15. #2
She exhales heavily when he topples over to the floor, and once she’s satisfied with her work, she looks at me, gesturing at Jedediah and inclining her head a little.
“All yours.” Flicking back her hair, she then walks to where Varsha is holding Selina, with the latter’s hands pinned behind her back, and high-fives Alex when he offers a hand to her, palm up.
“Right.” I clear my throat, then grab a wooden chair from behind the disheveled study table before dragging it over to where Jedediah is.
He pushes himself to rise, and for the first couple of times, he fails. But then he does it; he rises.
I steeple my fingers under my chin. “So, Mr. Jedediah Russell, how does it feel to have your ass handed to you?” I ask.
He sneers at me. His mouth, mind you, is bleeding a river because of Cigs’ jaw-dropping kick.
“You think you’re so high and mighty, don’t you?
” He spits blood close to my feet. “Where the fuck were you when I was forcing my cock into Sylvia’s defiant little cunt?
When I had her pinned against the locker room floor, naked and defenseless? ”
I grit my teeth as my body shakes in anger, which makes him laugh.
Selina is full-on sobbing now, and it only irks me further. Aras and Magner look so on edge that I can practically feel their rage from where I’m sitting.
I look up at Alex, then snap my fingers at him. “Do it,” I command.
He grins, then moves behind Selina, just as Varsha lets go of her.
I make sure to meet Jed’s eyes, then smirk when he stares at me. “ Watch ,” I tell him softly.
His breathing quickens as he whips his head to where his wife is. Varsha pushes her down to her knees, just as Alex pulls out Jayce’s curb chain from his pant pocket, then wraps it around Selina’s neck.
She gasps, trying to yank at it, but Alex wraps the chain around his fingers and tightens his grip.
“No!” Jedediah gets on all fours and starts crawling to her, but I stand and grab his hair, pulling him back. When he falls down on his back, I straddle his waist, and memories from over sixteen years ago come flooding right in.
My mom on her back. Me on top of her, with a nail file in my hand.
Her soulless eyes. The fear in them.
The sirens. The police station.
Jayce…
I blink myself out of it, then swallow and look down at Jedediah.
“Pinned her to the floor, did you?” I grit out, before grabbing his wrists and pressing them against the carpet on either side of his face.
When he tries to jerk out of my hold, I shift and push my left knee down on his crotch, making him scream.
“You sounded so proud of yourself there, Jed.” I push in further, and he in turn screams louder.
“Wanna show me how you did what you did?” I all but slam my knee into his groin, and he’s so worn out because of the pain that he can barely make a sound now.
“What you did to Sylvia was a cruel violation – of her mind, and of her body,” I say, punching him in the eye.
He just grunts and takes it, so I punch him again.
“You could have used your power and influence to do something good, but you wanted to prove your worth by being a monster , didn’t you?
” I grab his chin and tilt his head to where Alex is choking Selina.
From what I can tell, she’s barely holding on, and that’s only because Alex has loosened his grip on the chain.
“Look at what your heinousness has caused,” I tell him. “Look at how she’s paying the price for what you did.” I slap him, then turn his face to me before raining down a series of rear and lead hooks on it.
He mumbles something I can’t understand, so I stop my assault and grip the back of his neck, forcing him to meet my stare.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Let…let Selina go, or else your…” he coughs blood on himself. “Or else your pink-haired whore will find herself in the same situation as Sylvia…”
My vision blurs as my body once again gives into my anger. “That so?” I pull out my switchblade and flick it open, then get to my feet before silently asking Alex to bring Selina over.
She continually gasps for air as she’s dragged towards me, and once she’s close, I bunch her hair in a fist and pull her short frame in front of mine.
Jedediah sits up and outstretches an arm towards her, but he’s too beaten up to do anything beyond that.
“There’s this thing some people like to do,” I begin.
“They think it’s okay to threaten me, knowing full well that I’ve got their lives in the very palm of my hand.
” I chuckle. “But they don’t realize that I’m a fucking death note .
I’m unexpected; I’m lethal.” I throw a taunting wink his way.
“I am inevitable .” I pull back Selina’s head, and she makes a weak attempt at getting out of my hold, which makes me scoff.
“And so, Jedediah, here’s an example of what happens when you try outsmarting me.
” I hold my switchblade in a vise grip, then stab it directly into Selina’s jugular.
Her body jolts at my assault, and spurts of warm blood sprays out of her neck, painting her hair, and my hand red.
“No!” Jedediah yells in a grated voice, then tries to reach me, but fails.
I stab Selina a second time – in the same spot – hearing a faint hiccup, and then once more, just to sweeten the deal. Her body slumps completely, and I feel the weight of it against my grip, so I drop her into Jedediah’s arms, where she twitches, then goes still.
I sniff as I study my stained hand. “Had you not threatened Cignette, I might have let you live,” I tell Jedediah, then lift a shoulder. “If only to suffer in agony over your wife’s loss. But alas, you fucked up, just like they all do.”
He’s sobbing now as he holds onto Selina and fixes her hair like she has any breath left in her. “My wife did not deserve such an end,” he croaks out, then swallows. “But I…I do.”
“Aww, look at that; an awakening! ” Cigs muses, clutching her invisible pearls.
I chuckle, then look down at my bloody hand. Bringing it upward, I grunt as the familiar, metallic scent fills my nostrils. And when I put a finger into my mouth to get my fill, I make sure to keep my eyes on Jed, who looks both enraged and disgusted at me.
Not that I give a shit.
“Hmm, tastes just like collateral damage,” I say, merely to get a rise out of him.
He grinds his teeth. “You motherfuc–”
Varsha fires two consecutive shots, piercing the side of Jedediah’s head.
He falls against the carpet with a dull thud, dirtying it with brain matter and what not.
I sigh as I step away from the corpses, then sit back down on the chair I’d pulled over earlier.
“Fucking marvelous ,” Aras praises around a grin, then points at me.
“I’ve just transferred the rest of the promised money to your account.
And a little more for the applause-worthy spectacle I had the pleasure of witnessing,” he announces, sliding his phone into his jacket pocket.
He briefly surveys Jedediah and Selina’s bodies, and a sinister smile curves his lips.
With a relaxed exhale, he then scans me up and down.
“I think you should clean up before you head downstairs to the foyer,” he suggests.
“There’s a guest room a few doors down. You’ll find a closet full of clothes and a bathroom there.
Leave what you’re wearing in the washer, and my staff will deal with it later. ”
I nod. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” He rises, then looks around at the crew.
“The cleanup team will be here in a bit, so while Dorran freshens up, I’ll ask the rest of you to please take a break, get some air, or maybe try the appetizers that I’m sure are currently being served.
” And with that, him and Magner leave the study.
“Go get something to eat, guys,” I tell my crew. “I’ll see you downstairs in a bit.”
“You sure?” Varsha asks.
“Positive.”
They look at Cignette, who shakes her head at them.
With a nod, Alex partially opens the door to prevent the smell from inside to waft into the hallway, then slips out. Varsha follows him, then quickly shuts the door behind her.
“You didn’t have to stay,” I tell Cigs.
She tilts her head a little. “Really? And what would I do down there without you?”
“I don’t know? Some networking, perhaps?”
She rolls her eyes. “Sure, yeah.” She reaches me, then wraps one of her arms around mine. “Come on; let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Hold on.”
She stops, looking down at me in question.
“How are you feeling?” I ask. “Like, really, Cigs; how are you feeling right now?”
Her brows crease. “I don’t understand.”
I sigh. “You just killed two people,” I say to her. “I need to know you’re okay – mentally, that is.”
“Of course I am,” she offers, then squeezes my arm. “It’s not the first time I’ve ended a life, Dor.”
“I know that. But this was different, wasn’t it? Besides, witnessing me killing Haroon is completely divergent to you killing the Goswamis. The impact of both can’t be compared.”
Her eyes crinkle at the sides as she smiles at me. “And what about you?”
“What of me?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her honestly. “I feel like myself again, which was long overdue, to be honest.”
She smiles again. “So trust me when I tell you that I’m fine as well,” she assures, keeping her gaze on me.
“I mean it, Dor. Watching you end Haroon was great, but when I shot the Goswamis, I…” She swallows.
“It’ll make me sound fucked up, but making them bleed was almost…
healing . It was an experience I didn’t know I could have, but am so glad I did. ”
“We’re all fucked up, sweetheart. And if being the way we are gives us an opportunity to liberate ourselves, then who are we to deny the hand of fate, eh?”
She grins, briefly glancing at the Goswamis behind her. “Exactly.”
I chuckle, then get to my feet. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. But if there’s anything you wanna talk about, I’m here, alright?”
“Okay,” she says, then rises on her tiptoes to give me a kiss. But the second our lips touch, she rears back and grimaces at me. “Umm, while we get you cleaned up, let’s also have you brush your teeth, because goddammit , dude, your mouth stinks .”
I put my tongue to my cheek. “But I thought you liked the taste of blood on me.”
She mock-shudders. “Not the fucking aftertaste version of it, I don’t.”
“You’re so picky sometimes,” I quip.
“Yeah, I know. But I’m not asking for the best of both worlds from you, so the least you can do is have a mouth that does not reek like a dead rat’s ass.”
“Do I wanna know how and why you know the smell of a dead rat’s ass?”
She scowls, dragging me forward. “Let’s fucking go .”
I laugh, letting her lead me outside the study and towards the guest room. “Aye, ma’am.”