29. Margaux
MARGAUX
“ W hat will you do with the bodies?”
Ronan got into the driver's seat and turned my way.
“They’ll be gone before anyone notices.”
I didn’t want to know. Or maybe I did. The groan in the back of the SUV was a distraction though. Both men were tied up with zip ties. My uncle hadn’t even come around yet, and the blood pooling around his head made me wonder if he would.
Barone though?
“Oh good. Daddy Dom’s awake. Ronnie, your dad’s up again,” Jett said, going back to sitting in his seat like nothing odd was going on.
“Knox, call my brother Maddox. Tell him to meet us at the compound. He’s about to become the head of the family,” Ronan said.
If I’d thought Jett and Talon never shut up, I was wrong. And the silence in the car sent my heart to my throat.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Ronan met my gaze in the review mirror for a second.
“It means Maddox helped me set all this up. We baited Angelino Barone and your uncle. Maddox will become the head of the family, and we get what we want,” Ronan said.
I swallowed and grabbed for Jett and Talon’s hands.
“What is that? What is it you want?”
There was no hesitation. They all seemed to share one mind as they answered.
“You.”
My heart fluttered in my chest, and it made me gasp for a breath.
“Me? You destroyed your family for me?”
The muffled cries in the back filled the strange calm of the car.
“He destroyed the family when he went after you.”
Ronan’s voice was flat, and no one else said anything.
Me? When was I ever worth anything?
“Princess, I can tell what you’re thinking. But remember this. You walked into our lives and somehow fit the last piece that we needed for our little family. We would die for each other, and we would destroy the world for you,” Talon said.
I pulled their hands closer to my chest, but they seemed to know I wanted more. Both of their warm bodies pressed against me.
All these years I’d assumed I was broken. No more tears for anything. But these guys?
“What’s wrong, Margaux?” Jett asked.
I could feel all eyes on me.
“I have a home, and it’s with all of you.”
The basement wasn’t what I expected for an old house. It was concrete, but it was almost sterile in appearance. It was out of place in the old-money feel of the rest of the house or what they called the compound.
The chain rattled as my uncle fought against it. One single thick chain was all that held my uncle away from me, and it felt good.
“Uncle, how does it feel to be so close to freedom and know you can’t ever touch it?”
I stood tall, trying to meet his eyes, but it wouldn’t matter. There was no soul there to see.
“You little bitch. I had everything planned out. I was making a name for myself. I had the Barones in my pocket. Do you have any idea how much money I was about to control?”
My uncle slipped and fell, his head cracking against the shiny floor.
“Oh, shit. Sorry, Uncle. I didn’t see your leg attached to the chain.” Knox was looking at me from where he leaned against the wall, the chain in his hand. My uncle moaned, and when he looked up, the blood pooling on the floor told me why.
“Oh shoot. Did you break your nose? Knox, I think he broke his nose.”
I crouched low and met my uncle where he was.
“You should be comfortable at least. Crawling on all fours like a dog. I think it’s only fair since you locked me up like a caged bird for years, and now I get to treat you like the animal you are.”
When his eyes met mine, I wasn’t sure what he saw, but for the first time in my life I saw fear in his.
“It was for your own good, Margaux. The Thornes would have given you status,” he said before spitting out blood.
I studied him. I wanted to understand.
“Tell me, Uncle. When exactly did you lose your mind? When did the human part of you die leaving this little empty shell of a psychopath?”
When he smiled, blood covered his teeth, leaving me with a memory I knew would either haunt me or give me peace. I assumed peace was more like it.
“Oh, my pet, do you think your father had a soul any more than me? Do you think anyone can climb and climb and reach the top of the tower without sacrifices that would have destroyed any moral part of you?” my uncle asked the rhetorical question.
I thought about it, and then I realized it didn’t matter.
“I fail to understand how every little scar you placed on my body would have ever helped you climb anywhere. My father, evil or not, knew I would marry whoever he wanted me to, and my trust fund proves that.”
I stood up, and Ronan came over toward my uncle, holding out an email like he would have time to read it.
“The lawyer sent over some basic information for me. He’ll be meeting with us tomorrow. However, it looks like Margaux’s trust fund was never anyone’s but hers and mine. You were never going to get it. Not the Thornes, not my father. Even in death, her father protected her, soulless or not.”
For the first time in my life, I had the power.
“My father, dear uncle, made sure I was worth more to Ronan and the Barone’s alive than dead. Even more though, he made sure I couldn’t have gotten what you coveted so much had I married anyone else. So even though I am already legally married, you were going to lose.”
My uncle remained kneeling, his face a mess of blood and an emotion I don’t think he could identify.
“That feeling inside you, the one that has you suddenly feeling a bone chilling cold? That’s called fear, Senator,” Ronan said as he stood up and Talon walked over.
Talon handed me a knife.
“Princess, you have a lot of choices. You seem to do well with a knife though. What would you like to do to your uncle before we move on to Angelino over there?” Talon asked.
I had choices, and I liked it.
I could remember every strike of the belt on my skin.
I could remember how it felt when the vase he threw at me shattered around my legs.
I could remember going to bed hungry and waking up starved with no promise that it would end.
I remembered the way it felt to be broken.
The feeling that I’d been abandoned by the world and all that was left was hopeless, unending compliance.
“Uncle, do you know what might be the single most horrible thing I can’t ever seem to forget?”
He didn’t answer me, but I continued anyway.
“The emotional abuse of you telling me how worthless I was. The jokes that I was the problem and the reason you couldn’t love me. The games where somehow it was always my fault. Everything was always my fault. But really, Uncle, you know what it all was?”
He watched me through those dark, furious eyes.
“It was that I’m not a fragile little bird. I’m not some princess you can lock away and forget about. You didn’t know I could never be broken because once upon a time I meant the world to someone, and now I get my happily ever after.”
I took the knife, stood tall in my stained wedding dress I hated, and walked right up to my uncle. Knox still held the chain, but I knew my uncle wasn’t going to fight anymore.
“Thanks for nothing, Uncle. See you never.”
Before I could overthink anything, I ran the blade hard against his neck, right where they had told me would strike most quickly. Not because I wanted him to die fast, but because he would just die.
The floor was slick with the fresh blood, and I almost slipped when I turned back to my men.
“What next?” I asked.
Jett’s sweet smile had all the approval in the world.
“Pretty girl, please let me be next. You look so hot like that. I’m in love,” Jett said, his hand clutching his chest.
Ronan pulled my wrist into his hand, and Talon helped guide me away until we stopped by Barone.
I’d missed the way the sound moved down here, but now that I was free of my past, I could move onto the present. I heard a door open and close. Footsteps moved closer, but there was no reason to look if no one else was worried. I just watched Barone Sr., the man who tried to sell me.
“Ronan, what is the plan?”
I didn’t know the voice.
“Kill him, cut off his fingers, and send them to anyone who might oppose you taking over the family. Keep his head for a few days just to confirm that you did, indeed, take over. After that, we are at your service, brother.”
All four of my men came to stand around me before I turned to see this brother Maddox.
There was a resemblance I supposed; they had the same eyes. I looked at their father who was too dumb to feel fear judging by the rage I could still see even as he lay on the floor helpless.
“Maddox, you do the honors,” Knox said.
I watched Maddox move closer to Barone before he pulled a gun from his shoulder holster.
“I’d love to say we will miss you, Father. But you told me to never lie.”
I flinched when the gun went off, but I didn’t feel much of anything else.
“Time to go home, Margaux. The world is now the Mad Hatter’s.”