Forty-Eight
With a broad and bright smile, I watch Sin frog-walk the woman who had a hand in obliterating my mother's heart. Of course, Beverly is running her mouth, threatening anyone who makes eye contact with her. She is screaming at the top of her lungs about how she and her husband's family will destroy the club and how we will regret this, blah blah blah. Sin laughs in her face and continues to march her ass to the hole designed for this reason–teaching people lessons. Lessons they will not soon forget.
My mother stands to the side, watching with a glint of amusement. Prez walks into the clubhouse a few seconds later with a crying Princess in his arms. Princess clings to him like she didn’t bring this shit on herself. I scoff at all the eyes filled with sympathy for her. I told her it was a bad fucking idea, but some bitches just don’t want to listen to reason. And I can’t find enough sympathy to feel bad for her. She wasn’t hurt unless you count her pride. So the waterworks annoy me. I’m not entirely heartless. I understand that it's a shock to find out your mother is a cunt, but being this dramatic about it is team too much.
Marco is dragged in next by one of Don Barone's men. Sammy looks over at me, and his mask slips when he gives me a smirk and a wink, but it’s back and firmly in place when his eyes connect with Taz. I roll my eyes and chuckle. Taz stiffens, pulling me closer to his side. I don’t think he realized he did it–it happened that quickly. My man isn’t a pussy, so you better believe he returned Sammy’s glare, causing me to choke on my laughter. Men.
Earlier, Taz explained to me they usually wouldn’t do a perp walk in front of the women and children, but with what Beverly did, the club deserves to see her downfall. They also need to see what happens when you betray the club. I chuckled at the twofer. My father, the fierce MC president, is making a statement, making it clear that he is not one to be fucked with, no matter who you are. The faces of the men and women she betrayed alight with retribution as she passes them. There’s no love lost between them and her, and she knows it. She shuts her fucking mouth when one of the older ol’ ladies walks up to her and slaps the dogshit out of her.
Once the fan fair ends, the officers and my team head down to the hole. When I walk into the hole, Beverly is strung up by the chains that hang from the ceiling. At some point, Marco must have pissed someone off because he’s strung up next to her, with his chin on his chest and knocked out cold. Both are stripped of everything but her dignity. And I chuckle when I see the disgraced mafia heir is packing. I burst out laughing.
“No wonder he’s so fucking pissed,” Taz says with a chuckle.
Everyone in the room chuckles in agreement. Taz pulls me to the side, leaving the torturing portion of the evening in the capable hands of father and mother. Without a word or permission from Gunner, my mother is in Beverly’s face. Without a word, she slaps the hell out of her. The hit was hard enough for her to lose a few teeth, which fell to the ground at my mother’s feet. Beverly attempts to strike out at my mother, but the chains only allow her to move so far. When she realizes she will not get payback for the hit, Beverly cackles like she isn’t the one whose life is on the line. Her head rises, and her eyes glitter with hatred toward my mother, and she attempts to kick out again.
“All these years, you have been pining for a man that was mine.” Beverly screeches. The verbal barb will do nothing but piss my mother off more.
Beverly looks over at my father. “You will always be mine. Whatever she doesto me will be nothing compared to what my family will do to you and everyone associated with this club. You don’t scare me,” she hisses. “The widow maker,” she laughs. “You are nothing. Gunner won’t let you hurt me. None of these men will. I may not be his wife, but I’m still his ol’ lady.” She looks at the tattoo proudly displayed on her forearm and then back at my mother. “Club law.” Beverly cackles, thinking she has one up on my mother. Not realizing we have no intention of killing her. She deserves what’s coming and has no clue what that is, but she will soon.
My mother doesn’t have time to respond before Gunner is next to Beverly, holding a blowtorch. Clicking the mechanism to light the torch, he holds it up to her arm without touching it. Beverly flinches away, but I know the bitch can feel the heat. Gunner stares into her eyes.
“You were never my ol’ lady, not in the eyes of the club or mine. You’ve never earned the right. You were an obligation, a noose around my neck, nothing more and much less. The one who is nothing is you. You have been and will always be nothing. Just another power-hungry cunt that doesn’t have the balls to stand on her own two feet, always leeching onto anyone that would fall for your bullshit. You. Are. Done.” Gunner sneers and lowers the flame to the tattoo.
The smell of burning flesh has my stomach churning uncharacteristically. Her screams are music to my ears. Snot, drool, and tears run down Beverly’s face. We all watch as she sputters, screams, and pleads for her sons to help her. Bull and Vex remain rooted in place. Neither of them acknowledges her pleas. They don’t see her as anything but a trader to the club. She will never again get sympathy from them or anyone in this room. Once she realizes this, her demeanor changes, and the fire and hatred return.
“Yo… you won’t ki… kill me, you can’t, you know you c… can’t. Whatever you do to me, I will heal. … whatever you do... That is a… a promise.” Her eyes droop as she tries to narrow them on my mother.
My mother’s face remains cold and calculating when she approaches Beverly.
“Yes, and I will await the day. I’ll await the day when you are smarter, stronger, and more equipped to come for me.” my mother says in an indifferent tone. “No, Beverly, I will not kill you; you don’t get to have that. No, you will live. You will live to watch everything you’ve worked for ripped away from you. You will watch as everyone you know turns their backs on you. No, I will not kill you, Beverly. That would be no fun.” My mother laughs.
Beverly rears back and spits, narrowly missing my mother. With a tsk, my mother goes to work, taking her pound of flesh and beating the ever-loving shit out of the woman. My mother, usually controlled, is in the zone; I can see the wildness and bloodlust in her eyes. She is so focused on her task that she doesn’t realize when Beverly passes out, which happens more than once.
After a long while, I surveyed the damage. Beverly lost all her nails on both her hands and feet. Both kneecaps have shattered. Several teeth are missing. Beverly also has multiple burns all over her body. Something about the burns seems odd to me. My mother is not one to burn someone, peel skin, remove teeth and nails, or die by a thousand cuts–that’s more her style.
“What am I missing?” I say more to myself.
My mother looks over at me, and her eyes look pained, which has me taking a step closer to her. She raises her hand to stop me.
“The wounds that I’m giving her are ones that Princess would have received if she were to become Marco’s wife. Nothing he said to her was a lie. He would have used and abused her in ways that would break her body and mind.” She stands from her kneeling position after slicing into Beverly’s feet.
Blaze hands her a rag.
“The Prime minister’s daughter was found, barely clinging to life. It has been kept under the radar, but she was…” My mother shakes her head. “I knew that child since she was a little thing. She didn’t deserve what was done to her. None of them did.” My mother tsk and turns around, returning to her task.
She walks around Beverley, and with two swipes of her blade, she places a big “X” on her back from shoulder to hip. She adds a “W” at the top and an “M” at the bottom, her signature, and a message. The larger the offense, the larger the message.
Beverly’s sins stretched far and wide. As my mother tortured her, she explained to all of us just how depraved the woman was. Before her younger brother took over, Beverly's family was into some dark shit. My mother explained that she helped bring down the old Berlusconi Don and his heir. The sick fucks were trafficking minors for sick and sadistic shit. Beverly was to lure children in, grooming them for her father to sell. Watching my brothers take in that information made me so sad for them. They did not know, nor did our father. They see the true monster she is. Vex tries to get his father to end her. He doesn’t. Beverly is not just the monster that would sell their sister, but would have sold so many other innocents and wouldn’t have a single regret. By the end, there was just so much that even I was shocked at the depravity of the woman my father married. No one spoke for a long time as we watched Beverly’s unconscious body being removed. She will be dropped on the current husband’s doorstep as a message–we are watching.
Once Beverly was removed, my mother turned to my brothers and father and apologized for not telling them everything she knew. She told them Beverly’s involvement stopped when she married my father, but she was still guilty of her crimes. Something about how my mother said that had me not believing her. I think she said it to give them some comfort. I don’t know. I question it because the Don was assassinated ten years ago, which means it has only… It doesn’t matter. They are all dead now.
Ferrari couldn’t save face, no matter how hard he’d tried. His legitimate businesses took a brutal hit, and he lost more than he gained by aligning himself with Beverly. We did a good job in the coverup of her alleged drunken single-car accident. Being a prominent public figure, things had to be done to make Ferrari into a scorned husband in the public eye. Within the Cosa Nostra, he is paying his penance, which is why he was given the grace he was. His and his family's lives are now at the mercy of the Barones.
Beverly’s younger brother disowned her not long after discovering her part in what she had planned for his niece, her daughter. He saw the writing on the wall and washed his hands of her years ago, and there has been no contact. This recent development solidified his stance because there was no saving her.
When Don Barone said Marco had to be breathing, he was when he left the clubhouse. No one ever said anything about the man being able to speak or walk. Marco didn’t fare any better than Beverly did. As far as I know, he is now wishing for death, exiled to some secluded location his father sent him to.
We are criminals, assassins, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers and cousins. We are a family. The life we lead isn’t easy, but it is the one we choose. We may not live in the light, but we love hard and fight harder for what we believe in. And I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it because this life, my parents’ past, has brought me to my future. It allowed me to find my home.
All that’s left for me to do now is find bliss.