Chapter 40 #2
Killing the engine, I leave the headlights on and dismount, taking a few steps closer to the mold-encrusted, warped planks of the old pier.
The air is heavy with a moisture I can almost taste.
Precipitation causes the fabric of my shirt to cling uncomfortably to my skin.
The lights from my Indian reflect in the glowing eyes of a few gators, moving stealthily through the black swamp.
I wonder if they are the very ones that may have devoured Asmodeus’ remains…
I sigh his name into the darkness.
The hiss of a gator near the muddy embankment pulls a half-grin from me, and my hand instinctively gravitates nearer to the gun holstered beneath my cut.
“Have you reincarnated already, brother?” I joke. “Or merely possessed the oversized reptile that consumed you?”
A whippoorwill’s call for a mate clashes with the hoot of an owl as they both echo throughout the Tupelo and Cypress trees.
The gator hisses again, and I wonder if he’s asking why I’ve come, after all this time…after what I did…
“I suppose…just to see… to know … Closure … Though I don’t regret what transpired between us in our final moments…
I already mourned the loss of my real brother…
the night you unwittingly revealed the truth to me about what you had become…
Dominick is the brother I miss… The brother I lost when we were parted as children…
You, Asmodeus …are right where you belong…
Rest in pieces . Though you’re probably gator shit at this point… contributing to this rancid stench.”
I light up a cigarette and pull a few long drags, listening to the constant serenade of nocturnal swamp creatures as my mind floods with memories stained with revenge.
Blind hatred.
Blind faith.
Denial…
Such a uniquely human defense mechanism, denial . No other species on this wretched earth matches our talent at disregarding reality for the sake of a little peace of mind.
Thinking back, I had often clung to denial throughout this entire revenge ride, as if I’d been dangling from a cliff.
Fingers desperately digging into the jagged edge, knowing full well that if I slipped, complications would arise.
Complications that even I might not have been able to manipulate the logistics of into a contented outcome.
Yet all of the vacillating emotions warring within me, especially pertaining to one particular situation, disintegrated the moment I actually came face to face with the infamous Jack Nero.
What could have potentially been my greatest pawn in this twisted game of vengeance had become the epitome of said complication. A walking, talking complication that was of the utmost importance. One I not only kept to myself but kept under my complete control.
Seeing him in person for the first time solidified a fact I could no longer deny, or attempt to ignore. Not if harm would have befallen her for the sake of my own mission. There was no reconciling that fact.
The enemy of my enemy had become my enemy…
Though in order to gain any sort of influence over Jack Nero, I had to convince him otherwise.
I knew there would be no deterring him from his own plans of retaliation against the woman who has haunted my thoughts since our eyes met.
He was as determined to carry out his plans against her as I was mine against Keegan.
Jack Nero intended to do her great harm.
I’d felt it through his handwritten letters.
And it was clear to see in his tense, icy blue eyes.
The mere thought of him carrying out those plans for her coiled my insides and spurred an entirely unfamiliar, soul-rattling, protective impulse that coursed through my entire being.
Anger, fear, and a desire to cut his throat where he stood, crackled through my veins.
Denial about what I was beginning to feel for her died that day. Right there in that state prison visiting room.
S hackled at the wrists and ankles, wearing an orange uniform taut across his prison-sculpted torso, Jack Nero had been escorted into the visitation room by two large, military-esque correctional officers.
They shoved him down onto the stool across the table from me.
The indelible sound of his chains clanking against the metal seat bolted to the floor caused the muscles in my throat to involuntarily tense.
Behind masks of impassivity, we studied each other in silence until the guards stepped away.
“Where is she?” Nero demanded, unable to keep the bloodthirst from his tone.
“We’ll get to that,” I bit out, already feigning hard for a cigarette.
Suspicion narrowed his eyes, persistent in his attempt to read me. “Are you the guy she’s shacking up with now?” The corner of his mouth curved upward in a threatening, disingenuous grin. “Has she sent you here to warn me off?”
“No… However , I am very well versed in all things pertaining to that man.”
The Adam’s apple bobbed almost violently in his throat before he replied, “ So, she is with a man .” Confirming this for him had significantly darkened his mood.
“She is. Shall I tell you about them?” I shifted in my seat to lean forward and threaded my fingers on top of the stainless-steel table. “He’s madly in love with her. Willing to do anything for her.”
“Is that so?”
“Very much so.” I allowed an antagonistic smile to stretch my mouth. “I’d venture to say he worships her… Every…inch…of her.”
The muscles in his jaw ticked, and I could just about make out the pulse in his neck.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“The enemy of your enemy… In turn, one might deduce that makes me a friend ... Perhaps, your only friend , now.” I gestured to his restraints and prison garb.
“I’m listening…”
I knew I had to insert myself into this collision course with Jack Nero.
Manipulate the situation to our benefit.
I tried to convince myself it was more about my brother’s revenge than it ever was about protecting Vanna.
But that was denial speaking. Convincing everyone around us was done easily enough, at least for a while.
I painted the entire situation in all shades of black, gave Asmodeus the updates he wanted to hear.
Yet even before I learned the truth about my brother, the thought of her actually being harmed ate away at me day and night.
There was no quelling Jack Nero. The man’s desire and determination to carry out his revenge were as steadfast as my brother’s, and I had begun to regret pushing for the payback he became hell bent on claiming.
Had I only focused on hate, revenge would have been swift.
I would have simply killed Keegan, perhaps in a similar fashion to how I dealt with my brother.
But it would have been a pinpoint execution.
This plan I’d concocted, this darkness I’d swept over his beloved county, which would have eventually corrupted and corroded everything he cared about…
It had all been over the love I’d had for my brother.
Love spawned this intricate, grandiose plan of complete annihilation.
Love is far deadlier an emotion than Hate .
I’d made that trip to the state penitentiary in the nick of time.
The weeks before Jack Nero’s early release, I’d been the one orchestrating everything for him.
The mental warfare before his physical attacks had either been carried out by me or the man I had enlisted from my crew to keep close tabs on Nero.
Vein had always been one to follow my exact orders to the letter.
However, convincing Asmodeus that the best course of action was allowing Jack Nero to carry out the actual murder of Dean Keegan had been no simple feat.
“ A re you not exhausted, brother?” I’d asked.
“We’ve opened the flood gates of Hell in Keegan’s precious county.
The moment we pull out, there will be gang wars for control of the territories.
Further chaos will ensue. The town is doomed, regardless.
Jack Nero is a man twisted by jealousy and a deep-rooted need for revenge as well.
I assure you, whatever Nero does to Keegan, it will be an agonizing death, both mentally and physically.
The years Nero has served in prison have warped him into something as ruthless as we…
The blood of Dean Keegan on his hands keeps ours clean. Absolves us of this capital crime.”
“I want the satisfaction! I want to see him suffer before we end him together!” Asmodeus shouted, a haunting look of both disappointment and betrayal in his eyes as he glared at me.
It tore at what remained of my heart. My brother…
the only being I had ever truly loved in my life.
After everything, I was letting him down.
And the kicker… I had been the one from the beginning who pushed for this revenge.
My brother was content to move on with whatever remained of a life.
I had been the one who couldn’t let it go…
Who couldn’t sleep or think of anything but Keegan’s suffering, until now.
I’d pushed for this. I’d pushed for him to want this… and when he finally did, I did not .
“My hand guides the hand that will end him, brother… Is that not close enough?”
“No! It isn’t! You promised me vengeance! What’s changed?”
“Nothing has changed… An opportunity to orchestrate his demise from a distance is at play. Be smart, Asmodeus…please!”
He slammed a deformed fist down on the arm of the leather chair he’d practically come to live in. Wordless…though his expression spoke volumes on its own.
I’d sighed, defeated, and cursed myself. What the fuck had I allowed to come over me? A woman… over my own flesh and blood. Over the only person who ever truly had my back… Or so I had always believed.
“If I were to arrange your attendance at his death…would that pacify you?” I’d asked, eager to appease him as I wracked my brain over the logistics of this promise. “Would that satisfy the debt owed to you?”
“Yes,” he’d agreed.
“Then it shall be done.”
What none of us had anticipated was Vanna jumping the gun on everyone’s carefully laid plans… The rage and anxiety consuming me that wretched night were unlike anything I had ever experienced. The level of anger I felt toward her, and all the reasons why , both confused and enraged me further.
I had assigned Vein as Jack Nero’s cohort.
Maneuvered him like a chess piece into that cabin to assist Jack with Keegan, whilst simultaneously preventing him from actually killing Vanna.
Something unbeknownst to me had spurred her into premature action.
Foiling my plans and damn near getting herself killed in the process!
Too late had Vein informed me of the mad race to the cabin.
There was no fulfilling my promise to my brother that he’d bear witness to Keegan’s demise.
I’d barely managed to derail Keegan’s cavalry, dispatching a would-be prospect to stop Jason Caldwell and Viking by any means necessary.
T-boning the Saviors’ Sergeant at Arms’ truck knocked them off the board only temporarily, but it was enough to prevent them from intervening at the cabin.
A n involuntary shiver travels up my spine now, as Keegan’s words in that rusty shed play over in my mind for the hundredth time. The thought of what transpired that night…what could have happened to her, jerks me violently back to the present.
I pull the last drag from my cigarette, sneering at the inky black waters speckled with green algae. Keegan’s survival of the cabin only fueled Asmodeus’s obsession with his demise and put Vanna directly in his crosshairs.
“I wish I could hate you for the monsters we’ve become,” I mutter, tossing the butt into the muddy embankment a few feet from me.
The gator I’ve been conversing with crawls closer up the embankment, and I grip the handle of my gun.
“ Don’t make me kill you twice .”
The prehistoric lizard tilts its head, snapping its deadly jaws sideways at something on the ground near the post of the saggy planked pier.
Hailing from the desert, swamps were never a familiar landscape to me. At first glance, I had thought the white balls along the water’s edge were perhaps a species of mushroom.
Upon realization, a smile quirks up in the corner of my mouth. I recall reading about the affinity alligators have for a particular sweet treat .
“ Marshmallows…” I grin with amusement as the beast gobbles up the last puffy white morsel left behind. It turns, thrashing a massive tail, and makes its way back into the dark waters. My eyes curiously scan Drear Swamp for any traces of what might be another, recently discarded corpse…
“Perhaps your soul isn’t so alone out here after all, Asmodeus…”