9. Monster
Chapter nine
Monster
Moni
I stepped around the target, and my breath caught in my throat.
Nooooooo!
My legs buckled and I fell to my knees.
There, bound to the back of the wooden plank, was a man. His body was limp, his head hanging low. His face was pale, lifeless, and his mouth was tied with a gag, but even with the gag, I could see the shape of his lips—frozen in a scream he never got to make.
No. No. No.
Blood oozed from the bullet hole in his forehead, pooling around his neck, staining the ropes that bound him to the target.
My vision blurred as tears poured down my face.
Fast, I got up from the ground and stumbled back. “No. They were already dead.”
“They were very much alive when we walked up to this gun range.”
“No, Leo.”
“They were bound to those targets waiting for you.”
Bile rising in my throat. “I didn’t know. I didn’t. . .”
“It doesn’t matter. You still killed them.”
More tears left my eyes. “I-I didn’t do that.”
Leo stepped beside me his voice soft but filled with something cold. “Go see the others.”
“No,” I choked out. “I don’t want to.”
He grabbed my arm and tightened his grip. “We must.”
“Stop, Leo.” I shoved him away but that didn’t help. “I’m done with this.”
“There is no done with the Four Aces, only death.”
“I don’t like this game!”
He didn’t let go of my arm. His grip tightened even more and he dragged me toward the next target.
“Stop it!” My feet stumbled over the rocky ground as I tried to resist.
“Look at what you did, Monique.”
We reached the second target, and there bound in the same way, was another man. His body was slumped against the wood. Blood dripped from the bullet hole in his head.
He was dressed in blue.
Tiffany blue.
“You’re a killer, Monique.” Leo’s voice was smooth and even fucking proud. “You killed them all. Fast.”
“N-no,” I stammered, shaking my head in disbelief. “I’m not. I didn’t know—”
“As I said before, it doesn’t matter.” Leo’s voice hardened. “Look at what you’ve done. You are a cold-blooded murderer. Breathe it in.”
“I am not breathing in shit!” I snatched my arm away from his hand and stumbled back. “I know who I am—”
“You’re my daughter in blood now.”
“I-I’m not.”
“You are.”
I gazed down at my shaking hands. “I didn’t know so. . .that means nothing. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew—”
“But you saw the blood—”
“I wasn’t sure—”
“There was a point where you were sure that it was blood—”
“No.”
“By the sixth or seventh target, I could see the realization hitting your mind yet you kept on shooting—”
“I thought it might have been an illusion or—”
“Oh no, you knew what you were doing, but you also knew that Lei and your sisters needed you more, so you killed them for love—”
“I didn’t!” I lifted my view and glared at me. “I see what you’re trying to do, but it won’t happen.”
“It will—”
“I am not a killer, you can do and say what you want but I will never be a killer!” I took another step back and pointed at him. “If you want that from me then you would have to kill me.”
Leo leaned his head to the side. “Is that what you want?”
I took another step back.
“My dear daughter, I don’t want to but if you don’t do what is necessary tonight then. . .I will.” And just like that fast a blade whipped into his hand and he raised it up between us.
The moonlight gleamed on it.
“I would make your death quick of course.” Leo nodded. “As painless as possible, because. . .if you don’t fit my plans then. . .”
I blinked away tears. “Leo. . .there has to be another way than making me a killer. I can maneuver and solve situations without having to pick up a gun and pull a trigger—”
“You will have to do just that many, many times.” He looked at the blade. “But let’s return to the hypothetical. If I have to kill you then that means I need a new Mountain Mistress.”
I gazed at the ground.
“Which means that Lotus Blossom would have to be vacant again. And your sisters well. . .there’s no need for them to be alive if they’re not a part of my plan.”
I snapped my view back to him. “Don’t you threaten my sisters!”
“TT is brilliant, sweet, and kind, but I would kill her, if you don’t do what is expected tonight.” He sighed. “Can you see it? Me kneeling in front of little TT and taking out my blade. The surprise on her innocent face and then the inevitable sadness as I slice away at her soft flesh.”
You son of a bitch.
The world slipped away from me and my vision narrowed as this monstrous sensation rose inside of me like a tidal wave.
Fierce and unstoppable.
Every nerve in my body hummed with fury.
My blood boiled beneath my skin.
It wasn’t fear anymore.
No, this was something far darker, something I had never felt before.
This was brutal rage.
Pure, unfiltered, primal fucking rage.
Leo stood there, blade gleaming in the moonlight, so calm and collected, as if he hadn’t just threatened to slaughter the people I loved most.
As if he hadn’t turned my world upside down with a smile on his face.
His words echoed in my mind, and with each passing second, they fueled the fire inside me, stoking the embers into a blazing inferno.
He nodded. “I would do it. Kill you. Kill her, Chloe, and Jo. Could you imagine what Lei would go through? The heartbreak. The insanity that he would descend into. What would happen to Banks and everyone else? Their lives would be shattered. Can you consider the darkness that would settle on Paradise City after that?”
The image flashed before my eyes—Leo standing over my sister, his blade slicing through TT’s skin, blood pouring from her as he smiled.
That smile.
That damn smile.
It burned itself into my brain, and suddenly, I wasn’t just angry.
I wasn’t just scared.
I wanted to kill him!
Like me.
Only me.
No one else.
It had to be my hand.
The thought surged through me and it wasn’t just a passing thought.
It was a need .
A hunger.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to take a life.
Leo’s life!
I wanted him to bleed for what he had done with this fucking target game and for the threat he had dared.
“You would kill her?” My voice was low, shaking with barely contained fury. I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. “You would kill my sisters?”
“I would, If that’s what it takes.”
I broke apart.
I wasn’t Monique anymore, not the same woman who had hesitated, who had refused to let herself be consumed by the darkness.
That Monique was gone.
She had been swallowed by the monster that now clawed its way to the surface, desperate to protect the ones I loved.
The guns had been taken from me and Leo was lucky for that.
Perhaps, Song had anticipated it.
Surely, I would have fucking used them on him. I could see myself pointing at Leo’s head and pulling the trigger over and over.
“What are you thinking about, Monique?”
“That I want to kill you.” The words came out before I could stop them. They felt foreign on my tongue, like they belonged to someone else. But they were mine. They were true. I wanted him dead. I needed him dead.
A dark chuckle left him. “There it is.”
I stilled.
“Now the killer inside you is speaking.” He let out a sigh and grinned. “I’ve been waiting for her to show herself. Welcome, my little monster.”
I could barely hear him over the roar of blood in my ears.
Everything else fell away—Song, the targets, the dead men.
None of it mattered anymore.
All I could see was Leo, standing there with that smug, arrogant look on his face, as if he knew he had won.
As if he thought he had control over me.
But he didn’t.
Not anymore.
My hands shook, not from fear, but from the need to act.
The need to strike.
I wasn’t thinking.
I was barely breathing.
All I could focus on was the image of Leo’s blood spilling from him, soaking the ground, just like those men I had unknowingly shot.
I wanted to make him suffer.
I wanted him to pay.
The rage inside me surged, hot and all-consuming, and for the first time, I embraced it. I let it wash over me, filling every inch of my being.
I didn’t fight it anymore.
I didn’t try to hold onto the person I had been.
Because that person couldn’t protect my sisters.
That person couldn’t survive in this world.
But the monster I was becoming?
She could.
In fact. . .she would!
Completely out of it, I lunged at Leo before I even realized what I was doing. My body moved on instinct, driven by the fury and the raw need to end him.
Leo’s eyes widened in surprise—he hadn’t expected me to act so fast—but his reflexes were sharp.
He swung the blade toward me but I was quicker.
Screaming, I grabbed his wrist, twisting it hard, using the force of my rage to fuel me.
His grip faltered and the knife clattered to the ground.
For a split second, his eyes met mine and I saw something there I hadn’t seen before.
Fear.
He tried to push me back, I was relentless. I slammed my knee into his crotch, knocking the wind out of him, and he stumbled, gasping for air.
Great fighter or not, he was a man with a cock that could always be used against him.
The blade lay between us, glinting in the moonlight like some dark promise. I knew what I had to do.
Quick, I reached for it and my fingers closed around the hilt.
It felt right in my hand, as if it had always belonged to me.
As if this moment had always been inevitable.
Leo saw the knife, and for the first time, his confidence wavered.
And then Leo stood and laughed. “Very, very good, little monster.”
“I’m going to kill you.” I swung the blade.
Leo easily dodged it. “You’re in shock. This happens when you’ve been put under this much stress with no sleep and—”
I tried to slice at him again but he simply caught my wrist and twisted it in a way that my fingers opened without my doing it.
The blade fell from my hands.
He caught it and laughed again. “Wow. Bravo.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re much faster than I realized, not with shooting but with attack.” He let go of my hand. “I wish I had the time to teach you how to properly fight. It might take a few years, but if you worked hard at it every day—”
“Don’t you ever threaten my sisters.”
“Then, do what you need to do tonight.”
I glared at him. “And what’s that?”
“Kill again.”
I closed my eyes.
“You must, little monster.”
“Leo, everything isn’t always about death—”
“It is in this world, you have an army but not all of them will follow you so we must make that part right before I die. All will have to be loyal if they will serve you. And overall. . .they must fear you, starting tonight. You must show them that you are a monster.”
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“My daughter’s army is here on this mountain and you will meet them soon.”
I gritted my teeth.
“When you meet them. . .by yourself. . .some will think they have a great opportunity to kill you but you will show them that this isn’t the case and it will never be the case. Because you are a monster.”
“So it will be another fucking lesson.”
“Oh no, Monique. The lessons are done. Now this is the test .” He tilted his head to the side. “Are you ready to pass?”
The question hung in the air between us.
It was a cruel challenge, shadowed under the moonlight.
As if I answered, he nodded. “Then, let’s go. Unless you want to see your other victims behind the targets.”
“They’re not my victims. They are yours.”
Chuckling, he walked off.