Epilogue Two
...............................
Henri
––––––––
One year later...
––––––––
THE CURSE OF BLOOD & DARKNESS
by
Henri Mercer
––––––––
I HAVE A DAUGHTER.
Me...the one man who shouldn’t be let near a tiny breakable baby somehow has a daughter.
I’ll admit, I’ve been fucking petrified.
Watching Ily grow round kept me up at night, stalking the windows, looking for monsters to appear. Q had to add extra security just to put my mind at rest.
I curse myself daily for ever putting my nephew at risk, especially now I know just how much a child can destroy their father.
I’ve apologised to Q so much, he’s forbidden me from ever mentioning it again. He even made Lino recount what happened when Victor’s men came for him, his blue eyes so much like his mother’s, flashing with the same inner darkness that coils in me and his father.
Will my kid have it too?
I told Rachel I didn’t believe Victor’s DNA donation would have any sway over her son’s personality but perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe my DNA overpowered the goodness of Ily’s and she’s given birth to a tiny beast like me.
Those fears have echoed long past my daughter’s birth.
Watching Ily labour almost sent me into cardiac arrest. If it hadn’t been for Q and Peter getting me drunk, I probably would’ve been admitted into a hospital bed beside hers.
And the moment they placed little Priti into my arms, I was her slave for life.
There isn’t any man I won’t kill. No monster I won’t slay.
She’s my little fireheart and I’m meant to be writing my vows so her mother will always know just how much I—
“Fuck’s sake, what are you doing?” Q grumbled, marching into a bedroom he’d given me in his chateau to get ready for the wedding. I’d waited a goddamn year for this day and now that it’d arrived, I could barely stand without my knees buckling.
Twisting in my chair where I sat by the window, I glanced at his immaculate linen suit. “Shouldn’t you be waiting at the altar with the best man?”
“Shouldn’t you be?” He scowled, giving me the same once over. I wore a similar suit, only difference was mine was white with a bright yellow calendula flower in my lapel and longer coat tails.
“You know if Ily had agreed with me to get married the day I found out she was pregnant, this whole circus could’ve been avoided.”
He smirked and looked out the window. “That circus is now your family. I got lucky with Tess being a single child with elderly parents. You? Not so much.” His smirk turned into a laugh. “You’re not only inheriting a bride today but a million different meddlers.”
I chuckled. “Least I like them. They’re good people.”
“Still a circus though.”
“Agreed.”
Down below, the entire lawn and part of the meadow had been transformed into an exotic wonderland.
Lanterns danced on strings, strung across a white carpet leading to a gazebo decorated with shimmering fabrics and pretty flowers.
Far too many chairs waited for the ceremony to begin, and our guests mingled and laughed beneath shade awnings by the refreshment tables.
I still didn’t understand how I’d gone from a kid who’d barely been tolerated by his own mother to somehow having an extended family of over four hundred guests.
Almost all the surviving jewels from Joyero had flown in, including Rose and Melanie, May and Faiza. The more recent slaves that Q and I had found over the past year and brought here—rehabbed by Tess and Ily—had also accepted an invitation, bringing a significant other who’d helped them move on.
Ily’s family numbered close to fifty with so many cousins and aunties and uncles. When we’d gone to visit them last year, I’d still held the fear they wouldn’t accept me. Especially seeing as Peter came too.
He was the better choice for Ily.
He was one of them.
But...the moment I’d been hugged and welcomed, I’d never once felt like an outsider.
I’d feared they’d judge me for knocking up their daughter without a visible ring on her finger.
Yet they merely booked in a Vedic astrologer to make predictions for our child and arranged for special mantras to be said while Ily was pregnant.
“You know two of them came, don’t you?” Q pointed at a dark-haired guy and a slender woman, standing slightly removed from the chaos of colour that was Ily’s extended family.
The jingle of bangles and glitter of rhinestone-covered saris ensured my brother’s estate resembled the set of a Bollywood movie.
I’d been born into a world with no faith or culture.
I’d had nothing and no one and let fear and despair twist my view.
But thanks to Ily’s daily routine of meditation and yoga that I’d adopted, I’d learned that life wasn’t out to destroy me.
I wasn’t evil—despite the things I did to the rapists and traffickers we hunted.
Every experience, good and bad, was only there to teach and guide and grow.
My love of reading had naturally gravitated toward texts that her father recommended, feeling more awake in this life, more aware, and more grateful than I ever thought possible.
No matter that I spent days hunting, baiting, and killing, I didn’t bring home those memories. I didn’t let hate shadow my happiness. And I never let any monster—including my own—trespass on my peace.
Never again would I ever think ending my life was the answer.
Never again would I be so ungrateful not to appreciate every fucking moment that I got to spend on this planet, in this body, with these people.
Christ, I’m lucky.
Abandoning my laptop, already knowing the words I’d say to Ily in my heart, I joined my brother by the window. I found the two people he stared at. Relations of ours even though we’d never met. “And how do you feel about that? Any second thoughts?”
He sniffed and rubbed his temples. “This is on you. You’re the one who tracked them down and gave away most of your money. They might be monsters.”
“Your money. Not my money. And we’re monsters. Yet...we’re tame enough. I’m sure our half-siblings will be too.”
“Speak for yourself.”
I studied him as he stopped massaging his temples and dropped his hands.
After the year and a half of living here, I’d noticed Q had a similar sensitive system as I did. Only he got migraines instead of nausea. I hadn’t thrown up in a long time. The barometer of right and wrong no longer needed to keep me leashed, yet Q suffered quite regularly.
“Another headache?”
He scowled. “Too many people, that’s all.”
“You sound like Krish.”
“He has it right about people being too noisy.” He huffed and waved off my concern. “I’m fine. Drop it.” Keeping his eyes on the festival below, he stiffened as he noticed Tess mingling. He always did that. Whenever he’d see her, he’d freeze as if still unsure how he had her in his life.
He claimed I was a hopeless romantic.
But so was he. A closet romantic whose love language was tearing out the hearts of bastards.
Balling his hands, he murmured, “You know...the day I proposed to Tess, I branded her.”
“I’m aware. I’ve seen the Q stamped into her chest when we all went swimming together.”
“And I’ve seen the H scribed into Ily’s leg.”
We shared a look.
We smiled.
“Did you see the little wedding present Ben sent you in our joint email?” He raised an eyebrow.
“No?” Scooping my phone from my pocket, I logged in.
“What is it?” Last week, Ben and Stew had returned to Joyero to see what could be salvaged of Victor’s island.
Despite the explosions and fires, the stone citadel had survived—minus a few pieces.
We were in discussions about possibly using it as another base for this secret enterprise of ours.
Q chuckled under his breath as I found the video and opened it. “Don’t, whatever you do, play that at the reception.”
Shooting him a look, I pressed play on the attachment.
A slice of ice cut through me as Victor appeared on the screen. Howling, he dragged his useless legs as he hand-walked across the grass. The footage wasn’t perfect. It kept flickering in and out, night-shrouded everything, orange fires danced in the distance, and smoke curled and obscured.
But I could see enough.
Make out enough to understand what this was.
I froze with sick satisfaction. “The cameras were still working?”
Q crossed his arms. “Mm hmm.” He watched the unfolding scene. “Fitting to be able to watch his end seeing as you didn’t get to see it that night.”
I stiffened as the recording showed Q standing over Victor with a knife.
A blur as I threw myself at my brother to stop him from taking that monster’s life when it belonged to all the jewels he’d hurt.
My breath caught as video-me staggered up and bolted toward the jewels huddled around two people bleeding out on the lawn in the distance.
My heart pounded as I relived the horror of finding Ily and Peter dead.
I’d lost both of them, never knowing both would somehow come back to me.
Doing my best to forget the agony from that night, I focused on Victor as more jewels surrounded him and Q passed over the blade. As one, they all fell on him. A flash of a dagger, the glint of a kitchen knife.
I held my breath as a massacre unfolded.
Victor’s screams still echoed in my ears but seeing what he’d endured...
fuck, it gave me perverse enjoyment. Such joy, even though it shouldn’t.
Watching him twitch as some smoke-hazy slave drove a dagger into his chest. Seeing him jerk as another gutted him right in the belly.
The jewels weren’t squeamish, nor did they stop.
They just kept stabbing every part of him they could reach.
The video crackled and fritzed just as one of them dug the tip of their knife into Victor’s eye socket and popped his eye out.
He screamed—
The feed cut off as if the fire had finally chewed through the connection.
“Well, shit.” With slightly shaking hands, I turned my phone off and tucked it back into my pocket. I shrugged. “Serves him right.”