Chapter 59 #2
I take a deep breath to clear my head. “The file’s corrupted,” I say, rolling my shoulders to ease the tension in them. “I’ll try again later.”
Father nods slightly, more than likely knowing I’m lying. If he’s too cowardly to view it, how does he expect me to? Rune didn’t just kill Fallon’s son. He tortured him. Sent body parts to us. He ripped my brother apart, and in turn, ripped me apart.
No, Rune didn’t just kill my brother; he destroyed part of me.
He decimated my other half.
And he knew it. That was his intention.
And five years later, I’m finally going to pay him back.
“We will make him pay, son.” Father’s words rip through my thoughts and for once, I’m grateful to hear his voice. Hear the softer tone. The pain that lines each word reminds me that the man who reared me really did love us.
Does.
He does. Present tense.
My father loves us enough to take four years meticulously planning revenge on the man who murdered his son.
“Get the girl. Take her to the estate. Break her down. I’ll meet you there in a few days to assist in her—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off, my stomach souring at the thought of him anywhere near her. She’s too delicate to be touched by him. To be touched by me, even though that’s all I want to do. Touch and take and fuck that pretty little kitten until she belongs to me.
To all of us.
I know my brothers feel the same, hot need that I do.
Breaker is so in love with Cora, with them both, I know the mission will never go according to plan.
We’re in too deep. Viper talks incessantly about them, and between the two of them, they have every detail of their lives memorized.
Striker is better at keeping himself in check, but I’ve seen the way he looks at the girls.
Hungry.
Starved for everything we never had.
“You know this is the only way,” Father says. “We will use Rune’s daughter to destroy him.”
Blood for blood.
I kick away from the row of monitors and roll my chair across the room, plucking an image of the girls off the wall. My heart does that damn flip thing again. The one that tells me I’m just as fucked as my brothers, if not more so.
They are so sweet. So vibrant.
Delilah is just a victim of Rune. The thought of her light dimming, training her as brutally as we’ve been trained, twists a knife in my chest. It’s what we planned, what I spent years planning.
Take her and whittle her down with zero remorse.
Rip her to shreds and then form a whole new person who will crave my every command like it’s the purest, sweetest air.
Then I saw her.
Remembered her.
And I know, as much as I want to remove every fragment of Rune from this earth, I can’t destroy something so purely innocent.
Not the way Father wants me to.
My eyes slide to the picture of Delilah again.
Raven black hair, a delicate body that would crumble under harsh hands.
God, I would love to watch her break apart beneath me.
Deconstruct her slowly, have my mouth take her apart piece by piece until she cracks open and releases all the beautiful brightness within. Then I’d lick it up, and own it.
Own her.
Own both of them.
I run my tongue over the scars on my lip, two perfect lines branded into my flesh.
There are a handful of days I’ve lived through that I wish I hadn’t.
The day my mother died. The day my brother died.
But the day I set off on my first mission lives forever as one of the most brutal moments I’ve ever endured.
Rolling back to the desk, I snatch up the photo.
My thumb skims over the picture, letting the memory of that one day in the park, that single good moment, flood my system.
Let myself remember the way she looked, and how I dreamed of her for weeks afterward.
How brightly she smiled, surrounded by thousands of tiny lights, and how it lit up something inside me.
Imagining her going through the hell we endured tarnishes the brilliance she embedded in me that day.
I shake my head and set the picture aside.
“I have another idea,” I say, bracing my hands on the table. I meet my father’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”
Father cocks his head to the side. I hate it when he gets that look. It reminds me of Hunter. Calculating, assessing me. Seeing if I stack up and am worthy of his time.
Hunter would always give me that look and usually find me lacking.
I don’t know how. What he felt was missing from me would have been missing from him too.
We shared the exact same DNA.
“I trust you to complete this mission,” Father says carefully.
I swear he knows what I’m thinking. Like he can read my mind and every vile thing that’s running through it.
“How you go about it, I’ll leave up to you.
As long as the girl is compliant, trained, and trustworthy by the time you’re done with her.
Take her, do with her as you please, just make sure she’s ready. ”
“She will be.”
I’m going to make damn sure she is.
Some call it manipulation. I call it improvising.
“Carrington,” I say, shifting my gaze to my father’s assistant as he steps back into my view. “I need you to arrange delivery of a few things to the estate by tonight.”
“Like?” Father asks.
“Things wom— a woman needs.” Fuck, I almost said women.
“Send me a list, and it will be done.” With a curt nod, and a wink, Carrington leaves, shutting the door behind him.
“Reaper,” Father says, his voice a clear warning, “don’t lose sight of the goal.”
I huff out a bitter laugh. “No need to worry. Rune will go down even if it means I strap C-4 to my chest and walk into his lodge, a ticking bomb.”
His face turns hard.
“Which I won’t,” I say. “Who else would test you as much as your favorite syn?”
He purses his lips and leans forward. “One last thing,” he says. “Remember our agreement.”
My stomach drops.
The agreement. The one I never actually agreed to.
He must see my expression because he bolts from his seat, slapping his palm down on the desk. “He killed my son! My flesh and blood.”
My insides twist up. “And mine.”
“She is of his blood. She must die,” he grates. “You get her trained and into that lodge, then into that room. And when you’re done with her, you fucking kill the last living, breathing piece of Rune.”
Eye for an Eye. Blood for blood.
My father will not rest until every shred of Rune is destroyed.
None of this is about saving lives. Or even stopping the hunts. Father wants blood, wants everyone who took part, every person associated with Hunter’s death, removed from this plane.
“You complete this mission, then slit the girl’s throat for all I care, but I want her body delivered to me when you’re done.”
“Understood,” I say, my stomach sinking.
“Get it done,” he snaps, and the feed goes dark.
I switch the screen off, and my eyes slide to the picture again.
Kill her.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’m going to do something far worse.
Revenge hammers at my head, scorches my veins, but something far more toxic planted a vibrant little seed inside me years ago, and it has grown over the years. It took root, and now its vines stick to my ribcage, and I can’t get her out.
She’s going to be mine, even if it takes me forever to convince her.
What’s worse than killing Rune?
Taking his daughter and turning her against him.
What’s worse than defying my father?
Falling in love with the enemy’s daughter.
Keeping her alive. Keeping her safe.
Keeping her for myself.
The woman whose life I destroyed.
I lean back in the chair, sucking in air, my heart skipping.
She’s going to be mine.
Ours.
They both are.
Cora Julian just doesn’t know it yet.
No one does.
I stalk across the room, my boots thudding as I descend the stairs. When I reach the first floor, my brothers all glance my way. “Who feels like going to a costume party?”
Viper quirks a brow. Breaker tosses the video game controller onto the coffee table, glancing from me to Viper.
Striker groans. “Bad idea, Reap,” he says. “You know damn well they are going to that costume party at Rune’s club tonight.”
“But we are set to acquire the target tomorrow,” Breaker says. “That’s the plan.”
“We aren’t changing the plan,” I say, my blood singing from just the thought of being near her. “Tomorrow is still a go.”
Viper narrows his eyes. “Then what are you suggesting?”
I shrug, a smirk curling my lip. “Suit up. I know of a sexy little Vixen and a pretty little Kitten who might want to play.”