, handing one over when he joined me on the couch.
“I’m not surprised she did it, but I wish I were.”
Shit. This was not my department of expertise. I awkwardly reached out and patted his back.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He stopped staring at the Sigil on the wall and glanced at me.
“I was trying to be comforting, asshole.” I snatched my hand away, placing it on my lap.
“You comfort me with your pussy or your mouth, occasionally your wisdom.”
What a dick. I bit my cheek so I wouldn’t smile.
“Arlen confronted Dhal last night, and now she’s missing,” he tossed out lazily, as if he were telling me the sky was blue.
“Missing as in, you need to find her within forty-eight hours, or missing as in, she got super pissed and left?”
“She couldn’t leave if she wanted to; that’s not how this works. Missing as in, we have no trace of her to begin a search. The alarm went off, and I knew it was triggered on purpose. Dhal used the distraction to get Arlen out with an acolyte. This wasn’t random, Cali.”
“So she was just waiting for Arlen to kick her ass?” I assumed that’s what he meant.
“Dhal was set to leave tomorrow, and she knew beforehand about the gathering,” he explained in a slow tone, like I should’ve known that already.
“Are you telling me this was going to happen regardless? Why would she take Arlen…oh.” I trailed off. “Goddamn it. Why do you have to fuck with crazy bitches?” I stood up and started to pace.
“Don’t blame this shit on me. I don’t give a flying fuck about Arlen. She could be getting her ass and pussy wrecked right now, I still don’t give a fuck.”
“You’re such a pigheaded dick. And if this was going to happen regardless, how do you know Cobra wasn’t the one who confronted her?”
“Cobra’s not that fucking stupid. Don’t insult his or my intelligence. I watched the cameras—I saw it happen. He came to me, and we were going to get all we could get out of her with a plan. We don’t know who she’s working with. Arlen should never have confronted her on her own.”
Oh, this asshole. He was not blaming my friend for his ex’s suicidal choices.
“Well, you always have everything figured out, so I’m sure you’ll have no issue getting together a plan to get her back, you arrogant––”
“Cali.” He lunged like a viper and grabbed the back of my neck.
“This isn’t a game, Ro––”
I squeaked, finding my upper half bent over the couch.
“I wasn’t aware I was joking.” He reached beneath my shirt dress and roughly pulled my underwear left and right until they tore from the strain. “I’m burning every single pair of these motherfuckers.”
“We can’t do this––”
“Shut the fuck up.” He kicked my legs apart and easily pushed two fingers into me. “Clearly, your pussy wants to do this. You’re fucking soaked.”
He made me delirious. I was always ready to go for him. The world could be ending and I’d still be ready.
I growled and pushed back, jumping forward with a little hiss when his hand came down on my ass. The sound of his zipper going down seemed to echo in the open room.
“You know what?” he asked, pushing inside me with one swift motion. “Why do you always have to open your smart ass mouth?” His grip tightened on the back of my neck as he flexed his hips, making sure every thrust was hard, smashing me into the leather couch. I tried to answer him but my brain seemed to have erased its knowledge of the English language and left me with nothing but the ability to moan.
“You like the way I fuck you, Cali?”
He slightly shifted, driving himself deeper, forcing me on to my tiptoes. I made a muffled sound in response, curling my fingers into the leather fabric.
“If you want to come, you’ll beg for it. Make me think you deserve it.”
“P-please,” I managed to gasp out. It was the best I could do. I don’t know how he expected me to beg when I couldn’t even talk.
My body jarred against the sofa as he showed no mercy. His balls slapped painfully against the groove of my ass.
I felt a cooling sensation trickle down my spine. I came on a soundless scream, turning rigid in his hands. His cock jerked twice. He let out an almost inaudible groan and found his own release.
He rested his forehead on my shoulder, replacing it with a feather light kiss before he pulled away.
“I was trying to tell you I think I know where they might be.”
I slouched onto the couch, trying to catch my breath. Why didn’t he just lead with that?
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
I’d been revisiting my past a fuck of a lot the last week, and can’t say I enjoyed it.
I stared at the rundown house with the patched roof and recalled the cold nights when rain declared open season on all our shit, and days when I’d come back to find racoons with their faces in our bare supply of food.
“I can’t believe we lived here,” Grimm mused, stepping up beside me.
“Thank fuck we don’t now,” I agreed.
We’d been teens then.
It was a year before I killed the old leader and took his place as the head of what was now the Savages.
It was pitch black outside, but two of the lights and a television were on inside, showing me all I needed to see.
Dhal sat right at the fucking table, laughing with someone I couldn’t see clearly; two more men were on the couch. In a back bedroom, a couple was fucking right in front of an open window.
None of them signified where they’d come from, but each single one of these dead fucks was in a building that belonged to me.
Tallying up how many motherfuckers I was about to kill, I walked back to the hatch of my jeep.
It was just a small group of us: Cobra, Grimm, me, and Luther. Like the good old days. I could have sent the army, but I was the motherfucking army.
I’d assumed Dhal had gotten over whatever weird bullshit dilemma she’d gotten herself into a few months back. Obviously, I’d assumed wrong.
Now here I was, playing the fucking rescue role again. I genuinely didn’t give a shit about Arlen, but I did give a shit about my girl and Grimm, who had a soft spot for the loud mouthed fugitive.
And then there was the principle that the bitch had been taken right out from underneath me, which, in my eyes, was stealing. And in my world, when you stole from me, that was delivering your own death warrant.
For once, I didn’t want to do this shit nice and slow. I wanted it hard and fast. My gorgeous girl was at home trying to bake cookies with Bryce on guard duty. She’d probably burn the fucking house down.
I handed Grimm a buckshot shotgun and took one for myself.
Shutting the hatch, I made my way back to Luther, who took the gun in with little surprise.
“It’s showtime.” I jerked my chin towards the back of the house where Cobra was slinking up.
He carried a freshly severed ram head in his hands. He crouched right under the open window of the couple still going at it and gave us all thumbs up.
“Fucking goof,” Grimm chuckled, heading for the back door with Luther as I went for the front.
I made it to the house without any issues. Peering around the porch, I jerked my chi
n to give Cobra the okay.
The ram head sailed through the window, no doubt smacking right into the chick’s chest or landing on the man she’d been riding.
Cobra was gone before she even started screaming, coming up on my ass as I kicked the front door open.
Luther and Grimm kicked open the back.
I side-stepped the naked bitch trying to run out the front. Cobra raised his leg and kicked her straight in the stomach, sending her careening backward.
He took hold of her hair and dragged her to the couch, tossing her naked ass right on the two men already sitting on it.
“Stay the fuck down.” I aimed at Dhal and the man she was sitting with.
Grimm shoved the missing link to our couple forward by the hair. The man was stark naked, covering his dick with one hand, and trembling so hard you might think he was seizing.
“Where the fuck is she, Dhal?” I made my way towards her, wasting no time with casualties.
I wasn’t in the mood for the rambling shit; I wanted answers. I circled around her buddy sitting beside her, held the base of my gun to his head, and pulled the trigger.
“I was only trying to help you, Rome. You wanted David gone for so long. I––” She screamed, cowering and getting hit with blood and chunks of brain matter.
He fell to the floor with a decent sized portion of his head missing. She’d crack before they were all dead. Dhal could never handle this shit.
The people on the couch huddled together, as if that would do anything to protect them.
“He’s pissing.” Grimm nodded, raising his gun and firing a round at the naked man who, sure enough, was pissing himself.
His face made a perfect O as he dropped in place, a red hole forming in his stomach.
The bitch on the couch flinched and covered herself but didn’t seem all that upset, in my opinion.
“Romero p-p-please, let me exp––”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I pressed the barrel of my gun into the side of Dhal’s head. If she thought she still meant something to me, she had life all the way fucked up. I didn’t let someone fuck me over and then sit back to see if they were dumb enough to do it again.
I sniffed the air and smelled something cooking. Glancing into the kitchen, I saw a large red pot on a burner.
“Grimm.” I nodded towards the pan.
Cobra grabbed the naked girl off the couch and walked her over to the table to sit down.
“She’s next,” Cobra sang, cupping the woman’s tits and squeezing until she whimpered. Luther approached and nudged her legs apart, placing the barrel of his own gun right against her pussy.
“Dinner!” Grimm walked in and sat the pan of boiling eggs in the center of the table. Steam wafted off it and the water still bubbled.
“You’re going to tell me where Arlen is and who the fuck you’re helping.”
“I just want––”
“You know, I don’t like repeating myself. I asked you the same question twice now. I don’t give a shit why you did it. You made a choice, and now you’re going to pay the motherfucking consequences.”
I handed my gun off to Grimm.
“Are you hungry, Dhal? Is that it? It must be impairing your hearing.” Lifting her up by the back of the head, I fisted her bloody hair and slammed her face first into the pot of egg water.
She screamed, flailing her arms and kicking out with her feet. Her face was tinged bright red when I finally pulled her up. She coughed and sputtered, grabbing at her cheeks.
“Do you need a little more?”
“No, no!” she cried.
“Good, we can move on then.”
Only a soft sob came from her throat as Grimm made quick work of both men on the couch, swiftly coming up behind them and slitting their throats.
“He doesn’t want the B-Badlands, he just wants it to be over. You were pitted against one another on purpose. I told him you had initiated Cali, and he said it was the perfect reason to start a war. He knew you’d win, Romero. You always win.” She was crying so loud it was hard to understand what she was saying.
“He doesn’t care about Arlen, he just needed her as a token of good faith that you wouldn’t come after him. It was her or Cali. I left you Cali! He’s terrified of you, Romero. And the army. He just wants out to start over somewhere else.”
We all shared a look. David wanted out?
“I don’t fucking know what you’re trying to say, and my patience is gone.” I rolled my neck. “Get rid of that bitch, too.”
Luther lazily lifted a shoulder. “I’m gonna keep this one. Her skin’s perfect.” He smoothed a hand down her stomach before standing up and wrapping it around her throat.
Cobra kept her hands at her side so she couldn’t move. Her mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. “Just take a nap, doll,” Luther soothed.
“Noo!” Dhal wailed and attempted to lunge at me.
I still had hold of her fucking hair so I wasn’t sure what she thought she was doing. I slammed her face down onto the table. “The cellar!” she screamed out suddenly, “Check the cellar.”
I wasn’t sure how the fuck she’d got into it, considering it had been closed off for years.
“Go,” I said to Grimm.
He and Luther quickly took off out the front door.
Cobra lifted the now unconscious blonde up and dropped her on the floor so he could have her seat.
“Don’t kill me,” Dhal pleaded.
“I’m not going to kill you, Dhal. Cali is.”
Grimm appeared in the doorway with a look I couldn’t read on his face. “You need to see what’s down there.”
“Let’s go.” I stood Dhal up and made her walk in front of me.
We went to the side of the house where the cellar doors were pulled open. A dank smell floated up from below.
Forcing Dhal down the old concrete stairs, I ducked my head and let my eyes adjust to the shitty lighting. The ceiling slightly lifted up ahead, but I didn’t need to stand straight to see the bodies stacked and piled on top of one another.
“Shit,” Cobra breathed from behind me.
I took in the outliers, acolytes, and delegates. Hanging on the wall and partially draping over the corpses was my flag, the Sigil of Baphomet.
“What the fuck is this?”
“I think the better question is what the fuck is he doing here?” Grimm pulled open a door I’d overlooked to reveal a man tied up, gagged, and passed out.
Fucking David.
“You said he wanted out. What the fuck is going on?” I spun Dhal around to face me, grabbing her up by the throat.
“Your brother wants out. Your brother did it,” she wheezed.
My brother?
Fuck. “Noah?”
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
This wasn’t how I saw this going, but nothing in life was ever guaranteed.
He came back two nights ago and handed me a box. Inside was memorabilia that put mine to shame.
Noah was obsessed with his big brother. So obsessed, he rose his way up the ranks and helped disband The Order from the inside.
He planted his own seeds and then sowed them when he got what he wanted—a reaction from Romero.
He knew he could never take The Order out by himself, so what better way than to get the army and us to do it for him?
He was our third player.
David never would have suspected him. He was his golden child.
We never suspected him.
I couldn’t even wrap my goddamn head around it.
“Are you ready?” Romero asked, slowly opening the door.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He reached down and took my hand, leading me inside the devil’s playground once again.
I’d pictured this moment countless times.
The anger I’d expected to feel was simmering on low. I hated him, I loathed him with my entire being, and there was no doubt in my mind he would suffer as he died.
/> He deserved that much.
No, he wasn’t my real father, but that was the role he’d been meant to play, and he let me down every day in every way he could.
He hurt the man I loved, his own flesh and blood, because his pride had to come first.
In the end, he did this to himself.
He should have killed me when he had the chance. Instead, he let me go. I recovered and grew stronger. Now, he was fucked. I promised him this day would come.
I thought I’d do it brutal and fast, but like I said, nothing was set in stone. My demons wanted to revel in his sorrow.
Looking into his terrified grey eyes and seeing his tattered robe, I couldn’t believe I’d ever been afraid of him.
“You ready?” Romero asked from across the room.
“Let’s do it.” I stood up and moved to the large Leviathan cross.
Cobra and Grimm helped Romero lift David up and carry him to the metal work table. Luther and Bryce entered the room, jogging over to help. His body was extended to fit the cross. Two people on each side held him in place as we got to work.
Romero placed the first steel stake mid-center of his wrists, right over the median nerve. “Make him bleed, baby.” He gave a devilish smile to egg me on.
Tightening my grip on the metal mallet I’d picked up, I swung it down onto the stake. blood gushed all over the cross bar and onto the floor.
The bone crumbled with swing number two. David screamed until his voice gave out, and his face turned beet red.
“Let’s hear him,” Grimm said, plucking the gag from David’s mouth so his screams filled the room.
We did his other wrists just the same, paralyzing both his hands.
Rome took over the ankles, holding the stake and swinging the mallet on his own, crushing the bone just the same as we did with his wrists. David passed out before the first foot was finished. He was drenched in sweat, breathing heavily.
Grimm, Luther, Cobra, and Bryce lifted the cross up. The thick wood groaned from the weight of David’s body but held steady. Without any saying a word, they carried him away.
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