by J Bree
"You know all about your cartel connections going missing, don't you Father? You know about the horrific deaths being done to them all."
I bend down to the bag at my feet. My parents both glance down, wary now they notice the bag. I unzip it and pull out the two jars, setting them on the ground by my feet. My mother frowns but my father... he knows exactly what they're for.
"You've found yourself a killer to fuck, Odette? You wanted to avenge your wrongs so badly that you would have this man?"
Illi steps forward, kisses my hand and directs me to move back to my seat. All of it with soft touches and loving eyes. Even when he's about to get to work avenging me, righting the wrongs of my past, he still cannot help but treat me with love and respect.
I would kill and die for this man.
My parents’ worthless opinions are nothing to us.
Illi unsheathes one of his cleavers and murmurs to me in English, "Close your eyes, baby girl, I'll get this done for you."
I shake my head. "No. It's one of the last pieces of my past. I need to see it."
My mother starts to sob but Illi ignores it entirely, killing my father quickly and without faltering. He carves open his chest and pulls his heart out easily, even as my mother's sobs turn into retching. I watch it all and feel nothing but satisfaction.
Every second of my miserable childhood had been working up to this point. Every bruised and sore second.
He cuts out his heart, the muscles still jerking and twitching as he carries it over to me and slides it into the jar. He knows enough people that we'll get it home to my collection safely.
"Do you want me to kill her too, baby girl? Have you decided yet if she needs to go as well?"
I look over at my mother, her body shuddering and twitching the same way my father's heart had. Her eyes are glassy and round, the shock of what has happened finally settling in.
She really did love my father that much.
"Mon Monstre, I thought I loved you more than I could love anything else in this world but... I would never be able to love you at the cost of our child. I hope you know that and can accept it.“
He grins up at me, careful not to touch me with his bloody hands. "That's why you're perfect for me, baby girl. I would bleed out the entire fucking Bay to make sure you and our kids were safe. We’re never making those sorts of choices, not fucking ever.”
I smile and take one of his guns out of the bag. He watches me but doesn’t move to stop me, his trust in me and this moment unshakable.
I walk over to the miserable woman keening on the floor, her wailing pathetic to me. I’m careful not to get blood on myself as I lean down to her, placing the gun in her hands and keeping my own over them. I hear mon Monstre shift behind us but I keep my eyes on my mother.
I know I’m in control here.
“You told me that someday I would understand why you loved him so much. I’m sorry Mother, I do not. For everything he did to me, he had to die but I’m not without mercy. If you cannot live without him as you said, I will help you end this. I will help you join him in eternal rest, Mother.”
She sobs, her beauty now faded and all that is left is the miserable woman who loved an unworthy man.
My heart pounds the entire time, but I help my mother end her own life.
I leave her heart in her chest.
It was never really beating to begin with.
I’m tired after my father’s destruction and my mother’s suicide. I want to go back to the hotel to sleep away the rest of the day but we already have a reservation and if I can hold myself together long enough to finish this then our honeymoon can finally start.
So I pull myself up, fix my makeup, and leave my father’s townhouse behind.
Before we’ve even left the entire building is on fire, the cash slipped into the other man’s hand as we left enough to have the evidence of our trip here destroyed.
We arrive at the restaurant before our guests, the server taking us back into a private room. I wait as once again, money exchanges hands.
When I give mon Monstre a look he smirks at me. “I’ve been planning this for a long time, baby girl.”
I order a glass of wine and mon Monstre orders a whiskey, promising me he’ll chew some gum when he’s finished the glass. The smell doesn’t bother me so much anymore, the memories and the fear are dead and gone with Alcatron himself.
We don’t have to wait long before the last two names on the French list arrive, Louis and Martin. They look uncomfortable to be here, especially together, but Martin smiles at me like I’m his long lost goddaughter, a precious girl in his life. As though he didn’t vote in that tiny house to send me away to clear a cartel debt.
Louis stares at me like I’m his next meal.
He sits and smiles at me, ignoring Illi altogether. It's clear he thinks that he is a bodyguard, some man paid by my true husband to keep me alive, and that he’s planning on fucking me now I’m back. It sets my teeth on edge.
He leans forward as if he's going to take my hand.
Illi impales his wrist with his steak knife, the serrated edge slicing through his flesh like butter.
He doesn't scream.
No, Louis has been too well trained in the subtle arts of torture and respectability.
Martin raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment, ordering a drink for himself and laying out a cloth napkin over his lap like the violence isn’t happening.
Louis speaks through his teeth in perfect English, ”How much is her husband paying you? I'll double it to keep quiet."
I cock my head at him and answer in French, just to throw him off because why shouldn’t I play with him a little? "You will pay it? You didn't even attempt to save me from my husband the first time."
He shrugs and attempts to pull the knife out with a grunt, failing and wincing at the jarring of the wound. None of the servers flinch as they deliver drinks, bread, and menus, something else Louis and Martin should be picking up on and yet they don’t. "Your father needed to learn his lesson. I thought losing you would help him with that. Now he's lost his entire business I think he's figured out what he needed to."
"He's dead." I say, smothering a slice in butter before taking a delicate bite.
Martin curses and sits back in his seat, eyeing Illi off. He’s starting to figure it out. I see mon Monstre shift slightly with the corner of my eye and I know there’s a weapon of some kind in his hand now, just in case.
Louis sits back in his chair. "How? I saw him this morning."
I turn and smile at mon Monstre. I adore him for giving me this moment. "My husband killed him for me. I have his heart in a glass jar if you would like to see it? I think it will be my favorite one, my most prized possession.“
Louis stares at me, the horror etched into every inch of his face. He swallows and then says, "This man... he is your husband? What happened to Mecedo?"
I reach for my wine glass, sipping it slowly and savoring the taste on my tongue. "He found out you had touched me. He did not want a used wife so he sold me on to a different man. It was then I met Johnny and we fell in love."
The name slips out of my lips but it feels right to me to use it. Mon Monstre then slowly pulls the knife out of Louis's wrist, the blood spurting out before he has the chance to stem it. It won't kill him, not any time soon, but I'm sure the wound is painful.
He also will struggle to go for his gun with any sort of accuracy. "And this man, he's come here to kill your family for selling you?"
I move the plate away from myself so I can lean in a little closer to him without finding myself covered in buttered bread. "We're on our honeymoon. He's giving me the hearts of the men who hurt me as our wedding gift. I'm hoping to give him a baby in return someday. Blood for blood."
Martin stands and moves as if he’s going to flee the room but instead there’s a subdued pop sound and he falls to the ground, a bullethole in the back of his head.
Finally, Louis seems to grasp what is happening he
re. I'm not in France to find him for the hookup he had once offered as a cheap apology. I'm not still pining after the man who used me, saw me as a pretty little conquest in his bed. I'm here for his death.
I'm here for his heart in one of my jars.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Illi
After three months wining and dining my wife across Europe, I’m relieved to be back on U.S. soil and home in the Bay. Don’t get me wrong, having the time away was fucking blissful. Seeing just how relaxed my baby girl could really get as we fucked in every country we stayed in was a gift, something to look forward to once my list was over with but there’s something about the Bay that calls us both home and when we finally crawl into our bed back at the warehouse, jet-lagged and fucking exhausted, I fall asleep with a smile on my face.
I wake again eighteen hours later with a clear head and a fucking mission to finish.
The Vulture needs to fucking die.
It’s not like I can just end him. It’s not like I can just walk up to that pit of fucking despair and pain and fucking take him out, but I’m a smart man.
I can figure it the fuck out.
When night falls again I leave my wife at home with her paints after checking the security cams a dozen times, fussing with it and calling the Coyote to triple check it’s working and fully secure.
Then I make my way down to the old biker bar, sending a text to my only friends for a welcome home drink.
Neither of them answer but I’m not too worried. I’ve heard from them both all throughout the trip away, Roxas even stalking the kid a little at school to make sure for me that she’s safe.
A lotta boys at that school of hers chasing her tail.
Not sure I what I think of it but at least they’re her own age and she’s too fucking smart to get mixed up with them… I’m sure of it.
There’s a round of cheers when I walk in, a whole lot of familiar faces and drinks being lifted my way. Not sure I like it but fuck it, I order a bottle of whiskey and sit at my usual booth. I’m ready to have a quiet night of planning, maybe pick up a job or two to get me back into the swing of things.
My phone rings.
I look down at the number flashing on the screen and fuck. Surely that fucking perverted traitorous cunt wouldn’t reach out to me now?
I check on my girl before I answer, just to double-check she’s safe and alone, painting away. She’s working on something new, a whole collection she’s going to make bank on from all of our time away. I see the colors of the Northern Lights and grin down at the screen before setting it aside and answering the fucking call.
“I know you’re not dumb enough to fucking call me right now, D’Ardo.”
He laughs, that same sound when he’d piss me off for fun. It rolls off of me. My tolerance for this shit is amazing now my list is nearly fucking done with and I have a stunning wife at home waiting for me.
“Come on, don’t tell me you’re really going to hold a grudge? Does our friendship mean nothing to you?”
I take a breath and watch as Roxas makes his way through the crowd, grinning and saluting me with his glass as he walks over. “I told you, next time I see you, I’ll be killing you. Pure and simple.”
He huffs under his breath. “I needed her out of the way. Pussy always confuses shit, you can’t even see it because you’re under her pussy magic.”
My hand slips down to rest on my cleaver, the old warm metal of the handle the most comfortable thing for me. Roxas sits and notices it, raising his eyebrow at me but he shakes his head when I speak again.
“No. You needed her raped and tortured and dead. There’s a big fucking difference, D’Ardo. Big fucking difference.”
He shrugs and cocks his head at me. “She was already ruined, what did it matter?”
Fucking. Ruined.
My tolerance snaps like it was never there.
I want to cut him up into little tiny fucking pieces. I want to feed him, inch piece by inch piece, to rats and starving cats on the docks so he never finds peace. I want to burn his name out of the history books until everyone forgets the monster little Matteo D’Ardo grew up to be.
“Forget my fucking number and count your days, cunt. I only have one more name until you’re dead in the worst way. You deserve nothing more.”
He laughs again but this time it’s manic, hyper, and completely fucking deranged. It’s that laugh that tells me he’s still the same kid who gutted his own mother and played with her organs, covering himself in her lifeblood.
I should’ve known better.
“I was calling to let you know that your biker butt-buddies aren’t very good at stealthiness. I don’t want them coveting what’s mine, keep them the fuck away from the Wolf.”
There it is. There’s the fucking cunts MO. “If you touch the kid—”
He interrupts me, his voice raising and the manic shining through. “She’s mine. She always fucking has been and nothing you do is going to take her from me. If you try, I’ll fucking show you, Johnny. I’ll show you exactly what I can do to the Bay.”
Fuck. Off.
It’s his own twisted version of love I guess. Everything coming out of his mouth is something I’ve said about Odie but none of it is really love. It’s a hollow and selfish version, the type where he owns her.
Over my dead fucking body.
The laugh gets worse, so bad I’m gritting my teeth not to throw the fucking phone across the room and hunting the cunt down. “I think you’re forgetting about my side project. If you come after her, Johnny-boy, I’ll blow the entire fucking city up. I’ll take her and I’ll leave, how are you going to fucking stop me when you and that French whore are nothing but fucking ash floating in the Bay.”
He’s fucking crazy enough to do it too.
Is the kid’s escape plan enough to get her away from him? I’ve been keeping an eye on her, enough of one to know he has guys watching her. He had people in her school the second he heard the word scholarship.
He’s fucking dead but first, I need her safe.
My list is long enough that I can put off killing him, just long enough to get her safe. My life isn’t just dedicated to keeping my baby girl safe.
The kid risked everything for my girl too.
I need her out from under this nightmare of a man, a poor little psychopath who grew up to be a fake king on a blood-soaked throne.
“I’ll stay away from the kid… but only if you do too. She’s a fucking child. You need to let her grow up first, Jackal.”
The words are like acid on my tongue, the civility and the fucking pandering cutting me deep but the kid is worth it.
She’s fucking worth this little piece of my pride for everything she’s done for me and my girl, for her loyalty and her cutthroat friendship and the way that she throws herself on the line for fucking everyone that means something to her.
Even me.
I hang up the phone and throw it down on the table like it’s a fucking bomb, the one that D’Ardo just threatened me with. Roxas watches me carefully and then says, “Lemme guess, he’s using the kid as a fucking shield because he’s too pussy to just face you like a man? Didn’t see that one coming.”
I down the rest of the whiskey in my glass in one go and shoot him a look. “He’s not fucking touching her. No matter what it takes, he’s not getting the kid.”
Roxas lifts his glass but this salute doesn’t feel at all sarcastic. “Agreed. So… who are we killing next? Its been fucking boring around here without you, man.”
I look around but still no fucking Harbin. “The Vulture. He needs a little more… planning. A little more secrecy so I don’t start a fucking war.”
He chuckles, scratching at his chin. He has some stubble growing, looking more scraggly then usual. I eye him over a little closer and yeah, he’s seen better days. I peg him with a look which he brushes off.
“The Boar has some more issues going on. Harbin took his boys to Coldstone after all but he’s not goin
g to move there permanently because of the… issues. Fuck it, let’s plan out the pervert’s death. It’s the last one, right? Only the dickhead Jackal after?”
I nod and pour myself another drink. “I have something specific for him… fuck for them both.”
He scoffs at me. “You’ve had sadist shit planned for them all. Fuck, half the MC is still having nightmares from what you did to Alcatron and his boys.”
I chuckle and look back out at the old guys at the bar.
It’s a fucking good life.
It takes longer than I’d like to get into the Vulture’s lair. That’s exactly what the auction house is too, a fucking lair.
The Coyote gets me the plans for the right price. Fuck, the amount would bankrupt most small countries but I pay it gladly, knowing he can’t say a fucking word without being held equally accountable for the Vulture’s death.
I have a plan to keep myself out of the shit for his murder too, one that will hopefully keep the kid safe too but I don’t tell her about it either.
She’s jumpy as fuck about having friends, let alone starting an empire. But no matter how I puzzle this shit out, the only way I can have her back the way I need to and keep her safe, is to be inducted.
Never thought I’d be saying that but there it is.
I’m going to be a married and a kept man.
And there’s fucking nothing I regret about either of those things.
But first I need the Vulture dead and after months of planning and hunting, buying men off and studying escape routes, I’m standing outside the front of the auction house with fury running through my blood and a lit cigarette between my lips. Roxas lights up and hands it off to Harbin after a drag. The biker looks like he’s aged about twenty years since he dropped his kids off in Coldstone, as though he has the whole fucking world balanced on his shoulders, but he’s here and ready to gut every last one of the Vulture’s men with me if that’s what I need.
