by CR Robertson
How had everything gone so wrong?
Kris flicked the car lights off as we approached Silas’ residence. “Kris and I are going in first to disable the security system. I’ll give the signal when we’re clear.”
We’d worked together so long that we were an extension of one another. He didn’t have to ask for tools, because I knew what he needed. His jammer would make us invisible out there, and his little black box would override the most elaborate security system.
Twenty minutes later, their cameras were on a loop and we were inside. I pressed the button at my ear three times to alert my team that we were ready.
Five minutes later they were beside me.
Our night goggles snapped into place and Kris hit the red button on the box in his hand. All the lights went out.
“No survivors,” I reminded them.
That asshole Jordan grinned like it was Christmas morning and he was five. He seriously needed counselling.
It’s a common misconception that silencers made guns quiet. It merely muted them. I didn’t give a single fuck who stepped into my path. Every one of them suffered the same fate. A bullet to the head or a dagger to the chest.
Kris wielded his massive blade, cutting throats, piercing hearts, or stabbing the spinal column. No one ever survived one of his knife attacks.
Jordan was somewhere to my right, racking up an impressive body count. Silas kept a lot of people in this house. He obviously didn’t feel safe.
We spread out like the hand of death, reaping souls and destroying bodies. Room by room we cleared the house.
The cocking of a gun drew my attention. Silas stood in the corner of his library, holding a gun in a shaky hand. There was no way that coward would be able to fire that gun fast enough. He paid others to do his killing for him since he could only kill the innocent.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I said in a deceptively calm tone. “You really shouldn’t have put a finger on my wife.”
“Isabella was mine and Lucas stole her. Sofia was to be my compensation.”
Sick fucker was probably one of those perverts who frequented those private islands filled with sex slaves.
“On your knees,” I replied.
“No fucking way. My security team will be here any second.”
“I doubt it, as most of them were already dead by the time I found you. Ten years ago, you killed my foster parents because of a suitcase. Now you stabbed my wife. I would kill you slowly, but I have more important things to do with my time and every breath you take pollutes this planet.”
“I can give you anything you want.” Without a line of guards to protect him, he was a coward.
I took a step forward and smiled. “I have everything I want. Now I’ll have my revenge.”
There was no finesse to the way Silas left this world. In my head, I’d planned his death a thousand times. His actions had set me on this path of darkness. Now it was his time to die.
I lost count of the number of times I pulled the trigger. He was a creature of evil, and they tended not to die. So, I emptied the magazine into him and reloaded, and emptied another. If he didn’t have a head, then he wouldn’t survive.
“I think you got him.” Kris stood beside me.
I stuck my gun back in its holster and wandered over to the body, unzipping my trousers to piss on him.
“Burn this place to the ground,” I instructed. Whatever heinous acts had been committed here would be purified through fire.
Jordan came into the room and viewed Silas’s remains. “You are one sick motherfucker.”
I shrugged. “You can piss on him as well if you want.”
He stared at me as I walked away with his mouth open. Jordan didn’t have the monopoly on being a psycho.
Flames consumed the building as Kris’ bombs detonated and the fire travelled along the accelerant trail. I stood and held vigil for Matt, for Doris, and for Sofia. This man had destroyed too many lives and should have been eliminated a long time ago.
“Feel better?” Kris asked.
“Nope. I won’t feel better until we’re all back in Cuba with Sofia with us.”
“Amen to that,” he muttered, laughing when another detonation sounded from the back of the house.
I spent ten years hating that monster, only to discover he was a weak man hiding behind the strength of others. I hoped he spent eternity in the fires of hell that Father Patrick promised sinners. He deserved it. I may even visit one day just to stoke those fires a little higher to burn him.
***
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sofia
I stretched and sighed under the heat of the sun. The sound of insects and birds in the background made me smile. It was the noise of home. Maria chattered in the kitchen and Sam argued with Alvaro about some football team.
Life was good.
“What are you smiling about?” A shadow blocked out the sun and my husband stood over me, his warm eyes watching me in fascination.
“Just thinking that I’m happy.”
“Yeah?” He pulled me up to carry me inside. “If you sit outside any longer, you’re going to cook.”
A year ago, I nearly lost my life after Silas stabbed me. Nicklas had been by my side until they wheeled me into surgery and his hand was holding mine when I woke up again. I only found out afterwards he dealt with Silas in the middle part.
Our son gurgled happily in his cot in the cool of Nicklas’ office, a nanny keeping watch. He refused to let him sleep alone, with someone always watching over him. He was a tiny tyrant who had everyone wrapped around his chubby finger.
I lifted Theodore from his cot and held him tight against me, kissing his head. He was named after my grandfather on Papa’s side of the family. My husband never showed emotion in public, but our son was the only one he made an exception for. His arms slipped around both of us to hold our family together.
Catarina shouted outside in annoyance at the insects. Papa sent her here while the Council’s problems were being resolved, with the firm instruction that no more of his daughters were to be claimed by wild men in Cuba. The fashion and climate did not agree with my sister, although she spoiled her nephew rotten. She argued with the men who refused to treat her like the pampered princess she’d grown up to be.
She organised our wedding here in Cuba so all of Nicklas’ men could attend. It had been an excuse for a holiday, but it backfired when Papa left her here after learning about her shenanigans with her minder. He was currently unemployed or dead. Who knew these days?
Nicklas plucked Theodore from my arms and put him in his cot before kissing his forehead. The little rascal smiled and waved his arms at him.
He was the image of his father with dark messy hair and deep blue eyes.
“I have a surprise for you.” Nicklas smiled as he led me from the office. “Today is our anniversary.”
It was officially one year from the day we married in Edinburgh.
A huge pink car sat outside the house with a bow on the bonnet. He’d refused to let me drive after the market incident so long ago. I squealed and jumped up in his arms.
“You know I expect sex in that car?” he muttered in my ear, kissing the spot that made me squirm.
Catarina came out to see what was going on and shook her head in disgust when she saw the car. She drove a sleek Porsche back in Tuscany.
“I suppose I should give you a present,” I pouted.
“Those lips look good right now. They’d look better around my…” I cut him off with my hand covering his mouth.
“Not in earshot of Theodore.”
He rolled his eyes before grabbing me and tossing me over his shoulder. Sam grinned as Nicklas prowled past him into the house. I waved and wrapped my legs around Nicklas’ waist.
“You gonna debauch me?” I asked.
“Thinking about it.”
I was peeling my clothes off before he had our room door locked. His right eyebrow raised when I laid on my back with m
y legs opened wide. “I’m ready.”
“Horny?”
“Just a little bit.” I pinched my finger and thumb together.
He hauled his T-shirt over his head and toed his shoes off. He was hard and ready to go when he unzipped his jeans.
“Fuck, you’re perfect,” Nicklas sighed as he crawled over me and sank in deep with one thrust.
I never realised that I’d been marking time until I discovered how to live.
“I love you,” I muttered into his mouth as we kissed, his body moving over mine.
“Love you more, baby.”
Nicklas had destroyed the demons that threatened our happiness. Now I had a home, a family, and a job helping with the redevelopment of the city. My dream from so long ago had finally come true. I wanted to find a love that rivalled Mama’s and Papa’s.
What I found was so much more than that. Nicklas gave me freedom through his love, and mine gave him sanctuary. Together we created a family, and that was the greatest gift of all.
***
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Samson
The Vendetta Brotherhood 2
Copyright 2021 by C.R. Robertson.
Chapter One
Aoife
The door slammed behind me and the gnome on the window ledge rocked from side to side before he crashed to the ground, his cheery little pointed red hat broken. My eyes narrowed at it and my fingers twitched with the need to try and fix it.
“No,” I muttered to myself. Grinding my teeth together, I lifted my bag onto my shoulder. It didn’t contain much, just a few changes of clothes, my passport, laptop, and some cash. Right now, I didn’t care if I had to live in a doorway, I was through with existing in a pretend world where people thought I was happy, when in reality I died a little more every single day.
In the past, I’d tried to leave, but Sean always made me feel sorry for him, had turned every argument into my fault. This time he wouldn’t be able to do that because I wouldn’t be here when he finally woke up from his drunken stupor.
Just to piss him off, I drove his car to the local bus station and left it there without paying for parking. I handed the keys into lost property and boarded the bus for the airport. My sister Shannon lived in London, and she always said that when I came to my senses, that she’d be there waiting for me.
Nearly ten years too late, that day had finally arrived, heralded in by him once again starting an argument to cover his infidelity and emotional abuse. I didn’t care about the other women, but there was a line that you crossed in your mind, a thin red one that you walked over one day and then an insurmountable wall sprung up in its place. You no longer loved the person. I wished I could hate him, but instead there was a cold dark place inside where I used to actually feel. Numb was the best description that I had, because I just didn’t care anymore.
Several times I tried to ring Shannon from the airport but all I got was her happy voice on her answer phone. She rang me back just as I was about to board the plane.
“Hey, Aoife, what’s up?” She sounded distracted.
“I left him.” Three words that changed my life forever.
“What?”
“I’ve had enough, Shannon.” The tears that I thought didn’t exist started to pour down my face. The woman in front of me at the departure desk turned to stare at me.
“Where are you?”
“At the airport, about to get on a plane to you.”
“Shit.” Silence followed. “I’m out of the country right now. Grab a cab to my place, I’ll let Arnold know to give you the spare key.”
Arnold was her hot as hell concierge, grumpy as a leprechaun who had his pot of gold stolen, but the type of man you would give your right ovary to spend a night with.
Last departure from Belfast City to London Heathrow. Could all remaining passengers please report to departure gate three?
“Gotta go, Shannon.”
“Everything will be okay, Aoife. Sean is an asshat who doesn’t deserve you. Call me when you get to the other side. Use any of my clothes you need. Love you, baby sister.”
“I’ll speak to you soon,” I whispered, suddenly lost and alone.
The woman in front of me in the queue waved me into a seat beside her, settling me in. Everyone loved a tasty morsel of gossip and she was no different. What did it matter if I spilled my heart out to her while she sucked chocolate limes and nodded in the appropriate places? Once I started, I spent the next ninety minutes telling her my sad life’s story.
My first and only boyfriend was a useless shit who enjoyed womanising and hurting those closest to him. I walked in last night to find another woman in my bed. She was either really good at faking it, or Sean had improved overnight without my knowledge. Ten years and I hadn’t had one orgasm from that man.
That fact really stung my inner woman.
“So you left him handcuffed to your bed?” Maureen asked, her eyes wide.
“I’ll phone his brother later; the keys are in the living room.” I waited for the guilt that refused to make an appearance. Even my conscience didn’t like him anymore. It was better than what he did with me when he was angry. He knew I didn’t like enclosed spaces and had locked me in the wardrobe several times as an attitude adjustment.
She chuckled, unwrapping another chocolate lime. “It sounds like he deserved it.”
Technically, he deserved for me to have coated him in honey and emptied a jar of ants onto him. He should think himself lucky that I was in a hurry to make this flight.
“I was with my husband Dermott for forty years until he passed away, God rest his soul.” She crossed herself and took a deep breath. “When it’s the right person, you know without even wondering.”
Ten years I’d spent wondering if Sean was the right man. We’d met at school when I was plump with braces. He was the only one who paid me any attention, and I was grateful. My sister Shannon was glamorous from the day she popped out of the womb. Mum said we were like twins now, but Shannon had a confidence and charisma that attracted people wherever she went. She had a string of lovers that frequented her bed, but never anyone permanent.
The last time I visited her, a different man appeared at her door every night. I barely slept with the noise, but a part of me wondered what it would be like to have a life like that, to have a man make me scream in ecstasy.
Cabin crew prepare cabin for landing. The pilot’s voice echoed around the plane.
Maureen patted my arm. “It’s always darkest before the dawn. Now you can make yourself a new life.”
I gave her a shaky smile. I didn’t need another man to tell me how frigid I w
as or how fat and ugly. Deep down inside I already knew all those things. He always told me he had sex with those women because of me. I made him do it because I was terrible in bed and left him unfulfilled.
I was lost in my thoughts when I wandered into Shannon’s apartment block.
“Good afternoon. Shannon said you were staying at her apartment.” Arnold threw me that smile that made my panties want to ignite.
“Just for a few days, thanks.” I took the key he held out.
“If you need anything, give me a bell.” He winked and returned to his duties.
He always left me tongue tied and nervous, so I crept into the elevator and pressed the button for her floor. My sister never said exactly what she did for a living, just that she worked in stocks and shares in the city. Her apartment was luxurious from the moment you walked in through the door, everything screaming expense.
Sean visited once with me and refused to return. He was jealous of her success; I’d been grateful for somewhere to come and hide every six months. Now that I was safe, everything became too much. I curled myself into a ball on her sofa and sobbed.
Ten years I had said nothing as Sean used me as an emotional punchbag. His words were more excruciating that physical pain. If he hurt me, he always ensured there were no bruises. Pulling my hair was one of his favourites as he dragged me through the house screaming at me. Far from my home of Northern Ireland, I finally admitted to myself the hell that I’d lived in.
He told me that no one would ever believe me, and he was right. I tried to tell my other sister Bronagh a few years ago and she laughed in my face. That was the problem with Sean, everyone loved him. They told me how lucky I was to have someone like that.
The sun finally began to set outside, and my stomach protested since the last food I’d had was at the airport. Sean didn’t let me eat fast food since he said your body was a temple. Right now, mine was one of those decrepit ones that you saw on an Indiana Jones film.
