Welina Hou #9
I’d heard all of this before but it still infuriated me to know that we’d had a snake for so long.
I didn’t understand how Xerxes did it for so many years.
To know how terrible his grandfather and uncles were without doing something about it.
To know my mother had been on the run not out of guilt but from the knowledge that her own brother was gunning for her. Gunning for me.
She knew staying would make her a target but if she left then everyone’s focus would be on me.
They’d have more eyes on me to prevent anything from happening to the bloodline.
No one wanted James or even Theo to take over and things worked exactly as she’d thought.
It was why she was so upset whenever we spoke.
She’d sacrificed a life with me to give me life.
The first time I’d seen her in twenty years she told me that it was something she’d done for love.
And, like she’d predicted my life, I’d left my heart behind to ensure that our future could be secured.
It must be in the bloodline.
“So you’re going to listen to some bitch that hasn’t been a part of the organization in years instead of us? We’ve been faithful paid our dues—what the fuck?”
Aunt Yolonda walked close to him and grabbed him by his throat. I smiled thinking at how sweet everyone thought she was but she was just the quietest of all the killer moms.
“I’m so tired of you speaking.” She glanced at me and Faith waiting on us to disagree. “Do you mind?”
My mother grinned and gave her the floor. “By all means.”
Aunt Yolonda smiled at Uncle X and he strolled over with a pair of pliers. She gripped the side of James’ neck as he tried to break free but Uncle X hit him in his nose and blood started to spurt out. As he screamed out Uncle X took his tongue between the pliers pulling it out as far as possible.
Auntie Yolonda pulled out a small butane torch, why she had one was beyond me. I found it comical that she was ready for any and everything. She lit the torch and sloppily, probably on purpose, burned off Uncle James’ tongue.
“I love seeing my parents work together, man. This shit is beautiful.”
Yacouba was dabbing at his eyes wiping imaginary tears, and I could only shake my head at him.
“Thank you for that, Ori. I couldn’t hear him talk about my friend like that any longer. I promise I won’t interrupt again.” Auntie Yolonda stood on her tiptoes to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“You’re more than welcome, Auntie.”
“Thank you. I’ve been sick and tired of hearing his mouth for the last fifty years.”
Faith and Yolonda kissed each other's cheeks a greeting more appropriate for a meal than a murder.
James was screaming in his chair as though someone here was going to save him but none of us bothered. I was itching to put a bullet in his head just because. However, that wouldn’t be the fanfare my friends and family deserved for the havoc he’d been sowing in our lives for decades.
“Let me go! You letting these niggas do this shit to your family! You’re a fucking disgrace. You and this foreign bitch won’t ever measure up to what I could’ve done.” Theo looked damn near rabid as he was pulling at his bonds, trying to get his hands free.
“You are not my family. You’re my enemy. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to an enemy who dared try to harm someone I love.”
“You don’t love that bitch. I should’ve taken her when I had the chance.
It would’ve been cleaner for them to just let me marry her but they gave her a choice.
Shit, they didn’t even give your mama one.
James senior had it right. Learn to get your bitches in line.
” Theo was too busy posturing to even worry about the torment his daddy was going through.
He’d been shot up and his tongue burned out but his son’s only focus was talking shit.
“Ori?”
My entire body responded to the sound of her voice. Every hair stood up, nerves fired and my dick grew harder. “Yes, Mistress?”
She chuckled at the way I so easily spoke her name but she was the one in charge right now. Of me, her willing warrior doing the bidding I would be so richly rewarded for executing.
“I would like him to die. But far more painfully than his father.”
“Do you want to do the honors?” I would pay the penance of allowing her to handle this but only if it was what she desired.
Asha’s head tilted in contemplation as a stray hair fell over her forehead. “No, I’m waiting to see how my husband is going to handle it.”
“Do you love me, Ka’iulani?” A question I had never asked but truly wanted an answer to.
She turned and smiled at me with a brilliance that rivaled a full moon on a cloudless night. “With all my heart.”
“Damn I almost wish you would’ve said no. Then I would’ve put a bullet in him and been done with all of this so I can change your mind.”
“We’ve a lifetime for that. But now that I think about it, can I have my knife back?” I quirked my brow looking at her, wondering what she had in mind. “Please?”
I handed her the knife and she all but skipped to where Theo was still talking his shit, ranting about her.
When she got close I knew there were at least two guns trained on him in case he tried to hurt her.
But with a flick of her wrist, Asha’s knife was out and running down the side of his face before he could finish insulting her again.
She was smart enough to avoid any major blood vessels despite how deeply she cut.
“Ori, you for real?” Yacouba’s ass was pouting but he should’ve known that Asha was going to get whatever she needed from me.
I waved him off unbothered enjoying everyone seeing her work. “Spousal privilege, Couba. You should know how that goes.”
“Ori, don’t be rude to our guests.” Asha was chiding me as she reached over and began to cut off Theo’s ear.
Theo’s screams melded into his father’s and when I looked over the front of his sneaker was missing.
I turned to glare at him but Yacouba shrugged as he unscrewed the silencer off his gun. “You heard Asha. Don’t be rude. Share and share alike, Ori.” Yacouba affected a British accent as he chastised me and I couldn’t do shit but roll my eyes at his immature ass.
I turned back watching Asha plunge a knife into Theo’s shoulder as he screamed again.
“Now he has a hole to match his father’s.” She was grinning happily as she admired her handiwork.
“Wahine!” I spoke to her forcefully so that she would snap out of the bloodlust I could see her working herself into. Asha’s head snapped up and she blinked slowly before she let out a giggle and pulled her knife out of Theo’s shoulder.
“Apologies. I get hyper-focused when I’m working.
” She addressed the room apologetically the way she would do her students.
My brothers seemed in awe watching her transform back to a posh princess brushing a stray curl off her forehead.
She looked around for somewhere to put her knife since it couldn’t go back into her boots.
She decided that James’ dick was the right location.
“FOCK! She’s gonna take off ‘is bollocks.” Liam sounded mildly sorry for James but that wouldn’t change shit.
Even the worst of their wives would use guns, or insects like Frankie, and besides the Jerrica Merrick who liked fire, bullets weren’t messy.
I’m sure watching my poised, protocol-following wife carve pieces off my uncle and cousin had them looking at her differently.
Normally when they killed they weren’t that hands on but Asha wanted to know the deed was done.
“Liam, I assure you that the punishment I would face for getting anywhere near another man’s bollocks is not something I want. I just needed somewhere to put my knife. Since he was so fond of using that little thing to abuse women, it should feel some of their pain before he dies.”
“Are you done?”
“I am. Do your worst, kāne.” She came to stand next to me because she knew what I had in mind. I kissed the top of her head tuning out the mutterings that I could hear going on behind us. All except for one.
“I told y’all. A mating ritual.”
My cousin’s cheek was still leaking blood, as was his toe and I knew he was fading fast. His father was just whimpering and my job right now was more clean-up than actual murders.
Part of the penance I was happy to pay for the harm I’d caused my wife.
I pressed the button as the large vat, which had been waiting on its time to shine was moved closer to where they were sitting until it was hovering in the perfect spot over their heads.
“Semira?”
“Yes, kāne?” When she looked up at me with those eyes shining with the cathartic glee of violence shining in her eyes I contemplated allowing her to finish the job briefly.
“Do you remember how you told me you felt like you were the dragon lady?”
The brightness in her eyes dimmed slightly and I knew what was making her momentarily less enthusiastic. Our baby. One I would do my best to see returned to her even if I had to argue with all the gods of our ancestors to ensure their safe return.
“Of course. What does that have to do with anything?”
Wanting to bring the smile back to her face I wrapped my arms around her from behind.
“Do you remember what the Khal did when the man who felt entitled to rule the Seven Kingdoms insulted his Khalessi?”
A chorus of oh shits and damns sounded behind us as Asha turned around to look at me with joyful anticipation infused into every feature. My uncle and cousin were still wailing but it was now a dull background noise.
“I do.”
“Then know I have this handled for you.”
She took a step back but I held her hand because everything we would do moving forward would be together. From providing one another pleasure to murdering our enemies, past or future. I would always keep her with me.
Asha threaded her fingers through mine before we turned back for the controls.