Chapter Twenty-Five
Koyn
T he whole house goes dark.
One moment I’m holding a shivering, silently crying angel, and the next, we’re bathed in darkness. Several of the guys hoot out somewhere within the house. I can hear Stormy bitching in the kitchen.
“Oh no,” Hadley whines.
Yes.
He’s here.
Her fucking father.
I almost laugh trying to imagine the victorious look on his face. He’s somewhere nearby because no matter how good he is, he can only do what I allow him to do. And in this instance, it requires him to be within a certain distance. The motherfucker wanted to take me out because he knew he’d never be as good as me. Nothing’s changed. Same shit, different day.
Now he’s here.
Walking right into the trap I laid.
He thinks he’s the master of our fucking universe.
Someone should tell him he’s only a puppet on strings—strings I’m going to strangle him with.
“Koyn.”
Hadley’s worried voice does something to me. Plucks me out of the vortex of mindless revenge and forces me to face the present. For so long, all I’ve thought about was the past and what happened.
Then she happened.
Present.
Inside her is a future.
Rather than dwell on shitty things like hope and family when monsters like Genworth and Putnam roam the world, I decide to focus on the past. At least for now.
“Have you eaten?” I ask, patting Hadley’s thigh, indicating she should stand.
She obeys and shakes her head. It’s dark, but the moonlight pours in through the window, allowing me to see her pretty, somber features.
“Find Bermuda and eat.” I stand and grab my sheathed knife from the table so I can clip it to my belt. “Put shoes on while you’re at it. Without heat, it’s going to get cold real quick.”
I start to walk away and she grabs my wrist. Turning, I regard her half shadowed face. Tentatively, she steps toward me and traces her fingertips down along my scruffy jaw.
“All I ever wanted in life was to do things that make me happy,” she murmurs. “I wasn’t sure what it would be. Now that Mom is gone and I’m clearly pregnant, I’ve found some direction.” She smiles the prettiest smile in the goddamn world. “I want to be a good mother to this little one. I want to protect him or her from the horrible people in the world.” She swallows and drops her gaze to the floor. “I don’t want to do it alone.”
Lifting my hand to her chin, I nudge her head back up so I can see her face. My thumb rubs across her dry bottom lip. “You flirt with danger, little girl. You don’t know what you ask for.”
Her gaze hardens. “I know exactly what I ask for. I know what I want.”
“Princesses don’t always get what they want.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a princess,” she says hotly.
“Yeah, Pageant Girl? Were you thinking queen instead?”
She stands on her toes and presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “I was thinking old lady has a nicer ring to it.”
Damned if my dick doesn’t get hard.
“Go eat,” I growl.
She smirks, her playful spirit finally finding its way back inside her. “Yes, Daddy.”
This fucking girl.
Silence.
Complete and utter silence.
I’m freezing my balls off outside, but I don’t move a muscle. They’re coming. Walking right into our trap. I thought maybe they’d roll in on their Harleys like a mob of mean motherfuckers. And if Putnam was taking lead, he’d probably do just that, despite the snow. But since Genworth is in charge, they’ll be sneakier about it.
Crunch.
My eyes dart to my left to where Bizzy’s dumb ass shoots me a guilty look. Fucker can’t sit still to save his life. I drag my gaze back up the road, squinting against the darkness and the flurries of snow falling.
I catch Katana’s dark eyes and give him a nod. He disappears into the night to search farther up the road. Payne prowls after him. We have the house completely surrounded and protected from all angles.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Pulling my phone from my coat pocket, I swipe it and press it to my ear but don’t breathe a word.
“I have access to everything, Koynakov.” Genworth’s words are spoken with cool confidence, but I don’t miss the slight strain in his words.
He’s in the lion’s den now.
“You already took the only things near and dear to me,” I remind him. “You think my electricity going out hurts?” I pause. “Nothing you could ever do could hurt me again. As far as you’re concerned, I’m unfuckingtouchable.” I let out a cold laugh. “But you? I have your tiny beating heart in the palm of my hand.”
“Do it.”
His barked words are my only warning before I hear the rat-a-tat-tat coming from the tree line. Windows shatter as bullets spray through my house. Irritating as fuck but expected. I step behind a stone column off the porch, waiting out the assault.
Second by slow second the shooting stops as my men find their targets.
“I sent Hadley to the kitchen to eat,” I say into the phone that’s still pressed to my ear. “Might as well just turn the fuck around and go home at this point because after that stunt, she’s dead.”
“You really must think I’m stupid,” Genworth says with a cruel laugh. “That I wouldn’t have already sent someone in to get my kid the second you fuck faces came out?”
I dart my head to the right, finding Filter. He nods and holds up two fingers—our signal that Putnam was the one to take her.
“Are you at the rendezvous point?” I taunt. “Are you in the clear? Ready to run off with all my fucking money with my fucking prize ?”
“You know I’m not leaving until I watch him gut you—ahh!”
The line goes dead.
“We got disconnected,” I deadpan to Filter. “Let’s get to the slaughterhouse. Time for a pig roast.”
I love to hear the squeals of my enemies.
Seeing Marron Genworth and Randall “Magna” Putnam tied to chairs, side by side, in my building is the most gratifying experience in my entire life. The moment I’ve waited on for ten long years. The beginning of the end.
But seeing Genworth’s little girl sitting on the mattress in front of the fireplace with her knees drawn up and a haunted look on her face is not gratifying at all. It’s fucking disturbing. Twisted and wrong. Something I don’t want to see.
I look away.
Focus.
As I approach, I notice Dragon’s already been fucking with Putnam. Putnam has the word RAPIST PIG cut into his forehead in impressively neat handwriting. Dragon is a master with a blade.
That’s for what you did to my girls, asshole.
I scan the room and find all my guys watching and waiting, some in the shadowed parts of the slaughterhouse and others in plain view. They want this every bit as much as I do. It makes me wonder what the fuck Church will be like without spending half the meeting contemplating revenge. I can’t even begin to imagine a life of peace.
So I don’t.
My life is war. It has been for a decade. A war I will win in the end.
Gibson hums something that sounds oddly like “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. It’s an appropriate song. Genworth and Putnam don’t need to fear the reaper. They need to fear me.
Putnam garbles out something, but from behind the strip of duct tape, it makes no sense.
“What’s that?” I ask as I bypass him to walk over to Hadley. She doesn’t flinch when I reach out and stroke her hair. I flit my gaze over to Genworth. His eyes blaze with fury, zeroed in on the way I touch her. No father wants to watch his daughter get defiled. “You know,” I say to Genworth. “I’ve spent a long time contemplating this moment. Killing the people responsible for taking my family away from me. I’ve imagined everything from a quick slit of your throat to more creative ways for you to die like carving out each of your organs one by one and feeding them to you until you fucking choke to death on them.”
“Gross,” Hadley mutters.
“I thought about making Dragon wreck your asshole, Putnam,” I growl, pinning him with a hard glare. “This isn’t business.” I mimic his words from the past. “This is personal.”
Dragon makes a salacious gesture of grabbing his dick through his dark jeans. Someone snorts out a laugh from the shadows. Probably Katana.
Putnam doesn’t seem fearful of the prospect of having Dragon sodomize him, just pissed. Well, fuck him. This is my show and he has to stay until the end. He’ll endure whatever fucked up plans I have for him.
“Do you miss him?” I ask Hadley as I point at Putnam.
She turns her head up to look at me, hate shining in her eyes. “No.”
“But you fucked your dead boyfriend’s daddy, didn’t you, Pageant Girl?”
Hadley shakes her head, tears leaking down her pretty, angelic face. A tide of anger begins rising around me, threatening to drown me at any moment.
“Are you lying, sweet girl?”
“I never fucked him.” Her bottom lip wobbles. “He fucked me.”
Putnam howls through the tape when Dragon viciously cuts his ear off. With a roar, he heaves it across the room toward the fire.
“You mean to tell me the rapist pig also raped you?” My words are deceptively calm as I cradle her soft face with my hand that shakes with rage.
“I didn’t want it, Koyn. I was scared.”
Another scream. Another ear.
Good Dragon.
I run my thumb along her wet, tearstained cheek and then bring it to my tongue so I can taste her salty sadness. “What I want to know is why your daddy would allow Putnam to defile you. Was this a part of the trade? Was this business or personal?” I arch a brow at Genworth, who glowers at me. “Did Daddy even know his precious princess was getting tainted by a sick sonofabitch?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpers.
The hateful look on Genworth’s face tells me he knew. Probably fucking okayed it. I’ll deal with him soon. For now, I want to make Putnam suffer.
Dropping my hand from Hadley’s face, I stalk over to Putnam. Dragon offers me his knife, but I use my own. Big. Gnarly. Lethal. I don’t want to kill him…yet. I want him to bleed. I want him to hurt. I want him to fucking cry.
“Hold him,” I bark out. “He’s going to squirm.”
I rip off the tape on his mouth and stick it to the side of the chair before unsheathing my knife. Putnam starts cursing up a storm.
“You can torture me to death, but I will always be the man who fucked your wife in the ass before I stabbed her to death. I’ll always be in your nightmares as you relive me raping your daughter’s tight, virgin, teenage cunt—ahhhh!”
His words are cut off and followed by a scream the moment I grab his scraggly beard and start sawing. I dig the blade into the side of his face near where his ear once was, just deep enough to carve off his skin, taking the beard with it. I slice along his jaw bone, the blade scraping against the hardness of it. As I pull on his beard, lifting the skin, I’m able to slice off his skin, only leaving the meaty muscle in his cheeks visible. Blood gushes all over the fucking place and it’s beautiful. Vengeance is a beautiful color. His screams go silent as he passes out from the pain. I continue my sawing all the way to the other ear hole. Once I have his slab of skin and beard in my grip, I pry open his mouth and shove the messy shit inside. This wakes him up, making him gag and groan. I grab the strip of tape, but my hands are too bloody to make use of it.
“Tape,” I hiss out, nodding at Payne, who hovers nearby, violence gleaming in his eyes. He rips away a long strip of the duct tape and then circles around Putnam’s head, sealing up all the bleeding face wounds and keeping all that skin and hair and shit in his mouth. Dude looks like something straight from a horror movie.
I can hear Hadley gagging from behind me, but I pay her no mind. My focus is on Putnam. On what he did to Ellie and Blaire…and Hadley. He’s a monster. One who needs eliminating.
“I want him to suffer,” I bellow, my words echoing off the walls around us. “I want him to fucking suffer.”
Dragon smirks at me. “I’m not putting my dick inside this piece of shit.”
We share a dark look. Wordlessly, he begins cutting through the tape that holds Putnam to the chair. He’s too weak to fight Dragon. Dragon manhandles Putnam over the side of the chair and starts yanking down his pants. I walk over to where I can see him and squat right in front of him. Putnam’s eyes are wide and pain filled. Stark fear shines in them. It’s so reminiscent of the look on my daughter’s face that I want to scream in victory.
But the war hasn’t been won yet.
“Make him hurt, Dragon.”
Dragon nods and then swiftly swings his fist. The same fist holding his knife. Right into Putnam’s worthless ass. Literally. Putnam squeals like a pig at slaughter—fitting as we’re in the old slaughterhouse. Dragon withdraws the knife and a splat of blood hits the dirty floor. Then, he stabs him again. Right in the fucking asshole. I take pleasure in the way Putnam’s face—what little skin remains—pales and his eyes roll back. He’ll be dead soon. I wish I could make it last longer.
“I think he’s had enough,” I tell Dragon. “I think he’s going into shock. He’s shivering. Put him by the fire to warm him up.”
Dragon’s face curls into a sinister smile. “You got it, Prez.”
He shoves Putnam back into the chair and Payne assists in taping him back down. Blood drips down in rivers from the chair that’s no doubt leaking from his ass. Dragon stuck him like the pig Putnam is. Together, Dragon and Payne carry the chair over to the fire. They sit him halfway in the fire. It’ll take him a bit to burn.
The screams coming from him now are fucking wonderful. I close my eyes and revel in the sounds. I feel vindicated somewhat. I’ll never be able to undo what happened to Ellie and Blaire, but there’s no other way I’d rather see him die. I reopen my eyes, marveling over the way his clothes catch fire. How his head smokes. How he squirms in a desperate attempt to escape despite his life-threatening injuries. The room fucking stinks like burning hair and human flesh, but I don’t care. Hadley wretches over and over again, choking on vomit and tears. I give Bermuda a nod to go check on her. When my eyes meet Genworth’s finally, I don’t see arrogance or fury or coolness.
I see fear.
Total, utter fear.
It’s so fucking addictive, I want to drink it up. Put it in a vial and shoot it into my veins. Light it up and suck it into my soul. Though I’ve dreamed of his death for far less of a time, I feel every bit as desperate to have it. The moment I discovered he was the mastermind behind it all, I wanted to end him in the worst possible way.
“Putnam made me watch as he raped my little girl,” I tell Genworth, though he already knows this. “On your command. You know I’m going to force you to watch what I’m going to do to your girl.”
Genworth’s nostrils flare and then he closes his eyes.
Just like I’d closed mine, unable to watch what Putnam did to Blaire.
“Dragon,” I snarl. “He’s going to watch. He’ll be forced to watch. Payne, hold his head.”
My guys don’t disappoint. Rather than holding his eyes open, Dragon grabs one of Genworth’s eyelids, pulls it away from the eyeball, and carefully cuts off his upper lid. Genworth screams like a little bitch. Where Putnam was used to a rough life, Genworth is a fucking pussy who hides behind money as a thin veil of power. Putnam continues to cook, completely silent now. Genworth, though, is the one bellowing through his tape now. Dragon makes quick work of removing Genworth’s other eyelid.
He looks creepy as fuck with no eyelids and blood running down his cheeks.
Creepy, but I still let loose a dark, satisfied laugh.
“Hadley, come here,” I growl out, holding my hand out toward her.
Bermuda gives her a pat on the back before urging her to walk toward me. She seems so tiny in my huge hoodie. Her dark hair is messy and wild. The poor girl is white as a fucking sheet like she might pass out at any moment. Which means she’s really not going to like this.
“Get on your knees, little princess. Show your daddy who you worship now.”
Genworth yells through his tape. I ignore him.
She sways as she starts to get on her knees. I reach out, gripping her shoulders, and steady her. Then, I guide her down to her knees. Her hands are shaky and weak. I save her the efforts and unbutton my jeans. Once the fly is unzipped, I run my bloody fingers through her hair.
“Suck, PG.”
She looks up at me with teary eyes. I expect to hear her beg me to let her rest or escape or something. Her eyes plead with me to keep her. To fucking love her. Before I can decide what I want to do, her plump, dry lips wrap around my dick. Genworth throwing a fucking fit makes it all worth it. I’d originally wanted to fuck her right in front of him, but then I decided I didn’t want that. I didn’t want them all to see. Even villains have fucking standards.
I groan when her tongue rubs against the underside of my dick. My fingers fist in her hair. Our eyes meet. Without words, I warn her. Her fingernails dig into my jeans, bracing herself. I let out a pleased grunt as I skullfuck her. I shove my dick in her little mouth, past the sharp sting of her teeth, and down her wet, tight throat. My girl gags and sobs, but she takes my dick like it’s her goddamn job. She chokes and I feel hot vomit rush up her throat around my dick and damned if it doesn’t feel fucking good. Quickly, I pull out, letting her deal with her situation. Despite the vomit running down her chin, she grabs my dick and strokes me.
Good girl.
Good fucking girl.
I’m going to come all over her pretty, ruined face. Mark her in front of her daddy. Show him who she belongs to now.
“Beg for it, baby girl.”
“Please,” she whimpers.
“You want me to make you messy, hmm? You want me to make you mine?”
She nods, stroking me harder. “I want to be yours… Daddy .”
My nuts seize up and cum jets all over her face. This girl is going to need a long, hot shower if she makes it out of here alive. Thoughts of her naked in the shower as I wash away every dirty part on her has my chest tightening in response.
I want to keep her.
As soon as my dick stops twitching with my release, I pull away from Hadley. She doesn’t wipe away the mess that’s on her face. Simply stares up at me with a hopeful expression. One that pleads for me to protect her and love her.
“Look, Genworth,” I taunt as I put my dick away. “Your little girl chooses me over you. Why the fuck would the little princess want to be my little whore?” I nod at Filter. “Take his tape off.”
Seconds later, Genworth is yelling at me.
“YOU MOTHERFUCKER! SHE’S MINE!”
I arch a brow at him. “Wasn’t your cock she was sucking, now, was it?”
The yelp that comes from Hadley is one that cuts right down to the bone. I jerk my head to look at her. My words physically pained her. Her entire body trembles with fear. Not of me. Of him. She buries her face against my shirt, hugging me around my waist from her position on her knees. I can’t help but caress her hair with my sticky, bloody fingers.
“Stand up, Hadley,” I say so soft only she can hear.
She trembles as she rises, weak and ruined. I hug her to my chest, ignoring Genworth’s ranting. My mouth finds her ear.
“Your daddy hurt you?”
A sharp nod.
“Your daddy fuck you?”
A sob.
“You didn’t want that, did you?”
A shake of her head.
These words are just for us. Not my guys. Not Genworth. Not the dead ass motherfucker cooking in the fire. Just us.
“We can’t let him live, can we? Not after what he did to my girls. All of you.”
She sags against me. “W-We c-can’t.”
“Do you want to hurt him?”
“Yes,” she breathes.
“Dragon,” I bark out. “Bring me your knife.”
Dragon, eyes glittering with interest, hands over his blade. I put it in Hadley’s hand. Gripping her jaw that’s smeared with vomit and cum, I admire her face. Her brown eyes no longer stream with tears. No, they are bright with hate and violence.
“You’re so fucking blind,” Genworth bellows. “Can’t even see the big picture. You’ve lost your game, old man. You’re not on top of shit like you used to be. I am where I am because I figured out how to play this game. You’re nothing but a loser.”
“Keep fucking talking,” I warn.
Genworth sneers. “You have a rat in your ranks. One I easily discovered while you had your thumb up your ass.”
I tense and dart my eyes to Filter. His expression is unreadable. When Genworth glances at Dragon in a knowing way, I bristle. Not Dragon. Dragon simply smiles—dark, evil, taunting. He’s the villain you read about in all the books growing up. He’s a dragon, not a rat, though.
“While it’s been fun playing Clue,” I mutter, “I’m not in the mood for games. I’m in the mood for torture and pain. Make him suffer, baby girl.”
She pulls away, wobbling slightly, and then walks over to him. A hush falls over the room as she stands there, staring, like something right out of a horror movie with her knife in hand at her side.
“Hadley, sweetheart—” Genworth starts.
His words are cut off when she slices his cheek. He yelps and then starts moving his mouth a mile a minute, pleading for her mercy. Begging. Making every promise in the book.
“It was an accident,” he sobs when she slices along his throat, but not deep enough to nick a good vein. “You have to believe me. I was sad about your mother. You look just like her. Then—”
She stabs him right in the mouth, the small blade piercing his tongue. Blood sprays out, dirtying up my girl even more. With a shriek, she yanks the blade out, sending a hunk of his tongue flying.
Everyone remains still as we watch Hadley go fucking crazy. The knife is small enough that she probably won’t hit anything that’ll kill him—just everything that will hurt. I lose count after fifty stabs of the knife. Chest. Face. Shoulders. Neck. Stomach. Thighs. Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Pride surges through me as she mutilates his cock through his slacks, punishing him for using it against her. He’s a bloody mess, groaning and begging for his daughter to stop. I think she’d keep going if she had the energy, but she stumbles over to the mattress and falls into a heap.
I walk over to Genworth, admiring her work. I know it hurts like a bitch.
“Take his balls,” I tell Dragon, tossing him my knife. “Make him fucking eat them.”
While Dragon takes evil delight in cutting off Genworth’s pants, I kneel down beside Hadley. I turn her body so she can watch what Dragon does to her father. Lying down, I curl up against her, pulling her to my chest so I can keep her safe and make her feel protected.
Dragon manages to grab hold of Genworth’s balls and saws right through the thin, sensitive flesh that holds them onto his body. Hadley gags again as Dragon starts shoving the bloody, hunk of hairy balls into Genworth’s mouth. He uses the butt of my knife to cram the shit down his throat. Before he can throw them back up, Payne is there, taping his mouth shut much like he did Putnam.
I watch as my men take turns fucking with Genworth. Stabbing. Kicking. Taunting. Torturing. As much as I’d love to make him suffer more at my own hand, I much prefer what my hand has chosen to do. It splays over Hadley’s bare stomach beneath the hoodie in a protective, possessive way.
Mine.
She’s mine.
She and our baby.
Nothing can change that. Not anymore.
Dragon and Filter this time drag the chair of the near dead Genworth over to the fire. Putnam is charred and smoking. They place Genworth right beside him so he can burn alive for whatever moments remain in his ridiculous life. As he dies, a peace washes over me.
Fucking finally.
And then all hell breaks loose when Stormy bursts into the slaughterhouse.
“FBI! Nobody move!”