Cardinal House (The Blackwell Brothers Book 4)

20. Wolf

Carlo Costa is a simple man, with a normal wife, a well paid job consisting of ferrying important men to and from discretely chosen venues. Which is probably why he doesn’t expect someone like me, an unholy monster, to be in his back seat on a normal weekday evening.

I cut off his scream with a simple slap of my hand across his mouth, oh, and my other arm barred across his throat, but it stops him from making a fuss, something I’m not particularly in the mood for.

“Settle down,” I grunt into his ear, applying pressure to his windpipe with my tensed forearm. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions, and I’ll let you get on your way home to your wife, Suzie.” He whimpers, his nostrils flaring wide as he sucks in panicked breaths, both of us watching each other in the rearview mirror, his eyes wide, mine almost drowsy looking, I’ve been sitting in this car quite a long time. “I’ll let you go now, but only if you promise not to scream.” He mumbles beneath my hand, attempting to nod his head, I think, but I squeeze his throat just a little harder once more before I release him completely.

And just as I predicted, he grasps the handle of the door, thrusting it open before it comes ricocheting back towards him, bouncing off of my younger brother.

“Jesus, fuck, you shithead,” Hunter snarls, booting the door closed in temper on the guy’s foot that he threw out of the gap in his haste to escape.

“Ahh!” Carlo cries out, snatching his foot back inside the car and gripping onto it tightly.

Me, I just lean back in the centre back seat, stretch my arms across the length of it and wait. Once he’s finished snivelling, which to be fair to the guy isn’t overly long, he sniffs hard, his breath catching, and then his eyes come back to mine in the rearview mirror.

“What do you want?” his voice trembles, and I smile at him, this manic sort of psychotic, snarling, grin.

“You drive for Vittorio Gambino,” I state factually, cocking my head. “More specifically, you drive around one of his solicitors.”

“Look, Vito would kill me if I told you anything, and I don’t know anything! I don’t ever get the drop off addresses for meetings until the hour of!” He panics, sweat running down his temples, his dark hair sticking up in all sorts of directions as he shoves his clammy hands through it.

“Mm, well, you see, Mr Costa, it must just be your lucky day, sir, because all I want is the address for the solicitor with the surname Beaumont.”

“I- I see,” he stutters, one of his hands moving towards his suit jacket.

I cluck my tongue sharply before reaching forward and slamming his face into the dashboard, “Hands where I can see ‘em, shit for brains.”

“Ahh!” he cries out again, “I was just going to retrieve a handkerchief!”

“Don’t care, you’re lucky I didn’t fucking shoot you.” Carlo quivers, still staring at me in the reflection of the mirror as he cups his bloody nose. “Both hands on the dash, Costa.” His hands fly up, splaying over the dashboard. “Now,” I start, but he interrupts me before I can finish.

“Yes, yes!” he squeaks pathetically. “I know the address! Big money house up in Oakwood. Huge, pillared thing, peeling paint, rusty railings. I can give you the address!”

“I want his full name too,” I tell him, reaching forward with a notepad and pen.

“Yes, o-of course!”

“And the woman who lives there, what of her?” I ask numbly, trying to remain detached.

“What?” he trembles, staring at me hard in the mirror.

“The young woman, you collected her from the hospital only a couple of weeks ago, surely your memory is not so poor that you are unable to remember her?”

“No, yes. No! I mean, I do recall!” he smacks his lips together anxiously, licking the dry skin. “She’s his niece, but I don’t drive her often. Ever! That was the only time!”

“Why?”

“Why don’t I drive her?” he mumbles, frowning further.

“Why that night?”

“I don’t know! I was dropping him home after a meeting and he requested I swing by the hospital to collect his niece on the way, that was it! I never even got a look at her!”

I hum, holding his gaze with a single lifted brow, “Now, Carlo, this little chat of ours…”

“I won’t say anything to anyone! I never saw you!” he squeals, and although it’s making my job easier, seeing as I truly believe this squealing man is going to keep his mouth shut, I’m almost a little disappointed at how easy this all was.

“And your foot,” I start, “your nose?” I raise a brow, his head nodding already.

“Fell! Drank too much, lost at biliardo,” he spits out, voice a quiver.

“Excellent,” I smile, slowly reaching down into the pocket of my slacks for the small pad of post it notes and pen I brought along with me from the hospital. “You don’t want to see me ever again, Carlo,” I start to explain, “So, write that shit down, and anything else you can think to tell me, I want to hear it and I want to hear it now.”

Large Sash windows line both the upstairs and the downstairs of the large, white, Victorian home. There’s a straight, red brick pathway that leads up to it, weeds growing between the cracked cement. On the upper floor, three big windows sit on either side of a rusted, white railing enclosed balcony. On the ground floor, there are three matching windows framing the front door. The balcony above is held up by two column pillars that stand on either side of the front door.

“What d’you wanna do?” Hunter asks from the front seat this time, me in the back, Thorne behind the wheel, all of our eyes on the house that my Little Moon came from.

Clearly, a house of horrors.

I think of her now, at home without me, her pale skin turning pink in the sun, those ice-blue eyes wide, wholly focused on me. I’d lay her out in the dry grass between the crumbling headstones, the sun on my back, my shadow eclipsing her. The warm breeze tightening her nipples, I’d peel off her clothes, lick every inch of her, and then drive my cock into her so hard it kills us both. Right there in the cemetery she likes so much.

“I’d feel better if the curtains were open,” I toss out, scratching fingers through my short stubble.

“That’s weird isn’t it?” Hunter comments, “the curtain thing? It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

Thorne remains silent, a million different things likely floating through his mind as he looks upon the house. Usually, I wouldn’t ask, but I’m wondering if he’s thinking the same thing as I am. Our mother would close drapes and blinds and shutters to hide her abuse from the world beyond the glass. Perhaps Hunter isn’t as caught up in his mummy trauma quite the way we are.

Good.

Thorne killed her. He was only seventeen. We’ve never spoken about it, even to this day. The way he hunted her down to make sure she met her end. I loved her, and I hate myself for it, because Matilda Blackwell was a horror only Satan could have produced, and even then I wonder if she weren’t just straight up infected with Lucifer himself.

It’s something, I think, that will remain inside me forever, this twisted, warped love for a mother who did evil, vile things to her devoted children. Six boys who were obsessed with her, even though she terrorised us.

I think she was sick. Hunter pretends she didn’t exist. Archer thinks she was a witch. Thorne won’t talk about her. Arrow says she did it because she was dealing with her own trauma, but Rainey? Our drug-addled, youngest brother, he says she was possessed by them. The other half of the Blackwell family and their cult, using blood magic to curse her.

The Obsidian.

“I think it means the house is hiding nefarious things, little brother,” Thorne finally says, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.

And I know, right then, that he was thinking about Matilda too.