29. Diego
CHAPTER 29
DIEGO
“Aren’t you gonna ask where we’re going?” I finally poke her when about ten minutes have passed and she still hasn’t said a word to me.
She lifts one shoulder. “No, I want to go back to sleep.”
Her head leans against the window. I know she’s got to be tired, but she’s definitely hamming it up.
My teeth grind together. “You’re driving me fucking insane, Maeve.”
“Back at ya.” She’s not looking at me but at the window, watching the city pass her by.
“You’re going to enjoy this,” I say. “The evil Cygnus in all his glory.”
Nothing. My knuckles whiten as I grip the steering wheel. I don’t know what this woman wants from me.
“Somehow, after being yanked out of bed and dragged into the cold night, I don’t believe you.” Her sarcasm just pisses me off more. I’d rather she not amuse me.
“Smart of you.”
She already has too much. She was supposed to be a pawn in my game, but everything is fucked. I’m so pussy-whipped I don’t have a chance of ever getting her out of my system. The calmer she is and the less she screams, the angrier I get. I was trying to punish her and make her father pay. How the hell did I wind up the one on the hook?
I don’t like to be questioned, and Maeve is putting everything into question.
We drive to the bad side of town. Her posture changes, a crease growing between her brows. A little of my tension eases when I see the genuine worry on her features. She shouldn’t be at ease around me, falling back asleep and wishing for the warm bed in my apartment. She should know she’s hated, unsafe, and doomed to pay for the rest of her life. We pull up outside the warehouse, and I park right out front, daring anyone to come and stop me.
So tell me why she seems nervous about everything but me when I open her door and pull her out into the street. I don’t bother locking the car. Everyone recognizes the build, and no one would dare touch it here. If they did, I would enjoy punishing them for it. This entire city is mine, but this neighborhood is especially mine. I can kill someone in the street, and no one will blink twice. Maeve has me so worked up I want to.
She looks at me with a sense of deep annoyance, clearly waiting for me to throw her back over my shoulder, but even that’s starting to spoil her. She can walk. I grab her hand and yank her across the street toward the warehouse.
“Let’s go,” I tell her, tugging her arm harder and forcing her to pick it up.
“You’re going to rip my arm off, asshole. Can’t you go back to hauling me around like a sack of crap?”
“Sacks of crap are more obedient,” I tell her as we step up to the door to the warehouse.
“Don’t puke,” I say with very little charity as I push the door open, and the smell from inside spills over us. Death, piss, vomit, an iron-rich combination of machinery and blood.
This is an industrial district, or at least it used to be, and tons of warehouses around here are repurposed for less-than-wholesome activities. This is where my enforcers bring men when it’s time for them to answer, pay up, or bleed for their crimes. Very few people have managed to walk out the front door, and only if they gave us the right info or paid what they owed. The deep stains in the concrete serve as evidence of the rest.
I continue to drag her into the warehouse, not letting her slip back into the fresh night air like she’s trying to. I squeeze her hand tight, forcing her to come along. The floor sticks beneath our feet as we move.
People tend to piss all over themselves in their last moments. A pathetic truth that makes death even worse in my book. We pass a series of doors, some horrors behind them I won’t even show Maeve. As we get closer to our destination, the human scents mix with the acrid smell of chemicals. I smile, wondering what the twins got up to today. My enforcers have a taste for torture.
“Oh my god,” Maeve gasps, a hand flying up to cover her mouth as she sees an open door with a dead body inside.
Her green eyes shine, and I wonder if she’s about to cry or puke. Either of them would be satisfactory responses for me. She stops in her tracks, looking over the carnage in the room, though this isn’t why we’re here. Our guest is waiting deeper inside for us.
“I’m not going down there.” I tug her hand, trying to lead her down the hall and closer to the low screams echoing all the way here.
“Fine.” I drop her hand. “Then stay here and hope nothing bad happens.”
Her eyes shift back and forth, judging the scene around her and the potential danger ahead. It warms my heart when she chooses to take my hand this time. I lead her past several more rooms, take a turn, and then finally climb a set of stairs leading to the loft.
We reach the top step and find the twins have Tucker waiting for us. She shrieks as her eyes go to our guest of honor, but the sound cuts off quickly as they echo in a peel like a bell. Much to my surprise, no complaints follow. The metal floor shakes beneath us, and rust and debris fall through the slats to the floor beneath.
The space used to be an office, but instead of a desk and chair in the center, there’s a metal table with heavy-duty straps. Tucker lies on the table, strapped in tight. Blood pours over the edge and drips onto the floor below. Lucky works on him, humming a tune while he slices into his stomach.
“Is he gutting someone while humming Giselle ?” Maeve asks, her voice colored with disgust but not the horror I hoped for. Her expression is outraged and a bit disgusted, but she’s not properly alarmed. How is Cygnus her boogeyman if she’s not affected by something like this?
But her question reminds me that’s how I know the song. My mom loved that ballet. “Oh yeah, that sounds about right.”
She shakes her head but says nothing more. Her hand covers her mouth as she watches, and her skin pales. She doesn’t cry, though, nor does she vomit or shriek. This is an anticlimactic response, and my hands shake even harder.
We stand side by side, wordlessly watching him work as if it were the ballet itself. One long cut and Tucker loses consciousness. Steps echo as someone climbs the stairs, but I’m not concerned. Maeve, however, seems nervous, and I’m glad something can shake her. A moment later, Enzo arrives at the top of the stairs and joins his brother. If these two can’t scare her, nothing will. Though I’m starting to understand there was a reason Maeve was the only one brave enough to attempt stealing from me.
She’s insane. Like the twins.
The Bianchis are known for their brand of madness. I keep them on my side through an agreement, but I’m smarter than to think they’re really in my crew or loyal to me. Men like them are never loyal to anyone but the demons singing inside their heads.
“Why are you killing your man?” she asks at last. “You’re the one who lied. You’re the one who didn’t keep your damn secret well enough.”
“We have differing opinions on that.”
Her responses take too long; they’re too tame. Why the fuck won’t this girl ever just give me what I want? Why does she have to complicate everything? God, I want her scared. I want any reaction at all that isn’t her watching like she’s bored. If she’s trying to drive me insane, it’s working.
I comfort myself by telling myself that Maeve is a liar; she knows how to perform for the people in her life, but it’s not like that with me. For better or worse, she has always been herself, and I want that, not what I’m growing more convinced is an act. She’s never seen death like this. She must be spiraling. She needs to tell me because I’ll fucking die without her truths and dirty little secrets, her messy emotions she’s scared to show.
“You think he needed to die for that?” Her tone begs my sanity but not my mercy.
“I think he needed to die because I had a point to prove.”
“I hope not to me.”
I nearly turn around and choke her. She is the only person I care to prove a point to anymore, which ruins so many facets of my life. She licks her lips, her eyes trained on Tucker. He’s a mess, his eyes almost swollen shut and a barbed wire around his right arm. His stomach bleeds continuously, dripping, making music with Lucky’s humming. Enzo finally looks our way, cleaning a knife on his shirt before putting it away and grabbing the smelling salts.
“Ready?” he asks.
I dip my chin and leave Maeve where she is, stalking over to Tucker as Enzo puts the vial beneath his nose and wakes him. One eye is so swollen it doesn’t budge as he tries to peel it back. The other only half opens, but the shock and fear are so clear in it, it’s nearly comical. Instead of white sclera, the side of his eyes are bloodred. It takes him half a second before he starts screaming for all that he is. The noise hurts my ears, and I get the satisfaction of Maeve flinching just once.
He struggles against the table, limbs thrashing as he tries to get free. In his efforts, he lifts off the table and looks directly at me with his one half eye.
“Cygnus!” he yells.
“Diego,” Maeve whispers to me, starting to respond to the tension of the situation, but much to her dismay, that won’t hold me back. It only excites me. I didn’t prepare a speech. I never talk to those I decide to kill. I just like to make sure I’m the last thing they see on this earth, but at this moment, I wish I did for her sake.
The grate beneath us reveals the floor through the open grid, and I realize the twins have set up buckets to catch most of the blood. Handy.
“For a bitch?” he rasps out.
“A bitch?” I ask, wondering if he’ll think better of himself.
“A bitch, a nothing, a whore,” he spits. That pisses me off a lot more than I expect, and when I look over my shoulder, I see the conflict on Maeve’s face. Part of her is worried he’s right. I wanted her to blame herself for this, but now that she is—no, she won’t make me soft for her.
“You think your life is worth more than hers?” I ask.
“You’re going to lose everything, Cygnus. You’re not the same since that whore came into your life. You’re weak.”
“Am I weak?” Wordlessly, Lucky hands me a knife. I present the blade for him, and as he stares at it, I correct one of his misunderstandings. “She was always in my life.”
For better or for worse, Maeve was always here. Everything led to her. I sink the knife into his chest, the tension of his cartilage requiring more force as I slit him through. His eyes bulge, and he curses. Of course his final words are wasted ones. No words of wisdom or love; he wastes his last moments on earth pissing me off.
Turning the handle and bringing it down, I slice him through the belly. Death was never exactly exciting to me. I’m not like the twins, but the power that comes with my lack of mercy excites me. Tucker’s head drops, his guts leak over the opening I made, and I step away, leaving the rest to them.
Maeve waits for me in the same place I left her, but her hands are balled in fists now. “Why did you kill him?” The reaction I was hoping for sits just beneath the surface. She’s really starting to understand. He died because of her. I can see it in her eyes.
Not sure if I’m enjoying the moment or suffering along with her, I reach out to her. There aren’t any words as I try to make sense of my motivations and what I want to tell her. How much have I lied to myself about my own motivations? My head tips to the side. She’s a big girl. She can get there on her own. Do I always need to manipulate or lead her somewhere?
“Fuck, Diego, tell me why you killed him.” Her two small hands shove at my chest when I don't say a word. She’s not strong enough, so I don’t move at all. She does it again, getting even angrier when she doesn’t affect me. Rather than let her try a third time, I snatch her hands out of the air and pull her against me.
“Was it because of me?” She’s shaking in my arms.
“You tell me,” I say, and my bloody hands go to her face, feeling the soft skin under my palm.
A tear slips out of her eye and I swipe the single drop away, savoring it, resenting it—who the fuck knows anymore.
“He followed you and knew where to find you. He knew way too much, and he was the one who blew up your picture and took it to the theater. He was dead the second I sent that text.”
“Oh god.” She pushes me away, but I don’t let her. “You’re fucking insane. You did that!”
She tries to get away from me, but I won’t let her. I’m done now. She doesn’t get a choice. She’s my wife, isn’t she?
She’s my wife.
“You took care of a problem you created yourself!” She gives up on putting space between us. “What is wrong with you?” A few more tears fall, but no full-blown sobs or screams.
“A problem I created myself? You’re a ballerina with more money than anyone can spend in their lifetime stealing cars for fun. Don’t talk to me about creating my own problems.”
Her cheeks flame, and she bites her lip as she tries to hold back her snap response. I know I poked a bleeding wound. Every single decision that led her to this moment was a stupid choice. She should have stayed in and watched a movie, but instead, she became this completely different person. She wanted more out of life, and now she got it. She fucking got it. It’s all her fault, even coming to my mom’s house.
“You’re still insane.” This time, she whispers. “You didn’t need to do any of this.”
“Didn’t I?”
Her eyes are so green, especially now when they’re watery.
“No, Diego. That’s my whole point.” She’s delicate, small, and feral at the same time. My little liar. I grip her hair at the back of her neck and shift her to the angle I want before snatching up her lips with my own. She whimpers when I kiss her, and I devour her in return. She tastes like sugar, her soft, plump lips so good I dream about seeing them around my cock.
“You make me crazy,” I speak into her flesh, desperate for more.
She gasps, and her hands circle my neck, pulling me to her. I absorb her with each kiss, every version of her—the stuck-up bitch, the car thief, my wife.
Every person in this town belongs to me. Especially Maeve Rodrigues.