Chapter 22 Theo
THEO
KING, LACHLAN, AND Alessio were gone with Ari before the cops arrived on the scene, with Shep and I following after. The disaster of a gala was over before it began, and Lucien and Benoit took up the task of handling things while the rest of us went to Libertine.
To our underground hideaway.
To the last place Ari would ever see.
The place he would take his final breath.
Uneven stone walls, raw and jagged, surrounded us on all sides, moody shadows covering half the vast space as Shep, King, and I stood surrounding the man tied to the lone chair in the room.
There was a predatory stillness, the clock ticking down Ari’s last heartbeats.
Pure rage still flowed through my veins, and it was all I could do to stand there while Alessio and Lachlan bolted the door shut behind us and then stood guard.
Leaving the three of us with a reason to draw blood waiting for who would make the first move.
I flexed my fingers at my side before balling them back into a fist as I studied the man who had to tried to take everything from me. From Shep. From King. All of us. He’d almost succeeded more than once, and that was too many close calls for me.
Deep cuts from Alessio’s fist marred one side of Ari’s face, and his nose was definitely broken. Blood had stopped pouring out of it, but had dried down his mouth and chin.
Still he looked straight ahead defiantly, not acknowledging any of us.
King arched a brow at us in question, and Shep and I gave curt nods for him to go ahead. Let King start this shit off, because I was going to be the one to finish it.
“I’ll give you this. You play a long game.” King’s voice was deadly calm as he stepped forward, looking down his nose at Ari. Had I been on the other side of his interrogation, that would’ve scared me more than anything. That “calm” was a smokescreen.
Ari didn’t say a word to that, and it wasn’t because his jaw was broken. Alessio had been pulled off him just in time, so the guy was beaten and bruised, but he could still give us the answers we wanted.
“Now’s the time to say your piece. You’ve waited years for the chance.” King spread his hands wide, offering him the floor, and Ari scoffed.
“Why don’t you just shoot me in the head and get it over with? That’s your MO, right? Shoot first, don’t bother with the questions.” He shook his head in disgust and spat on the floor by King’s polished shoes.
“He was your brother,” Shep spoke up, sounding more levelheaded than I could even fathom after being shot at. But that was Shep’s superpower, his unwavering control. The icier he got, the more terrifying he was. “Any of us would’ve done the same thing. Your only downfall was in underestimating us.”
Ari’s eyes shifted past King to narrow on Shep. “Hardly. I played you and lover boy there like a fiddle. Add in a jealous King and every single one of you walked right into my trap.”
I cocked my head, running my eyes over the pathetic bastard. “Says the asshole tied to the chair.”
Ari then turned his attention to me, his number one. “How are your ribs feeling, Prince Rinaldi? I heard they made a satisfying cracking sound that echoed through the jung—”
Shep’s fist connected with his jaw, resulting in a similar sound as Ari’s head snapped to the side at an ugly angle, blood flying from his mouth.
For someone who’d lost as much blood as Shep had, he showed no signs of faltering.
His anger fueled his drive to be there and bring this fucker to the ending he deserved.
Ari rotated his jaw from side to side as if testing it wasn’t broken, as Shep leaned down to say by his ear, “Give me a reason to punch it off its hinges, fucker.”
The dumb shit then angled his head to face Shep, his eyes wild as he faced off with King’s number two—and his own choice of number two.
“You know, you and King were the easiest to predict out of the lot of you,” Ari sneered, seeming to delight in his own downfall at this stage. “The fact you started fucking my number one target in bringing you assholes down was just icing on the cake.”
He barely got the word cake out of his mouth before Shep was once again planting his fist in the corner of it.
Once for Wales.
Twice for the jungle.
And a third time, I was assuming, for Ari’s bullet grazing his arm.
That was when King stepped in to pull Shep back, because there was no way in hell I was about to stop him.
“This could’ve ended so differently,” King said, shaking his head. “You obviously have skills that could be put to better use. You could’ve been an asset—”
“If you weren’t a fucking psycho who wanted us dead,” I said as Ari spat blood out the corner of his mouth.
“Watching some asshole shoot your brother in cold blood will do that to you.”
“He was stealing from us,” King said in a tone so cold I was shocked icicles didn’t form from the ceiling. “He threatened to expose Libertine—”
“You.”
“—to the world. I couldn’t let that happen. Not with everything we do. The people involved. You knew that and so did he. That’s clear on that video. He knew you were both compromised, but you kept pushing.”
“So it’s my fault you put a bullet through his head?”
“It’s your fault you put him in that position.” King’s eyes narrowed as he straightened his shoulders. “I take full responsibility for the life I took.”
Ari scoffed again, but it was more like a gurgle at this stage. “That’s just like you lot. Shoot first, deal with the consequences later, right, Shep? We wouldn’t want America to discover their golden boy isn’t so golden now, would we? What would they all think?”
“That he’s a fucking hero.” I gave a feral grin, moving up beside Shep. “I watched him blow your merc’s head off. Nothing was hotter, or more heroic. Maybe I’ll have him do the same to you.”
“Just give me the gun,” Shep growled, but King held his hand up.
“We never shoot first and deal later, or this conversation wouldn’t be happening,” King explained. “But I’m trying to understand why. Why play such a long, drawn-out game? Why not just come for me? I’m the one you want.”
“To suffer,” Ari gritted out. “I wanted you to feel the guilt of your brothers dying under your watch. Feel the pain of being so fucking wrong in how you judged them. Then it would be your turn.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, aren’t you in for a world of disappointment?”
“You fractured,” Ari said, shifting on his chair. “I saw them all scrambling to find you. Hell, Alessio is one encrypted code from short-circuiting his motherboard. That might be one of my finest legacies. Fucked him just hard enough to prove how useless he is.”
King grabbed a fistful of Ari’s hair and yanked his head back until the chair teetered on its hind legs. “He caught you, didn’t he?”
Ari’s lips curved into a sinister smile. “After a kidnapping and a shooting. That cloud has swallowed him whole. Killing me won’t change that.”
“But it sure is gonna feel good.” I moved in front of Ari’s seat and put a foot between his legs, slamming it back on all fours.
“Theo.” Shep moved in beside me, and I could hear the question in his voice: Are you sure about this?
But the answer had never been clearer. This motherfucker was mine.
He’d not only gone after my reputation and threatened my life, he’d shot Shep and planned to kill every single person I cared about.
There was no way I was letting anyone take this from me.
“Don’t tell me the prince is about to become the executioner,” Ari jeered, but little did he know who he was fucking with. I wasn’t known as the merciless, chaotic King for my cool, calm demeanor, and it was time to show Ari that.
“Unlike you,” I said, removing my cuff links—I slipped one into my pocket but kept the other one, with my initials, in my palm—“I don’t send others to do my dirty work.”
Ari’s smirk told me he didn’t believe me, but he would soon enough.
“Sure. That’s why Lachlan’s standing outside. Don’t forget, I know how you all work. Go get your guard dog, and let’s get this over with.”
I chuckled, the hollow, menacing sound foreign even to my own ears, as I began to roll my sleeves up. This fucker had no idea what was about to happen to him, but I did, and so did the two men beside me.
That was when King looked over at Shep, who gave a clipped nod.
“You got this, Theo?” King said as the two of them took a step back, but my eyes were locked in on the target, now eyeing me with a lot more trepidation than he had seconds ago.
Then I took hold of the small silver toggle of the cuff link and pulled until a long piece of wire stretched between my hands.
As I wound the ends nice and tight and the wire pulled taut, I heard the door to the room open and then slam shut behind me, leaving me locked inside with the man who’d tried to kill me.