Rage

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Echo

E very time I kill a man I can’t help but fall in love even more with the silence that comes after he gives his last breath. The whole process is a symphony, it starts with them whimpering and begging, negotiating for something they know deep down I’d never offer. Then comes the crescendo, the screaming, the cursing, the crying, and the wailing. And then, it’s just the sweet silence.

And dear Larry makes no exception. Larry, who hit his wife for the last time tonight. Larry, who screamed at his seven-year-old to fuck off one last time a couple of hours ago. Larry, whose blood is now pooling at my feet, staining my Loubutins. Fuck Larry. That makes me hate you even more.

Wiping my shoes on his shirt and stepping on his back, I start walking towards my husband. Ian is looking at me from across the room with a look that says he’s as proud as ever when he sees me murdering someone.

“Stepping on corpses is beneath you, baby.”

“And flattery won’t win you extra points, Ian Beckett.” I smile when I reach him, grabbing his collar and kissing his cheek. “Besides, we both know the only man alive who deserves to feel my heel pressing on his skin is you.”

He stays silent, giving me the smile that sent shivers down my spine the first time I saw him. It’s not only mesmerizing, but there’s a cruelty in it that everyone can see, but only a few people perceive. And while it’s terrifying to see what hides behind the mask, I can only consider myself incredibly lucky. Honored, even. Honored that I got to witness the horrendous things my husband is capable of while feeling more protected than ever.

Flipping me around and pushing my back against the wall, Ian gets closer. Closer, closer, and closer until I can feel his breath on my neck, his inhales and exhales as accelerated as ever when he can barely hold himself together. I know he’s hanging by a thread every time we kill a man. Because he constantly fears that somehow I’ll end up being that man’s victim. I only wish he would realize there’s no reality where that could happen. Not only because I’m sure he would give his own life to protect me, not only because we always work together and outnumber our targets, but also because I would never leave him or our children.

The only death I wish for is the one of all abusers in the world. And if I could live forever and make my family immortal, I would do it in a second just to have the chance to spend eternity and forever surrounded by them.

“Take me home, Ian,” I say breathlessly. “Please, just take me home.”

“I want to take you right now, Echo Whitlock.” He bites the skin of my neck, the sound of it tearing making me even wetter. “I want to take you, break you so I could put you back together for the millionth time just to remind you who owns you, and whom you own.”

“Ian—”

“No.” He cuts me off. “You know we can’t go home until we get rid of the body, and I’m not sure I can last that much longer without feeling your cum dripping from my skin.”

It takes him no more than a couple of seconds to lift my skirt, push my panties to the side, and make me moan loudly when he shoves two fingers inside me and starts moving them in a come-hither motion. His thumb is pressing on my clit, massaging it in circles, my eyes rolling to the back of my head.

“Don’t, pretty girl,” Ian says in a threatening voice. “Let those greens see what I do to you. Let them see how I can make your perfect pussy soak my fingers and how I can make you scream my name over.” He gives me a hard thrust. “And over.” Another one. “And over again.”

“I love how well you know me,” I whisper, barely able to make the words come out. “I love how you know exactly how to touch me, and how to fuck me so you can make me come all over you.”

“Then be a good girl and show me.” His hand starts moving even faster, the pressure he applies on my clit becoming too much to be able to hold back.

I come screaming his name from the top of my lungs looking into the blue eyes that have been holding my soul captive for more than six years. My whole body is shaking and my knees are close to giving in, especially since seeing my husband licking my cum off his fingers is an image that will always drive me insane.

“Ian,” I swallow. “I need us to get rid of Larry and go home.”

“Of course, baby,” he says, kissing my forehead. “Do you miss the kids that much?”

His question gives me pause. Because I know the answer to it, yet I’m not comfortable admitting it out loud. But if there is one thing I know Ian Beckett would do is judge me. And not only I hate lying to him, I don’t see a reason to. Not now, not ever. He earned my loyalty and my trust time and time again, and I don’t think we would’ve been where we are today if we were nothing but truthful.

“I do miss them,” I say in a tentative voice, looking into his eyes. “But I—” I hesitate, nodding to reassure myself. “I miss feeling you inside me in our bed more.” Tears are flooding my eyes and my chin is shaking when I ask my own question. “Does that make me a bad mother, Ian?”

He takes a step back, frowning and looking at me from head to toes. I feel so vulnerable, so exposed, so liable to be judged and broken. I know my husband loves me, I do. I know he would move Heaven and Earth to make me happy, no matter if that translates to buying me flowers on a rainy day or helping me kill a man. I know all of that, but my children, my relationship with them, and the one with their father is something that I feel very conflicted about.

“You’re the best mother to ever haunt this world, Echo Beckett.” His voice reverberates in the empty storage room, making me feel like his words are searing into my eardrums. “Our children love you with everything they are, not because they’re conditioned to do that. It’s because they know how lucky they are to have you as a parent.”

Clearing my throat, I wrap my hair in a ponytail, looking into his eyes when I continue.

“And I love them. With every particle of my body, baby. I am absolutely and insanely obsessed with all three of them.” I take a deep breath, blowing my cheeks and letting the air out before resuming. “But I don’t want them to hate me when they grow up because I want to spend time with their father and not them.”

“Pretty girl,” he cups my face, rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks, “they will be functional adults because you want to spend time with their father. They’re learning love, a healthy definition of it, not the one we grew up with. And this way neither Noah, nor Corbin, nor Hayden will ever tolerate the behaviours we used to tolerate.”

I know he’s right. I know I tolerated abuse in my previous marriage and in most of the relationships I had. That’s why I killed my ex husband. And that’s why Ian killed my ex lover. To some extent, that’s why we are still killing people similar to them even after all these years.

Maybe we haven’t forgotten the way our close family and people who swore they loved us treated us, and maybe we’ll never be able to forgive them. Despite the fact that what we are doing is completely illegal, I can’t help but wonder if it’s immoral. Or unethical.

Is it so wrong that we don’t want to see more people going through what we did? Is it so wrong to defend the ones who can’t defend themselves? I don’t think we’re heroes, not in any way, shape, or form. But I do believe we’re vengeance incarnated mixed with a spectrum of emotions that glue us as a couple and keeps our family together.

I don’t reply to what Ian said with anything else than a nod and a kiss. And he doesn’t need more, that’s one of the many things I love about him. He takes my hand and guides me to where Larry is still bleeding.

“This one was easy,” he says.

“Boringly so.”

“Do you think we should start torturing them more?”

“It depends. I don’t want to let these monsters rob me of the seconds or the breaths I could spend with my family. But, from time to time, when the kids are with Nora, we could have a fun date that involves some scissors, hammers, or any other sharp objects.”

“Do you want to cut their fingers?”

“I want to cut their balls.”

He laughs. That deep, rich laugh that never fails to brighten my days. The same laugh I love waking up to when he’s playing with the twins and their older brother. The laugh that gives me purpose and the laugh I crave hearing the same way a junkie craves their next hit.

“Come on, pretty girl. Let’s wrap Larry up and feed him to the pigs.”

“Do you think someone will eventually start wondering why a lawyer and a stand-up comedian decided to have a farm 50 miles from their home?” I ask, starting to undress Larry and scrunching my nose in disgust when I see his dick.

“Maybe.” He shrugs, gently pushing me aside and continuing what I started. “But even if they do, you know we’re brilliantly covering our tracks, baby. We’ve been doing this for years.”

“I guess.”

“Echo, look at me.” His voice leaves no room for negotiation so I lower my gaze to look into his eyes. “You’re coming up with reasons to worry for absolutely no reason.”

“There is a reason.” I lift my hands only to smack them on my thighs. “I don’t want our children to grow up visiting mommy and daddy in jail. And I don’t want us to die in there either.”

“Then we’ll stop doing this.”

“It’s not that simple and you know that.”

“Why? It really is. One day you’re killing someone, the other you don’t. You can find a different hobby. Might I suggest crocheting?”

“Stop it.” I snarl, clenching my jaw.

“Or maybe some cute DIY projects? I’m sure you can find some housewives who would absolutely love to help you build a Christmas tree from toilet paper tubes.”

“Ian, I’m warning you?—”

“You’re warning me?” He lets out a mocking laugh. “You don’t want to go to jail for killing random men who should’ve been a stain on someone’s sheets, yet you would go to jail for murdering the father of your children? So. Maybe pick up fishing?”

Deciding to not feed his mockery anymore, I grab Larry’s hair and start dragging him towards the exit, ignoring my husband and trying to settle my anger. I know why he did that, I know all the tricks Ian Beckett has in his proverbial hat and I know how many aces he has up his sleeve. And usually I admire that about him. But now, I’m angry that he decided to use them on me.

I can hear Ian saying something behind me, but I’m too angry to pay attention to him. I hate that he doesn’t take in consideration the risks, that the fact that we now have a family and three mini versions of us to take in consideration before making decisions. And I can’t believe that less than an hour earlier I was worried I’m not a good enough mother, when those children couldn’t have a more reckless father.

Taking a butcher knife from the wall of the pig stale, I start chopping his body, throwing the pieces behind me. I can feel the dirt and the pebbles digging in my skin, I can feel the blood on my hands and the drops falling on my face, but I don’t care. I just need to get this done and go home to my children. Their father can do whatever he pleases, but he’d better stay away from me if he doesn’t want to end up like Larry. Because right now jail doesn’t sound that much of a bad idea if that would mean Ian never mocking me again.

I can feel Ian’s hand gripping my hair, but I choose to ignore it. I might be a lot of things, but a fool I am not, so there is no way I will fall for the same tricks just to calm down and forgive him for goading me. It’s not what he said—not at all—it’s the fact he chose to treat me as a regular person. As somebody he just likes to poke and have fun with. And that is something I’d never tolerate, especially not when it’s coming from my husband who knows damn well that I have been treated like this by too many men. And the fact most of those men are now pig shit or fish food might be a hint of what I’m capable of when somebody doesn’t give me the respect I think I deserve.

“Enough, Echo,” he murmurs in my ear, my head going backward when he pulls my hair so hard I can hear it crack. “You made your point.”

“I don’t think I did,” I retort while I keep cutting Larry into small pieces even if the only thing I can see now is my husband’s face upside down.

Letting go of my hair, he grabs my arms and makes me stand, gently pushing me away. It all happens in a blur. Ian takes a canister from his left, pours its contents on Larry—or what Larry used to be—lights a match, and throws it on the ground. He turns around, the flames behind him making him look even more menacing than he usually does. Ian Beckett is the brightest angel that Hell could have ever housed, and now he looks the part.

My body is screaming to go to him and kiss him. To forgive and forget, and to focus on everything he’s done for me throughout the years. But I refuse. Besides the fact that I’m not letting him win this easily, I have to admit that this is the most fun we’ve had in months.

I straighten my back and arch an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest. My heart is beating so fast I can hear it drumming. Because anticipation means excitement, and my husband means redemption. And I’ll have all of that on a silver platter simply because I worked hard to get them.

“Now that Larry’s been taken care of maybe we can talk?” The right corner of his mouth lifts slightly when he asks the question.

Frowning, I spit, “No. You’ve done enough talking for tonight.”

“This is not who you are, Echo.” Ian shakes his head in disappointment. “This is not who we are.”

“You don’t get to tell me who I am and who we are,” I say in a deadly voice. “Not after mocking me and joking on my account.”

“I was actually goading you. Making you realize exactly who you are and what you stand for. Because there are too many questions, too many thoughts running rampant in your head and I’m not the one to answer them. You are.”

“You could help!” I raise my voice, walking towards him, anticipation and excitement completely replaced by pure rage. “Because it’s not the first time when I’ve felt lost and incapable of finding my way back to who I know I am. The only thing that’s different is that this time a murder or two or ten won’t fix it. So now the great Ian Beckett doesn’t know how to handle this so he chooses the path he knows too well. Belittling. Manipulation. The only problem with that, husband , is that you chose the wrong person to inflict it upon.”

His gasp is audible and the way his eyes grow bigger with every word I say makes me think he’s surprised by what he just heard. But he shouldn’t be. Not in my opinion, at least.

“I think you’re overreacting, Echo.”

“Wrong fucking answer, Ian.”