Chapter 7 #2
"You think...you think your whore is special?" Blackwood gasped out a wheezing laugh that quickly dissolved into a coughing fit. "She's just like the rest of them. Only good for one thing."
"And what's that?" Cole's quiet voice cut through the chaos, surprising me. My mind was trying to process all the information and the implications around it that I'd almost forgotten he was there. Blackwood lifted his head, fixing Cole with a bloody grin.
"Breeding," he rasped. "All your Trivium women are good for popping out the next generation of blue bloods. Fuck toys to be used and abused until they are ready to be knocked up. You know I’m right. If I’m such a monster, then what the fuck does that make you?"
Ryder moved as if to strike him again, but Cole held up a hand, stopping him. There was a strange expression on his face, one I couldn't quite read.
"Go on," he prompted Blackwood. "I want to hear the rest of your philosophy." Blackwood coughed again, a wet, gurgling sound that made me grimace in disgust. When he spoke again, his words were thick and slurred.
"They like it... when you knock them around a bit.
Show them... who's in charge. My ex... she was always gagging for it.
Couldn't get enough of being choked and slapped around, the filthy little-" This time it was Cole who moved, so fast I barely registered it.
One minute Blackwood was still ranting, the next his head slammed back against the hard wood of the desk with a sickening crack, before he collapsed to the floor.
Cole stood over him, fists clenched, his entire body vibrating with barely contained violence.
"You're going to shut your mouth now," he stated, soft but firm. "Because if you say another word, I'm going to take your tongue."
"Fuck... you..." Blackwood's words were little more than a gurgle now, blood frothing at his lips. But his eyes still held that defiant spark of arrogance, that belief in his own superiority. He really didn’t realise how close to death he was.
"I don't think you understand," Cole continued in that same quiet tone.
"This isn't a request or a warning. This is you finally facing consequences for being a raping, woman beating piece of shit.
" Blackwood tried to respond, but Cole's boot cracked across his jaw, snapping his head to the side.
More blood, more pained gasps and groans.
Cole crouched beside him, gripping his hair to hold his head still.
"You think you can treat women however you want?
Beat them, abuse them, violate them?" Cole's voice took on an edge, something raw and furious bleeding through his words.
"Just because you come from money and privilege, because the Trivium turns a blind eye to your depravity?
Not anymore." Another savage blow, this one opening a gash above Blackwood's eye.
I could see the depth of Cole's rage now, the way his jaw clenched and his shoulders knotted with tension.
There was a look in his eyes I'd never witnessed before, something haunted and anguished burning there.
"You aren't a man," Cole spat, punctuating the statement with another vicious punch. "You're just a scared little boy lashing out at anything you can't control. Because you're weak. You're pathetic."
Ryder moved in then, grabbing a fistful of Blackwood's hair to hold him steady as Cole rained down blow after blow.
I could hear the wet smack of flesh striking flesh, see the blood splattering across Cole's knuckles with each impact.
Part of me knew I should step in, should try to regain some semblance of control before this went too far.
But the other part, the part that had been subjected to Blackwood's vile words, to his twisted world view, that part of me wanted to see him beaten to a bloody pulp.
Wanted to see him face the consequences for the first time in his life.
Because as much as I hated to admit it, Blackwood hadn't been entirely wrong about us.
About the cruelty and abuse ingrained in the Trivium, in the society we were so desperate to be a part of.
Sure, we had lines we didn't cross, boundaries we upheld.
But the way we treated the women in our lives, the way that the three of us had been with Cadence, the control, the manipulation, it wasn't that different from the way Blackwood viewed women, not deep down.
The realisation settled like a cold, dead weight in my gut.
All our self-righteous talk about protocols and tradition and respecting the Consorts, it was just window dressing. We were no better than him.
That's why I didn't stop them. Why I stood and watched as Ryder and Cole unleashed a lifetime's worth of pent-up violence and aggression on Blackwood's now motionless body.
I could justify it any number of ways, he'd brought it on himself, he deserved it; we were just following orders.
But the truth was, his words had struck a nerve.
Those words had brought everything we tried so hard to bury right up to the surface.
So I stood, and I watched, and I let it happen. Let them take out their darkest impulses on him, let them use him as a canvas to paint their ugliest desires. Because he was right. We were all just monsters.
It was only when Blackwood stopped moving, when blood stopped pumping from his ruined face, that I finally spoke.
"Enough."
Cole paused, chest heaving, his hands slick crimson.
Ryder didn't stop, continuing to rain down blows on Blackwood's lifeless corpse with a kind of manic intensity.
I could see the feral glint in his eyes, the way his lips peeled back in a vicious snarl.
He was operating on pure, unrestrained instinct now. The beast had been unleashed.
I grabbed his arm, forcing him to pause. He rounded on me, features twisted with violence.
"He's dead, Ryder," I said, keeping my voice low and even.
"It's over." For a moment, I didn't think he heard me.
His gaze was wild, unfocused, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Then, slowly, the haze seemed to clear from his eyes.
He looked down at Blackwood's mangled form, something flickering across his face before it went carefully blank again.
He turned back to the body and crouched beside it.
From his jacket pocket, he produced his favourite knife, the sharp edge glinting in the low light.
My stomach clenched with dread as I realised what he intended.
"Ryder..." I started, but his head whipped around, shutting me down with a single look.
“He needs to know, Logan,” he said, his eyes glinting a darkness that closed my throat.
He turned back to the body and whispered.
“They all need to know.” I knew this was a message for his father.
What we had done here was a direct smack in the face of Aaron Purcell and Ryder wanted to make sure he got the message loud and clear.
I watched as he brought the knife down in one vicious stroke, carving deep into the meat of Blackwood's chest. I flinched at the sickening sound it made, the wet tearing of flesh.
Cole moved closer, his face a mask of revulsion and something else... resignation, maybe. As if he'd been expecting this all along. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"You know he's right," he murmured, so low I could barely hear him over the sounds of Ryder's frenzied mutilation.
"We're every bit as depraved as him." I watched Ryder for a few minutes longer before I turned my back on the whole blooded scene.
I moved towards the door to the office to make the call for a cleanup team, but just as I reached the door I paused and glanced back over my shoulder to see Ryder slumped next to the now unrecognisable body.
I met eyes with Cole before turning back and whispering.
“I know.”