7. Rook
The metallic smellof blood filled my nose as it splattered across my cheek and neck. Pain surged from my knuckles, up my wrist and arm, but the sickening, gurgling noise filling the air made it worth enduring. I shook it out, a low snarl issuing from my throat. “Motherfucking hard-headed asshole.”
Sadness and anger surged inside me, begging me to unleash its power. Douglass was dead. The desperation and despair of my feelings, choking and overwhelming, had driven me to extremes: I needed an outlet and the man before me was the perfect solution.
Sweat spots tainted his once crisp button-up shirt, and body odor permeated the air. Pale skin swelling and bruised, a deep blue and black. Dark, shadowed eyes filled with death.
Douglass was dead.I clenched my teeth and kept going, tears streaming down my face as I struck Garrett again and again. Not letting up. Instead, my blows became faster, harder, and more powerful as I unleashed my fury. He’d lied to me. Him. The man I trusted.
“Please, Ro…” The gurgling sound intensified, and the satisfaction of my fist hitting flesh unlocked primal rage inside me.
Release.
Over and over. The veneer of my own civility shattered. All control lost. The savage wolf inside me unleashed.
Again and again and again until finally, my rage began to wane.
I stepped back, breathing heavily. My knuckles ached and I loosened my clenched fist, staring at him in disgust.
His face was a bloody mess. Rope kept him from slithering to the floor like the snake that he was. He was still alive, but barely.
“Pleaachsh. ” Broken teeth revealed in the rasp of his slurred words. Bits of enamel, combined with saliva and blood stained his shirt. “Have to…have to belishhh m…”
“That’s your problem, Garrett. I don’t believe you. It hasn’t sunk in—I already know the truth.” I held out his phone, though it was doubtful he could see the screen through his swollen eyes. “You thought that I wouldn’t find out?” On it, I’d found his texts with Summer, along with nudes she’d sent him.
How dare he fucking see her like that.
My lip curled upward in revulsion. Revulsion not just for him, but also myself—those pictures stirred feelings I shouldn’t have.
Feelings that went against my oath to Douglass.
Feelings that I tried to bury deep inside.
I needed to focus.
I hit Garrett again, now numbed to the pain, the crunching sound from his nose a satisfying pop. ”You understood the assignment. You signed my contract.” Again. ”And yet, you thought you could betray me. I brought you in, and you lied to my face.”
For years, I’d been trying to discover who’d killed my grandmother. Brought men like Garrett to infiltrate the Veritas.
And the truth—that Douglass had known all along. That he’d kept it from me…
”I told you,” he choked out, his voice now muffled by his broken nose, “I couldn”t stop it. They were going?—”
“Shut your fucking face!” I roared. “You made your choice!”
The air filled with the smell of sweat and piss and desperation. ”Pleaachsh,” he was sobbing now, blood running from his nose and onto the concrete flooring. “I can play a double. I’ll spy on them. I ca?—”
“You’re worthless to me. God, you’re disgusting. You have nothing I want.”
“Please then. Tell—tell me. Tell me what to do.”
“Now you want my advice?” I wiped the sweat from my brow. All emotions were drained, leaving only emptiness inside. I’d poured my rage into him. Now, all that was left was payment in pound of flesh. “It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“What do you want from me? Anything. I’ll tell you anything.”
“What do they want from Summer?” The image of her luscious body, her beautiful shaped tits, flashed before my mind, making my dick hard. I smashed the phone to the ground, desperately trying to dispel my dirty thoughts. “They had you reach out to her. Why?” I growled through gritted teeth.
“If I tell you, will you—will you spare me?”
“Spare you for what?” I spread my arms out at the six thousand square footage around me. Pale, wooden bones of framing. Rolls of thick padding and carpet stacked against the wall. Signs of a man with hopes and dreams, of pride and ego, a thirst for something that would never come without a price. ”You think the Magnolia would let you keep all this?”
His lips parted, his eyes already beginning to glaze over. “But I thought… they told me… I was….”
Understanding dawned.
I hunched, resting my hands on my knees to stare at him in astonishment. ”You didn”t realize Scarlett was manipulating you?” A rolling chuckle filled my chest and throat. “Even after everything I taught you? She’s the Veritas’ femme fatale. The woman’s supposed to seduce you, that’s literally her job. I told you to watch out for her.”
His eyes fluttered close. A low and desperate moan from a throat marked for demise. ”I didn”t want to believe it.”
”You should”ve trusted me. Come to me once she approached you.”
His shoulders shook, his low sobs filling the air as he slouched against the rope. His hair flopped over pain-filled eyes. Words came out a strangled sob. “Willchu…let…let me go?”
”Do you want me to?”
He didn”t answer for a long time, eventually his choking sobs grew softer, until finally, he shook his head. ”No.” His head tilted upward, his voice low and filled with regret. ”It would be faster. This way. Wouldn”t it?”
He was finally getting it. Either I killed him, or the Veritas would—slowly.
Though, I wasn’t going to give them the chance.
He had nudes of her—no one should see her like that. A possessiveness I’d never felt before roared to life. The asshole deserved to die by my hand.
I met his eyes, my own hardening gaze the only response he needed.
”I thought…so.” His eyes wandered towards the construction in the room that he would never see fulfilled. Even now, he was still dreaming of the what if”s. Still wishing for a different outcome. He’d believed her.
“Tell me,” I asked. “Do you think they’ll bury your body in this basement? Your bones would be here for eternity.”
“No,” he groaned, “you do it.”
“Then tell me what I want to know,” I demanded.
“You already know.”
“I need to hear it.”
He sighed, defeated. “They want what they always want.”
“Which is what? I need specifics.”
“Secrets. Her money and blood. Future children. Anything they can take from her.”
“Specifics,” I hissed, pulling his hair back to force him to meet my probing gaze.
His eyes glinted, his voice suddenly clear. “Revenge. For Douglass getting out. For taking her from them when she was little.” The black under his eyes shadowed his expression. “They never forgave him for escaping the Magnolia, and they want her back in. Her blood alone assures them wealth and power. Do you know what people would pay for that?”
“Those people are idiots. It’s just blood, nothing special.” At least, to them, she wasn’t.
“Not to Vashti. Duvall blood would increase the power of the witch’s spells a thousand-fold.”
“You sound like you believe all that bullshit.”
His eyes slid away from me, staring at the floor. ”You think I”m greedy.”
”I know you are. Otherwise we wouldn”t be in this situation.”
“But she said?—”
“Scarlett Ravenna belongs to the Veritas, and she took you down as easily as squashing a bug. Scarlett isn’t even her real name.”
“But…”
“Idiot,” I scoffed. “Scarlett O’Hara?”
His silence was telling.
“Scarlett doesn’t fucking love you; she doesn’t love anyone—she isn’t capable of the emotion.”
“She said I was different.”
“If you believed her, you’re not only greedy, but a fool.” I shook my head, pulling my gun from its holster. “And your kid? Do you even care what happens to Jenny?” If I’d have known about the three-year-old from the beginning, I wouldn’t have approached him.
“You found out about her? But I—I.”
“Jenny is the only business we have left at this point.”
A shoulder came up. ”She”s better off without me.”
”That wasn”t my question.” I cocked my gun, “Guess there’s nothing left to talk about.”
“Wait, what if I—” He twisted, his chair squealing in a desperate attempt to get closer to me. “I have information,” he licked his lips, “You asked me about Saul. I know when he meets his mistress. His favorite.”
“You told me there was nothing else.” I crooked an eyebrow upward. “Lying won’t change this.”
“I swear. Every Friday night, he meets her at Ironwood Manor. They have a standing appointment.”
“You expect me to believe that? After everything?”
I’d been able to discover little about Saul since Douglass’ revelation, but one thing was for certain—Saul was paranoid.
As Archon—second in command—of the Magnolia chapter, Saul kept round the clock bodyguard service and had a secret and spontaneous schedule.
I”d so far been unable to discover the location of his main home.
The only time you knew when and where he would be was at Magnolia councils—where he was never alone.
“Why would he do something so predictable?”
“I have no idea,” Garrett said, “but trust me, I met him there once. Scarlett may have manipulated me, but I got that—at least—from her.”
“I told you, I said, thinking of the text messages. The pictures of Summer. His fate was fucking sealed, as far as I was concerned. I pointed my gun. “I don’t trust you, Garrett.”
“Rook! Tell her?—“
The bullet entered his forehead, the quiet storm of my revulsion making me impatient. His last words were meant for Scarlett, not Jenny. He didn”t give a shit about his own kid.
I’d been the one to protect her, not him, transporting her and her mother to a safe home three nights ago.
The man still didn”t understand that he was just a tool to Scarlett. To The Veritas.
We all were.
‘AMAT BAMN was their weapon of choice—any method a tool, by any means necessary.
They would do and use anything to get what they wanted, and wouldn’t blink at the depravity of it.
And now that Douglass was dead, their sights were on Summer—and I had to protect her from that.
The fact that Garrett had managed to manipulate Summer into sending nudes…it was a punch of reality to my gut. Both Douglass and I were unaware of how deep they’d already sunk their claws into her.
And, as I focused on my own task—on my revenge—my mind kept going to her. Her silent fortitude at the grave. Her fierceness in the garden—those pictures.
The moment I saw them, I’d had one burning desire: to see her filthy and degraded, on her knees, begging me for my cock.
And I despised myself for it.
Forcing myself through the motions until an hour later, nearly silent footsteps approached behind me.
”Took you long enough.” I didn’t turn around, though I itched to point my gun at him. But they wouldn’t kill me, not yet. I was too well protected. Something else Douglass had taught me how to do.
There was a pregnant pause as Tucker took in the sight, his expensive cologne divulging his identity. ”You found out.”
”Of course I did.”
”How did you know they would send me?”
”I knew you”d volunteer.”
Tucker and I had somewhat of a competition going. The Veritas had a secret list of things they wanted done. You earned credit with them by discovering what—or who—they wanted done, then taking care of the jobs before they had to lift a finger.
I usually dealt in secrets, the Veritas’ main trade, but Tucker took on anything.
I knew he would be eager to fulfill this one.
He appeared by my shoulder, staring down in regret. “I suppose you”ll expect me to report this to Emerson.”
”I wouldn”t have waited otherwise.” The body was already rolled up in thick, waterproof canvas, tied with rope. I would let them deal with the disposal. “If it helps, you can take the credit.”
“You know I won’t.” Tucker”s eyes widened as I stood from the chair that Garrett had once occupied, noting my satisfied look. “You wanted them to know you’d killed him?”
I didn”t answer, the silence between us palpable.
He finally broke it. “You won”t mind if I verify the kill?”
”Go ahead.”
Tucker knelt down, pulling aside the brown skin of the canvas, the large bullet wound in his forehead ugly and black.
“His phone?”
“Why ask stupid questions, Tucker?” I’d already destroyed the phone, and with it, the pictures of Summer. I would also check his home to make sure there were no copies. No one was ever going to find those.
”Why didn”t you hide the body?” Tucker asked again, trying to figure me out. Probably so he could run off to Emerson to tell him. “They might never have known you found out he was using the girl.”
”Because I want them to know that I”m always one step ahead,” I hissed.
“Don’t tell me…” Tucker jerked upwards, twisting, stumbling towards me in astonishment. ”You don”t have the mark?”
My lips twisted in a sneer, my eyes lowering to his chest where I was now certain the OG insignia, along with a magnolia flower, was burned into his skin.
Once the Magnolia owned you, they branded you like cattle.
And they owned almost everyone. Even Douglass had the mark.
”Is that so surprising?”
”Yes.”
I stepped forward, meeting his gaze with hard eyes. Revulsion and nausea thickened my voice in a rare show of anger. ”I will never be branded. Do you understand?”
His nostrils flared, his hand gripping my arm. ”How is it possible that you”ve gotten this far without it?”
”Because,” I looked away, now not wanting him to see the pain filling my gaze, the wrenching agony in my chest. The last man I ever admired was now gone. Once again, the one person I loved, dead. ”I never needed it.”
”Douglass.” He didn”t need me to explain it.
”Yes.” I conceded, then straightened, turning away.
Tucker didn”t need to know how Douglass had saved me.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” He raised his voice after my retreating form. When I didn’t answer, he continued, “You know they won”t let them have it.” He was talking about Summer and Callie’s inheritance. “They’ll find a way to take what they want.”
“Not if I can help it.” I’d seen Douglass’ will—it was water tight.
“They’ll breed them.”
I swiveled, marching back towards him. Gripping his shirt and tie, I shook him. “I will do anything to stop that, you understand me? Anything.”
He nodded, his eyes wide. He got my meaning.
I may have revealed too much, but I didn’t give a shit.
The line had already been drawn—even with Douglass’ death, the battle wasn’t over.
Time to wage a war.