Chapter 61 #2
Across the table Gina is still crying, her mascara smeared across her cheeks.
I walk slowly toward her.
She shakes her head desperately.
“Please,” she whispers.
I stop beside her chair.
“Usually I would have sympathy for someone like you,” I murmur.
She sobs harder.
“But you knew what kind of man he was.”
Her breathing stutters.
“You knew he killed his first wife to be with you.”
Her eyes widen.
“You knew what he was doing in the manor and you turned the other way because he gave you credit cards, vacation homes, and access.”
I tilt the knife slightly.
“And now the consequences have come.”
The blade flashes once.
I drag the blade clean across her throat.
The edge bites deep and opens her skin from ear to ear in one brutal motion. Flesh parts instantly under the pressure of the steel. A thick burst of dark blood surges from the wound and spills down the front of her dress.
Gina convulses against the ropes.
A wet choking sound tears out of her as blood floods her mouth and pours over her chin. It splashes across the table and drips steadily onto the floor.
Grant yells through the phone.
Her body thrashes once more, heels scraping violently against the floor as her lungs try to pull in air that never comes. Then the strength leaves her. Her head sags forward. Her body jerks once.
Then she goes still.
I step away from Gina’s body and wipe the blade once against the side of my jacket.
Grant’s voice tears through the phone speaker. He is screaming now. The rage has collapsed into something raw and hysterical.
“You fucking bitch!” he shouts. “I will kill you. I swear to God I will kill you!”
I ignore him. Instead I walk back toward the duffel bag sitting near the edge of the dining table. I unzip it slowly.
Grant’s father watches me with wide eyes.
I reach inside the bag. Then I pull it out.
Seth’s bat.
Barbed wire coils tightly around the barrel. Nails jut out along the metal at uneven angles, bent and rust stained from use. The weight settles into my hands the moment I grip it.
Grant’s voice cracks through the phone again.
“Stop! Brooke stop.”
“No.”
Thomas’s composure shatters.
I rest the bat loosely against my shoulder.
“Seth has told me many ways he’s killed people,” I tell them.
Grant keeps shouting through the phone, but I talk over him.
“He said a bullet in the head is actually the kindest.”
I walk slowly toward the head of the table.
“Usually you’re dead before your brain can register the pain.”
Grant’s mother begins sobbing harder.
“But this,” I say, lifting the bat slightly in my hand, “is not kind.”
The barbed wire glints under the overhead lights.
“It doesn’t end things quickly.”
I step beside Grant’s father.
“You feel every single hit.”
“Brooke please,” he shouts through the phone. “Please don’t do this.”
I look at the screen.
“Grant, you killed my parents.”
I tilt the bat once in my grip.
“You killed Seth’s mother.”
Grant’s voice breaks completely.
“Don’t.”
I shrug, “So it’s only right that I do this.”
“No!” he screams.
“Eye for an eye, Colin.”
The bat swings.
The bat connects with the side of his face with a wet, cracking impact that sounds wrong for a human skull.
Bone gives way instantly. The barbed wire bites deep, tearing through skin and muscle as the nails punch inward.
Blood sprays across the dining table in a hot arc, splattering the white tablecloth, dripping down the polished wood.
Blood pours from his mouth in thick, choking streams, soaking his collar, his chest, the rope holding him upright.
Evelyn shrieks.
I swing again. The bat hits his temple. His body convulses, legs kicking uselessly against the chair as the ropes keep him upright, forcing him to take it.
Grant is howling through the phone.
I barely hear him.
One final swing caves in the side of his skull completely. There is no sound this time. Just a heavy, final slump as his body goes slack in the chair, head rolling forward, blood pouring freely onto the floor beneath him.
I lower the bat slowly. Blood drips from the nails and barbed wire, splattering softly against the tile.
Grant’s father is dead. And Grant felt every second of it.
I walk toward Grant’s mother. She sees it coming. Her whimpering turns frantic, breath hitching as her whole body strains against the ropes. Her eyes flick to the phone on the table like it might save her.
Grant’s voice breaks through the speaker, hoarse and panicked now, stripped of rage. “Please! Please don’t do this. Please. I’ll do anything. I swear. I’ll disappear. I’ll give you—.”
I stop in front of her chair.
“Seth didn’t even get to ask you not to do what you did to Samantha. He didn’t get to beg.”
Grant yells. “Brooke, please. Please. She did not—”
“Samantha didn’t deserve any of it,” I cut in. “She didn’t know Richard was evil. She didn’t know what you and Richard were capable of.”
I lean closer to his mother. She's crying openly now, tears sliding down her face into the blood on her collar.
“But you knew,” I continue. “You knew exactly what your sons were. You knew what your family did. And you are going to die with that knowledge.”
I lift the bat.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn. But this is for Samantha.”
I swing.
The bat crashes into her skull with a wet, crushing sound. Bone caves in immediately. Blood sprays across the wall behind her in a wide, uneven fan. She screams once, a thin, broken sound that dies before it fully forms.
I swing again.
The barbed wire tears into her face, ripping skin loose, nails punching deep. Her head snaps sideways, neck twisting, chair rattling violently as the ropes hold her upright. Blood pours down her chest in thick streams.
Grant is screaming now. Not threats. Not promises. Just raw grief tearing itself apart through the phone speaker.
I bring the bat down again.
Her jaw shatters. Teeth scatter across the floor. Her mouth opens and closes uselessly as choking sounds spill out.
One more swing caves in the side of her head completely.
Her body goes slack.
I lower the bat slowly, breathing steady, arms heavy, blood slicking my hands and dripping to the floor. The room goes silent except for Grant screaming through the phone. There is no one left alive to shield him from it.
While all of this happens, Beau moves through the house.
I smell it before I see him again. Gasoline burns the back of my throat with every breath. By the time I straighten, the mansion stinks of blood, bile, and fuel, layers of rot and fire waiting to meet.
Grant is still screaming through the phone. Threats. Rage spiraling into hysteria now that there is no one left to hear it but me.
I lift the phone closer to my face and look straight into the camera.
“Don’t worry, Grant. You’ll meet them all soon in hell.”
I end the call.
Beau steps up beside me, eyes scanning the room once, taking in the bodies, the blood, the ropes still creaking faintly as they settle.
“You ready?” he asks.
I nod.
We walk out together.
The night air hits hard, cold against skin that still feels hot. Beau strikes the match without ceremony and tosses it back through the open doorway. The flames catch instantly.
Whoosh.
The sound is violent and greedy. Fire races along the gasoline trails like it has been waiting for permission. The mansion lights up behind us.
As we walk back to the car, neither of us speaks. There is nothing left to say.
I am not proud of what I did. But I don't regret it either. There is no coming back from this.
The old Brooke would have felt fear, remorse, and guilt. She would have shaken apart under the weight of what she had done. She would have questioned herself until nothing of her remained.
That version of me died at the hands of their sons.
I glance back once.
The fire has already taken hold of the house. Flames climb the walls and burst through the windows as glass shatters and heat rolls outward in violent waves. The Grants are gone along with their walls, their money, their power, and their bloodline.
Everything they built ends here.
I turn away from the fire and walk into the dark, leaving nothing behind but ashes and the promise that Colin Grant is next.