The Destruction of Sevyn (The Vengeance of Luther Book 1)

by Ember Michaels

  “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” I bellowed.

  “Yes!” she croaked and covered her face with her arm as she sobbed.

  “I think you might need to secure her. I don’t need her moving during the process,” Richard said. I nodded and walked over to my closet to retrieve a set of chain restraints and a pair of hand cuffs. I roughly grabbed Sevyn’s wrists and slapped the cuffs on them before looping a chain around them and attaching them to the bars of my headboard.

  “How far do you need her opened?” I asked. Richard walked to the other side of the bed and grabbed Sevyn’s right leg. I mirrored his action on her left side, watching as he leaned over to look between her legs.

  “Just a tad bit more,” he said, still looking at her pussy as Sevyn screamed in agony. We pulled her legs apart a tiny bit more before he finally nodded. “That’s good.”

  I secured the metal cuff around her ankle and attached the chain to the bed, making sure the chain didn’t have any slack so that she couldn’t move. Richard repeated the same thing on the other side, giving it a jerk for good measure.

  “I think we’re good now,” he said and took his position at the head of the bed. Sevyn’s screams filled the room as Richard cleaned her. He continued working completely unaffected, his brow furrowed as he concentrated on the task at hand. The moment he began stitching her up, I watched her. Her mouth was open and the veins in her neck and across her forehead bulged, but no sound came out. Tears poured from her eyes, the pain rendering her silent. Richard looked up at her from time to time, probably to make sure she hadn’t passed out. He finally finished stitching up everything that needed stitching before putting an antibiotic cream on it.

  “You’ll want to keep an eye on that,” Richard said as he stood and took his gloves off and tossed them in the small trash can near the bed. “Since you’ve done this two days in a row, she could’ve already been exposed to bacteria that could still cause infection.”

  “Will do,” I said with a nod. “Thanks for coming all the way out here.”

  He waved me off. “No problem. Ryan’s my god son and anything you guys need that I’m able to help with, I’ll be here.” He looked at Sevyn, who still didn’t make a sound despite the fact that she cried so hard that her body shook. “Hmm.”

  I watched him as he walked over to stand next to the bed, feeling along the sides of her neck. “Looks like she’s been doing a good bit of screaming. Her vocal cords are swollen pretty badly.”

  “So, what does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means she won’t be screaming anytime soon,” he said and stepped away from her. “Or making any kind of sound at all.”

  I ground my teeth in frustration. How the fuck could I punish her and relish in her suffering if she couldn’t even scream? This would do nothing but force me to pace myself. There was no satisfaction to be had if I tortured a silent, limp doll.

  “Is there something that can be done for the swelling? Ice or something?” I asked. Richard shook his head as he packed his bag up.

  “Not quite. She’d have to rest her voice for a little while.”

  “What’s a little while?” I asked with a frown.

  “Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. But in this environment, I doubt it’ll be hard for her to do unless you leave her alone for a while,” he said with a shrug.

  I shook my head. Leaving her alone wasn’t an option. I still had more of her friends to kill and more ways to cause her pain. But if she was going to be silent through it all, what was the fucking point of it?

  “If that’s all, I’ll be on my way. I’m going to chat with Ryan for a bit before I mosey on along,” Richard stated, breaking into my musings.

  I ground my teeth and nodded. “Yeah, that’s all for now. Thanks again,” I said, shaking his outstretched hand and clapping him on the shoulder. He took one last look at Sevyn before he left the room, leaving me alone with her.

  “Still sure I can’t hurt you more?” I murmured? She only sobbed in response, her entire body shaking as she refused to look at me. My jaw ticked in annoyance. I’d have no fucking choice but to wait for her to get her voice back. I couldn’t get the secret out of her if she couldn’t fucking talk. I made another mental note, adding Sevyn’s voice issue to the list of things I needed to talk about with my guys.

  “Luther, are you nearly ready?” Jake called out from the living room.

  “Yeah, give me a second!” I called back. I released Sevyn from her restraints, a light squeak coming from her as she sobbed all over again. She collapsed into me when I pulled her off the bed, her legs weak. I lifted her over my shoulder again and walked out into the living room, putting her in the chair with the rest of the girls and locking her wrists and ankles in place.

  “What’s the deal with her?” Victor asked as he observed Sevyn.

  “I need a meeting. Now,” I ground out. They all followed me into the dining room, all eyes on me as they waited for me to speak. Ryan and Richard, who were already talking over a glass of whiskey stopped their conversation and looked to me.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked with a raised brow.

  “Her voice is gone,” I ground out.

  “Who, Rebecca’s?” he asked.

  “Sevyn’s,” Curtis said.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to get the information I need from her when it’s her turn to die if she can’t even fucking speak?” I asked as frustration mounted within me.

  “The quickest way you can get her voice to heal is letting it rest for a little while. You might have to drug her in the meantime or something.”

  “Or at the very least, probably manage her pain so that she doesn’t have anything to scream about,” Tony said with a shrug. My frustration grew as they threw out more and more ideas that involved me leaving her alone or keeping her longer than I’d intended to in the first place.

  “Fucking hell, man,” I ground out, running my hands through my hair.

  “If anything, you can use the time to do a bait and switch like you usually do when you’re fishing for info,” Paul said. A bait and switch was the last fucking thing I wanted to do with her. She was the last person I wanted to pretend to be nice to. Just the thought of having to show her compassion and appearing apologetic made me want to throw up on the dining table.

  “That may be your best bet. If anything, you’d get the information willingly and then you can kill her afterwards anyway,” Ryan said.

  I scoffed. “Do you know how long it’ll take for her to even trust me enough to tell me what it is that I want? Especially after everything I’ve done to her?”

  “I doubt it would take long. You two have some kind of fucked up history. Tap into that. At the end of the day, it’s your choice, but it’s not the worst that could happen.”

  “I wanted to stay on schedule,” I tried to argue, but it wasn’t as if it mattered. I’d stayed off of everyone’s radar for years. I changed my appearance with all the tattoos and growing my beard, started my business under a fake name and made sure to work with people I didn’t know at all. It wasn’t like the police had any idea who to contact or people to question about me other than my parents; it was part of the reason these fucks thought I was dead all these years.

  “Gotta have patience, man. Remember Murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. You’ll planned everything down to the single minute, but you have to account for any hiccups along the way,” Tony said as he leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest.

  I sighed inwardly. “Whatever. Also, my mother wants to come here,” I said, changing gears from the frustrating topic.

  “The fuck? For what?” Jake asked.

  “She wants to ask Sevyn herself why she did what she did. I offered to video call her or have her talk to Sevyn on the phone, but she doesn’t want that.”

  “I don’t know, man. Don’t you think it’s a bit risky to bring your mom out here? If the police start poking around, she’s the first person they’d run t
o,” Paul said with a shake of his head.

  “How’d she know what you were doing to begin with? Are you crazy?” Ryan snapped.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you fucks think I was doing all of this solely for myself?” I asked. “She knew of my plan before I even told any of you.”

  My jaw ticked with fresh anger when I thought back to that night. I’d gone to my mother’s to check on her one weekend. She hadn’t been answering the phone or returning my calls, which put me on edge. Logan’s suicide was still fresh on all of our minds, so I expected the worst when I walked into our dark family home. She was on the couch in the living room, surrounded by pictures of my sister as she sobbed. The sound echoed in the dark house, digging a hollow hole in my chest. It broke my heart to hear the pain and grief in her voice as she cried all alone, hugging a picture frame to her chest. It devastated me that there was nothing that I could do to take that pain away.

  “Mom?” I called out, standing in the entryway leading to the living room. She looked up at me and trying to contain her hiccups. Moonlight filtered in from the windows, highlight the tear streaks on her soft cheeks. Her hair was wild on her head, a stark contrast from her usual neat appearance. She wore her pajamas and smelled as if she hadn’t seen a shower in a few days.

  “Luther, honey,” she finally said, wiping her tears away. “You’re supposed to be at school. I wasn’t expecting you to be home until your next break. Is something wrong?”

  “I was worried when you weren’t answering the phone,” I admitted as I slowly crossed the living room. She moved some pictures of Logan to the other side of her to free space on the couch, patting the empty space.

  “Come sit,” she said and sniffled.

  I closed the distance between us and sat next to her, wrapping my arms around her. “I miss her, too, Mom,” I murmured.

  “I can’t believe they got away with killing my little girl,” she sobbed, clutching the sleeve of my shirt tight in her hand.

  “What can I do to make it better, Mom?” I asked. She slightly pulled away and met my gaze. A flurry of emotions harbored in her grief-stricken eyes, as if she was fighting with herself about what she was about to say.

  “I want them all to pay,” she whispered, her voice wavering. “They can’t get away with this.”

  “I will make them all pay, every single last one of them,” I promised, a dark edge to my voice.

  She stared at me for a long moment and shook her head when my intentions registered in her mind. “Honey…I don’t want you getting yourself in trouble. I can’t lose you, too. Losing Logan has completely shattered me. I would die if I lost you, too.”

  I kissed her forehead and hugged her again. “I won’t do anything right now. Reacting out of fresh anger would set me up for mistakes of getting caught.” I was quiet for a long moment. “I think it’s time to remind people why they called me a lunatic.”

  Back in my youth, I was hell on legs. There was a darkness that was in me that even my parents had a hard time containing. Harming animals, other kids, rebelling against my parents and authorities. Many treatment centers and therapy sessions later, I’d been able to keep that part of me hidden in the dark. But when Logan died, that part of me pounded on the door of my mind, begging to be let out to unleash the hell that people thought they were safe from. “Normal” was what my parents wanted me to be. “Normal” kids didn’t hurt animals. “Normal” kids didn’t hurt their friends or other random kids. “Normal” kids didn’t try to hurt their parents. But I was never meant to be normal, even more so after meeting my friends in college to learn that I wasn’t alone. If my mother wanted the heads of all these fucks on a platter, I’d deliver them to her.

  “I couldn’t tell you to do that, Luther. Murder is a very high crime,” she said, flipping back into her motherly role.

  “That’s the only way they’ll pay, Mom. Their money bailed them out of what they deserved, so I think everyone involved should pay. And I want to show that crooked justice system the consequences of letting people pay their way out of trouble.”

  “I don’t know…” she trailed, wiping her eyes.

  “You say the word and it’ll be done,” I said, my voice low. “Logan deserves justice.”

  Her face contorted as if she was about to start crying again as she nodded. “She does deserve it.” She met my eyes with her watery gaze and nodded again. “I want them to pay. All of them.”

  “And it’ll be done,” I murmured and hugged her tighter. I’d take my time and plan their demises, research everything I needed to know about disposing of bodies and evidence, and enlist the help of my most trusted guys.

  I would get justice for my family, even if it ended in bloodshed.

  “Hey, Armstrong, let us know when you’re done walking on the moon and ready to come back to our conversation,” Victor said, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

  I cleared my throat and pushed past memories to the back of my mind. “Either way, I wanted to ask you all. If you don’t want me to bring my mother here, then I’ll take Sevyn elsewhere so that my mother can still get what she wants,” I finally said.

  “If you boys are worried about her outing you, I doubt she’d do that,” Richard added. “Besides, with Luther being her only living child, she’s going to protect him with her life. Having a child lose their freedom can feel like a death also.”

  “Exactly,” I said and looked back to the guys. “So? Yes or no? I need to know ASAP so that I can start planning where I need to take Sevyn.”

  They all exchanged looks for a few moments before Ryan shrugged. “Whatever. I just hope you know what you’re doing, man.”

  “Don’t I always?” I asked with a smirk.

  “This talk is nice and all, but can we get on with killing that bitch? I’m kind of curious as to what Luther has planned for the vacuum bed,” Jake stated.

  “Yeah, let’s get this show on the road. I want to get this done so we can still catch the news to see if Jamie’s body has been found yet. One of the joggers that go along the trail will have found her soon,” I said.

  “Welp, I guess that’s my cue to hit the road,” Richard said as he stood from his seat, throwing back the rest of the whiskey in his glass. “It was good seeing you guys again.”

  “Thanks for coming,” we all told him as Ryan followed him to the door to let him out. We all headed back into the living room with the girls, Sevyn still crying while the others tried to ask her what was going on with her. Their conversations ceased when we entered the room.

  “What did you do to Sevyn? And where the fuck is Rebecca?” Crystal snapped when her gaze landed on me.

  “None of your fucking business. Unless you want the same thing to happen to you, I’d advise you to sit there and shut the fuck up,” I threw back.

  “Ready for me to bring her up?” Paul asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready for her. Vic and Jake, could you help him with that?”

  They both disappeared with Paul while Curtis dropped the vacuum bed and tubing in front of me as Tony struggled with carrying in an unopened Culligan jug, forcing it onto the table I pointed at with a grunt.

  “Shit, I need to lift more weights. That was way too heavy,” he panted.

  “Pathetic,” Curtis joked before turning his attention to me. “Anything else?”

  “That’s it as far as what I need. Now I just need Rebecca,” I mused.

  After a few moments, the guys came back with Rebecca, who cried out anytime anyone touched her. The girls looked at her with wide eyes when the guys practically dumped her on the floor. The cuts on her back had started to scab over in some spots where the cuts weren’t too deep, and some others were still red and fresh. She screamed when the guys pulled the plastic that’d stuck to her skin from the blood drying, and I couldn’t help but to grin.

  “So, since Sevyn can’t speak today, it looks like I’m choosing who dies,” I announced but then chuckled. “Who am I kidding? I was going to cho
ose who died whether Sevyn could talk or not. And I choose Rebecca today.”

  “No,” Rebecca said, her voice weak.

  I ignored her and continued talking to the others. “I’m sure you all are wondering what happened to your good ol’ friend Rebecca,” I started.

  “I’m not. I hope she got what she deserved,” Sarah muttered under her breath.

  “Are you fucking serious, Sarah?” Allison exclaimed. “I get that you’re upset to find out she was the one your ex cheated on you with, but look at the condition she’s in, for fuck’s sake!”

  “She’s no fucking friend of mine to care!” Sarah screamed back at her. “I don’t care what happens to her. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.”

  “Wow, such strong words from women that claimed to be ‘besties,’” I taunted.

  “You’re just making things worst, asshole. You’re practically tearing us apart with your bullshit,” Crystal argued.

  “I’m tearing you apart? That’s rich. You sluts weren’t really friends in the first place; you were just tolerating and using each other. Real friends wouldn’t crack under any circumstances, right? I know my guys and I wouldn’t,” I countered, folding my arms across my chest.

  “That’s because you’re all a bunch of psychotic fucks!” Crystal screamed. “I bet you all fuck each other when you lock us away, you sick fucks.”

  “Sorry to burst your weird fantasy bubble, but we definitely don’t fuck each other. All of them did, however, fuck the shit out of your friend here on a livestream,” I said with a smirk.

  Sarah scoffed. “Great. Glad the whole world will get to see how much of a slut she is,” she ground out.

  “Oh, fuck you, Sarah,” Rebecca groaned from the floor.

  “And fuck you!” Sarah threw back. “I can’t fucking wait until you’re dead!”

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to say that. When she dies, it only winds your time down quicker,” I reminded her, grinning when her face paled at my words. She settled back into her chair and clenched her teeth, her eyes blazing with fury. Sevyn wouldn’t even look at Rebecca, her head bowed to where most of her hair hid her face. It didn’t matter to me whether she watched or not; I didn’t need to give her anymore reason to yell at the current moment, so I forced myself to keep her off my radar for now.