Bonus #4
“He’s a poor bastard who believed her. If Norah didn’t take him seriously, which seems more likely given the circumstances, he was innocent in this.
” Nathan said. “She broke up with him a few weeks after Lucca was born. The following month, his partner swindled him, leaving him almost with nothing. He was forced to move to Connecticut, where he lives with his mother. He bought a small piece of land near Danbury and is starting to invest in vegetables.”
“I think after what we heard, it isn’t insane to think Norah had something to do with that, right?” Adam said. “The fake relationship placed her above suspicion as well as covering the filth, so the guy being far away was security, and the partner’s scam a nice rug.”
“She drugged him. I have no doubt about that,” Nathan assured.
Thor, like the others, understood. The fit was complete.
Treacherous as a snake, he thought, feeling rage boil inside him. Norah had premeditated every step. His fury pulsed in his viscera.
“Heithor, where are you going?” Martha asked, a little distressed, going after him, but Thor paid no mind as he strode toward the hallway that led to the garage.
Thor in that moment was no longer her boy Heithor.
There was a visceral tension vibrating in him, pressing down with every dragging second. His mouth rigid and his stony gaze more dangerous than a lake of acid.
He looked efficient.
Deadly.
“We’re coming with you.” Nathan’s voice snapped behind him when he reached the car. The guys were there, ready to follow him whether he agreed or not.
Martha, who had come close behind, stopped at the garage door.
“Heithor, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
He stopped halfway into the vehicle and gave her a slow, closed smile that sent an icy breath down her spine.
“Don’t wait for me for dinner.”
The drive to the warehouse was quick. Thor parked behind the Hummer.
The doors opened, and his men got out with Ben, stopping a few yards from the car while waiting for a command from their boss.
He paid no attention to the guys walking behind him, but he was aware they were there.
His gaze was fixed on his opponent’s face.
Thor strode forward, and before he even sent the order to his brain, his fist moved fast and firm. His men moved, releasing the former security guard when the boss’s fist struck the man.
The men stayed far enough away not to interrupt the fight, but close enough to act if the boss needed them, though they knew that would not be the case.
Thor had been skilled in self-defense since his days as an agent.
Over time, he had learned several types of martial arts, which gave him an enviable ability in hand-to-hand combat.
His friends stood behind him, watching the scene with boredom while Thor continued delivering blow after blow to his rival.
Pouring into every punch all his frustration and outrage over the betrayal.
It was a one-man confrontation, a reckoning with an ending already defined.
Ben tried to defend himself, blocking one blow and another while looking for a way to hit his former boss, getting lucky once or twice, but Castellammare was faster and stronger.
“You son of a bitch!” Thor spat when he struck his rival’s ribs with his knee, making him groan in pain, then kicked him in the stomach, sending him into the Hummer.
“Death is too little for a coward like you.” Thor held him by the shirt.
“Do you have any idea the damage you did to her and our son because of an arrogant fantasy that only existed in your head?”
“You never deserved Antonella, and you know that better than I do. The proof is right there…” the man mocked with rage. “You want to blame me? Go ahead, Castellammare! But you know you’re as guilty as I am, or more. I wasn’t her man, but if I had been, I guarantee I would’ve been better than you.”
The words hit directly into his wound, and then returned to the former security guard in merciless fists. Action and reaction. Pure and simple. Leaving his face bloodier.
“You’re not getting my forgiveness, you fucking piece of shit. Traitors like you don’t deserve a drop of mercy.”
Resigned, Ben murmured with contempt and a note of sadness. “Your forgiveness doesn’t interest me, Castellammare. The only one that interested me was hers.”
Thor straightened his back, looking at the man with disgust.
“You think a piece of shit like you deserves her?”
Ben spat blood on the floor and hinted at a smile on his deformed face.
“You don’t deserve her any more than I do,” he shot back while trying to get to his feet. “You weren’t capable of going deep and investigating… You… you didn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt… Tell me, Castellammare, how could you love her? I do love her. But, unfortunately, she loves you.”
Using his elbow, Heithor struck Ben hard in the chin and felt the tension in his body loosen. Grabbing him by the shirt, he gave him another hard punch, again and again.
He wanted to kill the son of a bitch.
The need to kill grabbed inside him.
Thor held him by the shirt.
“Where is that whore Norah? Where?”
“I… I don’t know where she is… I told her yesterday I would talk to you…”
The vein in his neck pulsed while his jaw marked rigidly.
Thor breathed deeply. Ben wasn’t lying. The man had been either stupid or insane enough to remain within his reach after giving the whore the opportunity to run.
Maybe he expected that revealing all the shit would smooth things over for his side, or fuck it.
Nothing would soften his betrayal. He was still ungrateful, a shit traitor, deserving only of hell.
Expanding his lungs, Thor sentenced him:
“You dug your own grave when you fell in love with my woman, Benjamin. I can’t blame you for that.
It’s hard not to love her when she allows herself to be known.
I know that. I don’t love her for her beauty.
But you were too stupid and got into the hole when you betrayed me.
Above all, when you were a coward with her. ”
“She would have fallen in love with me… I ruined everything, I could have…”
“No, you had no chance with Antonella.” With one hand, he held him by the hair and with the other by the throat, forcing the former security guard to meet his eyes. “I would never have allowed you or anyone else to have any chance with her. Antonella always has been and always will be mine.”
Blood covered his fists, and splatters of it stained his shirt while he kept punishing the former security guard, even when he no longer had the strength to try to defend himself from the hard blows. Thor left him bent on the ground and stood to his full height.
“And Benjamin, you don’t love her.” The man looked at him through only one eye, the other closed with swelling. “You never truly loved her. If you had, you wouldn’t have been such a son of a bitch to her.”
“I could say the same about you, couldn’t I, Castellammare?”
Thor had the Glock in his hand and looked very, very upset as he walked toward Kane. He unlocked the gun and turned, his arm extended. Ben was kneeling in his misery, but he did not pull away from his gaze.
“Final words?”
Ben smiled from the corner of his mouth. He looked delirious.
“I’ll die happy knowing you’ll never have her again.”
“See you in hell, asshole,” Thor bit out, hiding the effect the words had on him, and then pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The sound of the gunshot buzzed in his ears like a fiery lover moaning at her peak before the bullet struck between Ben’s eyes. The former security guard’s body dropped dead to the floor with a dull thud.
Silence was all that could be heard at that end of afternoon.
Thor lowered the gun, looking with disgust at the lifeless body, and brought his hard eyes to each of his men. He saw them swallow dryly.
“If anyone here isn’t satisfied with the job, I suggest you speak now and leave.
Traitors are not forgiven. They receive no mercy.
” No one moved. “I don’t give a flying fuck if you have a family or an entire nation to feed.
If you betray me, I will make sure you meet the devil personally.
Tell the others. I won’t say it twice. Now clean up the trash because the job isn’t finished yet. ”
Thor turned his back on them and headed to the car.
“Make sure they do everything without leaving traces and then meet me at the penthouse,” he told Kane when he passed the man.
The men were moving skillfully behind him, handling Ben’s body and cleaning any trace of evidence of what had just happened.
“Thor?”
He stopped, his gaze fixed on the night beginning to fall.
“I’m going to kill her, Eric… when I find her, even if it’s in hell, I’ll kill her with refined cruelty. Not even God can save her now.”
“I don’t blame you,” Eric said sincerely. “I still can’t believe she was capable of screwing us over. And to think I defended her so much.”
Thor exhaled heavily, his head shaking when he turned to face his friend. The other guys were behind them, talking on their phones.
“We raised a snake. I raised a snake right under my arms, but she missed one important lesson… The servant never surpasses the master.”
Eric touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry for your son and Antonella. I wasn’t very fair to her.”
Thor swallowed the knot in his throat.
“Norah is going to pay me for this. I won’t ask you to help me. I know the two of you were close…”
“You’re my brother,” Eric said categorically.
The others came closer.
“We’re in this too,” Adam announced for all of them. “Although you’re painfully arrogant, we’re family, and we help each other. That’s how we do things.”
“She’s yours,” Nathan pointed out at his protesting look.
Thor nodded and got into the car. He simply sat there, motionless, staring at his bloodstained hands. His knuckles were wounded from the hard blows, his lip bleeding from a punch Ben had landed, and he still held the Glock in one hand.