Chapter 5 #2
She was probably high as a kite, meaning she would probably only feel half of the rage I’d had pent up for four years. Either way I couldn't wait to give her a fraction of the pain she had given Aries growing up. I'd savor every last fucking minute.
I pulled my hood over my head and tucked the blades into the waistband of my pants. Ronan pulled on a black hoodie of his own, tugging the hood over to cover his face as well.
He let me take the lead. I walked carefully towards the trailers, noting how run-down they were now. The last four years hadn’t done this hell-hole any favors. They should have been condemned years ago.
Finally, we reached the broken-down trailer I grew up in. Aries’s was next to it, the same beater in the drive.
The flicker of the TV shined through the threadbare curtains, but that was the only light on.
The border of the trailer had all but been torn away, tools littered around it like someone started fixing it up, then realized it was useless. She had someone else here, or had at one point.
My gaze shifted to the house behind me, my face twisting in disgust as I thought about the life I’d had there. The one full of hunger and angry words. If I had been smaller, anything but an alpha, I’d have had a life similar to Aries.
Ronan glanced that way, then back at me.
“I take it that’s ‘home sweet home,’ or at least it was at one point?”
I gave him a single nod.
“Never again, brother. I’ve got you,” he promised, sincerity in his voice. He meant it. Though, that didn’t mean I believed him.
I turned away, not willing to see the woman that was wasting away inside. I wanted nothing to do with that place ever again.
Stretching my neck side to side until it popped, I took a moment to calm my nerves. I was the one who brutalized men in the ring but I’d never taken a life like this.
If I agreed to what Ronan was offering, it was only going to be one of many. Was I willing to give up any shreds of humanity I had left? Would Aries even want me if I found her again?
I didn’t know the answer to that, and if I believed what they said, she was gone anyway.
It was just me now. This half-life was all I would get.
I didn’t bother knocking. She was too stupid to lock her own damn door, so I shoved it open and stalked in, my steps sure and quick. I moved straight to her, merely three steps away. When she opened her mouth to scream, I slapped her face, hard, before pushing a blade to her throat.
“Make a noise, and I’ll gut you like a fish. Do you want to test me?”
It looks like Aries’s mother had aged about twenty years in the last four. I knew it wasn’t guilt or worry for her daughter. Hell, from the arrangement of old bottles and new ones resting side by side on her coffee table, she’d wasted her years drowning in drugs and alcohol.
Her skin was cold and clammy under my knuckles, the wrinkles pronounced. Stray gray hairs mixed with the blonde, giving it a strange dull combination. Sunken eyes glared at me. This woman was a wraith.
“I knew you’d come,” she spit out, voice hoarse.
“Why, because the police let you lie?” Ronan drawled in that easygoing voice of his.
It was only then that she realized we were not alone.
“Who the fuck are you?” she bit out, her eyes still slightly unfocused and hazy from whatever she had pumping through her system.
“Your worst nightmare,” he sang out, taking pleasure in the fear that had her entire body quaking now.
“The only way that you’re going to live,” I told her, “is if you tell me the truth.”
She swallowed hard but managed a laugh.
“Don’t lie to me, boy. I know you have no intention of walking out of here with my heart still beating.
I’ve expected you to come for years. Some alpha you are.
It seems your mother was right about you all along.
” I let loose a snarl that was more animal than man, shifting forward until I stopped myself.
It felt too much like letting her win and that wasn’t going to happen.
Ronan snorted, but I didn’t confirm or deny her worries. I wasn’t here to absolve her of guilt.
“It’s confession time. Care to tell us your sins?” Ronan asked as he drew his own blade. He tossed it in the air, watching it as it spun before grabbing the blade. It was a parlor trick meant to get in her head, and from the whimper, it hit its mark.
The fear chased away some of the booze until her eyes cleared. I knew the drugs weren’t completely fading, but enough that she was about to grasp and feel everything we gave her.
That realization had a grin spreading across my face. Her eyes met mine over my brother’s shoulder. Her chest started to rise and fall rapidly, the whimper turning into a full omega whine that wasn’t going to work on us.
He finally took a seat in the worn and ripped armchair across from her to watch the show. He looked out of place there, too refined for the state of the chair he was in.
“They said they found her. I want to see the report they gave you, the one you signed off on.”
“I didn’t take a copy,” she said a little too quickly.
I stared her down, waiting for her to give it away. When her eyes flickered over to the kitchen counter, I stood up and let Ronan take my place. There was no discussion, he simply had my back now, a concept I wasn’t used to.
My gait was slow and purposeful as I walked across the floor. My shoes stuck to the sticky, soiled tiles with each step. She hadn’t bothered to clean it in years it seemed.
Her purse was thrown out among the debris. A roll of papers stuck out of it. With shaking hands, I reached for them, unrolling it slowly.
DNA results. A direct match. She had signed off on a cremation already, meaning I’d never see her again.
It was over.
I was frozen, staring at the words, my brain trying to catch up, but I just couldn’t believe them.
“She’s gone. I told you,” she spit out. “The police told me how pathetic you were even after all this time. Calling them twice a month like clockwork. Did you know that the officer they assigned her case came here after you left that night? He found me among all my drugs, and you know what he did? He let me pay for his silence. One quick fuck and I got to keep my freedom. Honestly, you should thank me. I saved her from this life.”
“You think you saved her?” I roared, sweeping my hand over the counter, sending everything slamming into the opposite wall. My voice echoed around us and I was breathing like a bull as I turned.
I meant to take my time, to force every confession from her cracked lips, but instead I stormed across the room, my knife plunging into her stomach before I could stop myself. Her eyes widened, blood spilling from her lips and the fresh wound there.
If what she said was true, then they’d ruined any chances I had of finding my omega, my scent match, the woman I had loved from the moment I had met her.
We were just kids then. They robbed an entire lifetime that we could’ve spent together, and my alpha and I were not going to stand for that.
I stood over her and watched as her skin turned pale, then gray, blood leaking from her lips and the gaping wound in her stomach.
“Killing me isn’t going to bring her back. She’s dead. Good fucking riddance,” she managed to choke out, blood spattering past her lips.
I couldn’t fathom how anyone could talk about their own daughter that way.
Fuck this. I couldn’t listen to another word out of her mouth. I moved on instinct, yanking her up by her grimy dress and throwing her to the floor. She tried to scramble away, dirty nails gripping the tile but finding no purchase, desperation souring her scent.
It was fucking pathetic.
She was too dazed to move fast but I had no such issues. I moved closer before lifting my boot and slamming it down on her cheek where it rested against the disgusting tile.
Pure, raw rage took over the moment I slammed my boot down. A jagged scream tore through my throat as I stomped over and over again. Soon her face was crushed and unrecognizable, only a bloody mass left behind.
“I hope you rot in hell,” I said, though there was no life left in her body, only blood and shattered bone left behind.
I heard Ronan pull out his phone and say something into it, but I didn’t bother to stay behind and find out what that something was. I wiped my shoe on the rug. I made sure there were no traces of blood left on my clothes before heading out into the night.
Two men on foot were heading towards me. At first, I froze until Ronan stepped out.
“They’re here for the job,” he said, reaching out and gripping my shoulder, giving it a squeeze before pushing gently, forcing me to move forward. If my mind hadn’t calmed into its usual numbness I might have reacted or shoved him away.
I should care that another alpha was touching me. But Ronan was different. Something I wasn’t going to think too hard on right now.
The debt had been paid, and I’d effectively signed my life away to the Crows.
He’d given me this, and for that I would do whatever he wanted.
Because if those papers were true, I’d already lost my heart and soul. I had nothing else but this.