Chapter Thirty-One #2
Bad move.
“Because I needed every ounce of evidence stacked and waiting,” she purrs. “So when I burned you to the ground, I’d get ninety-five percent of everything you own.”
The venom in her words drips sweet and slow. I grin.
“Gage,” I say with a nod. “Bring her in.”
He obeys, disappearing for all of three seconds before dragging the other one in, heels scraping, mouth gagged. Tiffany.
Gage tosses her at Erica’s feet like garbage. She lands hard.
Erica crouches. Fist wraps in her sister’s hair, jerks her up until their faces are inches apart. “You pathetic little bitch,” she hisses. “You’ve always been dead weight, but tonight? You get to be useful.”
She releases Tiffany like she’s diseased and turns toward me. “Did you bring them?”
Karter drops the black duffel with a wet thud .
“Right here, milady.”
She grabs it, yanks the zipper, then flips it upside down, contents spilling across the floor like gore-soaked secrets. Body parts. Rotting. Twisted.
Tiffany screams and stumbles back, hands over her mouth, eyes bulging.
“What the fuck is that ?” she cries.
Gerald steps forward. “Erica… who is that?”
She chuckles, low and cold. “Your children.”
A beat of silence. The kind that sucks the air out of a room.
“What?” Tiffany gasps, staring at the mutilated limbs in horror. “How… how did you find out?”
“That’s where we come in,” I say, stepping forward. “Your golden boys tried impersonating one of our Devils. Stole from us. Lied. Played games they didn’t have the stomach to finish. We don't hand out mercy. We dig. We hunt. And we remember .”
“You mother fucking psychopaths,” Gerald growls.
I clamp a hand around his throat and squeeze until his voice turns to air.
“No,” I whisper near his ear. “ You sent your sons to die. You made that call the moment you touched what wasn’t yours.”
“And actually,” Erica adds smoothly, “ I’m the one who planted that seed.
Funny how easy it was to manipulate you once I realized those boys were yours and Tiffany’s.
Brought home like some twisted trophy, wrapped in legal paperwork I never saw.
Couldn’t have kids of my own, so you surprised me with a miracle, huh? ”
She laughs, tilting her head back. “I should’ve known the truth when they started looking more like you than I could stomach. But you controlled the finances. The surveillance. Everything. So I stole from you in silence. Built my own little empire. Hired the best. Found them .” She nods toward us.
“And now?” Her smile sharpens like a knife. “Now I have what I want.”
Gerald wheezes under my grip. “Erica… you had them killed . Your nephews .”
She cuts him off with a snarl. “ Court was your golden boy. The one who could rape, steal, lie, and you’d call it ambition.
The minute I confirmed Tiffany was his mother, he was dead to me.
You think I didn’t know ? All those little moments you two would send me away to spend time with your sons? You never saw the way I watched you.”
She turns on Tiffany.
“You whore ,” she hisses. “You fucked your own sister’s husband and thought you were clever? Thought no one would ever find out? You were nothing but a breeding hole for his insurance policy. And now? Now you can rot in the ashes of everything I just torched.”
The boys behind me are grinning. Even Onyx lets out a low whistle.
Erica steps over the scattered limbs like they’re petals, leans into Gerald’s face.
“And the best part?” she whispers. “You’re going to die knowing it was me who orchestrated every piece of this.”
I tighten my grip.
“Any last words, old man?”
Gerald spits blood.
Erica smiles.
And the Devils of Cliffside deliver the sentence.
“And you, ” Erica’s voice drips venom as she snatches the silver letter-opener from Gerald’s desk, “can keep him company in hell.”
The blade flashes. It slides into Tiffany’s carotid with a wet hiss, then rips sideways. Blood fans across the study’s walnut paneling; Tiffany gurgles, staggers, collapses. Erica watches her sister’s last twitches with cold, clinical interest.
Wells whistles. “Pretty.”
I step past them, boot on Gerald’s spine, and force him to watch his mistress drown in red. “You’ve got front-row seats, old man. Enjoy the show.”
Gerald scrambles, hands slick, trying to pull Tiffany into his lap. “Tiff…Tiffany, breathe, baby.”
Karter swings the duffel. Colt’s severed head rolls out and thumps into Gerald’s knees. Court’s torso follows, a grotesque puzzle missing pieces.
He falls apart, literally and figuratively. “Colt? Court? No. They were supposed to-”
“Walk away?” I finish, squeezing his throat until his eyes bulge. “Little princes thought they could raid the Devils’ vault. They got graduation gifts instead.”
Dash leans in, mask glowing neon X’s. “And Daddy dearest ordered the caper. Congratulations: you murdered your own blood.”
Gerald sobs, snot and gore mixing. “Why? How could you?”
“Because you touched what’s ours.” Erica wipes the blade on her dress, eyes gleaming. “And because you fucked me over, Gerald. Repeatedly. Now ninety-five percent of your empire is mine, and the last five is about to burn.”
I haul Gerald upright, chair legs scraping. “Two paths, Carmichael. Die now, fast, clean, anonymous. Or l ive, crippled, obedient, our mouthpiece. You’ll preach the new order, Devils rule, everyone else prays we don’t notice them.”
He stares at the butchered remnants of his dynasty, then at Erica, who’s already walking out to claim her new fortune. Defeated, hollow: “I…choose life.”
“Life’s expensive.” I jab a syringe into his neck, thallium cocktail. “First payment, pain.”
He slurs, paralyzed. Eyes roll while Karter and Wells duct-tape him to the oak chair. Dash douses the curtains with accelerant, Onyx rigs the doors.
When the timer hits zero, flames will kiss his skin just as the metal starts shredding his nerves. Slow roast.
Gage’s phone goes live, underground stream, ten-thousand eager viewers. Masks lit, we form a half-circle behind Gerald’s convulsing body.
“Cliffside,” I announce, voice warped through the modulator, “behold consequence. Gerald Carmichael, thief, trafficker, coward, sent blood to steal from Devils. We returned the blood. We kept the heads. Your move.”
Gage cuts the feed. Gasoline splashes.
Outside, engines idle. The estate behind us blooms orange, then white-hot. A single, ragged scream rises, then crackles out.
“Back to the asylum,” I say, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Tonight we drink to extinction.”
Karter laughs, blood still spattered across his boots. “And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I grin beneath the mask, “we start on the real list.”
The convoy rolls into the dark, five Devils, one queen, and a city that just learned what terror smells like when it burns.