Chapter Thirty-four – Blood On My Mind
Chapter Thirty-four
Revenge
BLOOD ON MY MIND
Performed by The Dead South
“Scum! He called you scum, Eddie!”
The cheating, lying politician, the worst kind of human, had the gall to call Eddie a loser.
Dick Langley was the real loser. Not quite as bad as his whore of a daughter, but still, it was clear as day now what had happened to the cash all those years ago.
He’d taken it right along with the gun. He’d taken it and used the money to launch himself into higher and higher positions within the government, and he kept the gun for blackmail if Eddie’s partner had come looking.
Retribution would come for him and his daughter.
And then, behind the anger, I felt a surge of fear. The first real fear I’d felt in quite a while.
Because if Dick had taken the money, it meant the whore had been telling the truth for nearly a decade.
Auntie would be furious when she found out.
A tremor ran up my spine.
She’s going to make you pay. Eddie’s hysterical laughter only added another shiver.
Daddy’s violence had been nothing compared to hers. Eddie and I had learned that the hard way once we’d turned to her for help.
Stupid Blubbo. You failed us again.
“I didn’t lose half a million dollars, Eddie. You did that.”
You didn’t take it before Dick Langley got his hands on it. And you’ve wasted ten years of time and resources trying to recover it.
“I’ve made Auntie more than five hundred thousand dollars since then. Way more.”
She paid for your surgeries. She helped transform you, and you couldn’t do the one little thing she asked. You couldn’t kill Ariana and bring her the missing money.
I slammed a hand into the wall, and the sting brought me back to where I was.
This was the bitch’s fault. Her fault. If she hadn’t fallen into Eddie that day… I looked down at my hands, expecting to see them covered in blood as horror and grief flashed.
Not my fault.
She’d killed him. It was her. Her fault. Her fault. Her fault.
But the truth was, I didn’t have the money.
Was never going to have the money, and Auntie had always seen the money I earned her as an employee as completely different than the money she felt Eddie and I owed her as family.
One was business. The other was loyalty she’d deserved that we’d failed to give.
Two separate columns of a spreadsheet. One flush, the other in the red.
Pain sliced through the old scar. Blood. I looked down at the ice pick in my hands.
A smile curved over my face. It didn’t matter. Did it?
Not with what I had planned.
“You saved my life, Eddie. I’d be dead if you hadn’t stopped Daddy. Auntie didn’t even care when she saw you were dead. She’d already written you off for stealing from her and going back on your word. That was so stupid of you. So stupid. But I cared, didn’t I? And I will avenge you.”
The new cut in my palm matched the old one perfectly.
“She tortured me, Eddie. She knew I didn’t have the money, but she tortured me anyway.”
Because you were stupid, Blubbo. Because you let Ari escape.
“Ari will pay for the pain I endured too.”
That day had shown me a side of Auntie we hadn’t seen before. It had shown me that Auntie didn’t value loyalty as much as she said she did. The way I did. She really only cared about money.
This was why I’d spent years carefully planning for the day she’d turn on me again.
That brought a smug smile to my face.
What are you grinning about, idiot?
I wouldn’t tell him. I’d been smarter than him. I’d gotten away with what Eddie hadn’t, and Auntie didn’t have a clue. I had enough money socked away to keep me happy for the rest of my life.
The timing of my plan was all torn to hell now. No way could I wait until Friday.
I swirled the ice pick in my hand, laughter bubbling out.
I’d take care of the sleazy politician and point the finger at Ari one more time.
Then, I’d make it look like she’d committed suicide due to a guilty conscience catching up to her.
I’d wrap it all up in a bow for her new cop lover, and then I’d finally, finally leave this shithole and disappear for good.
It was time to bury the pitiful, Blubbo girl I’d once been—the victim, the punching bag, the spineless serf—and never let her raise her ugly head again.
I’d be on a beach, in warm weather, with men drooling over my sexy, sculpted body while they delivered me drinks and devotion.
And no one, not even Auntie, would ever hurt me again.