Chapter 13 - Scarlett #2
“Don’t,” I heard her say, holding out her hand just before I threw my arms around her neck and fell into her.
She wrapped her arms around me tightly, as if she had always been my sister.
She felt so warm, and we were almost the same height too, so hugging her felt comfortable and exactly how I imagined it might feel.
It was the first hug I had had for as long as I could remember. The first embrace that had come with no strings. Just warmth. Just sisters.
I giggled and leaned back, grabbed her face between my palms. Her eyes were so beautiful. Blue and brown and bits of green. Almost like mine, but so much more special. Heterochromia, her file had said.
She smiled right back at me, her hands sliding over my hips. “Hi,” she greeted, her voice like a song, “I’m Olivia.”
I nodded and stepped back. “I know, the rose,” I signed.
“Azrael has told me so much about you. I’ve wanted to meet you for months.
You’re so beautiful, just like me, and you like spilling blood just like us.
Look at your smile! The memory is bad, but the outcome fits you well.
Are you going to turn the rivers red with us? ”
But her brows only furrowed slightly. She glanced to Azrael and back. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
I frowned and turned to Azrael. “None of them know sign language?”
“Father dearest didn’t encourage them to take that course,” he replied. “So they didn’t see the need.”
“Does she not talk?” Rae asked, pulling my eyes over.
“She speaks just fine, it’s you who choose not to understand her.”
Rae glared at him before turning to me. She looked me over slowly, her eyes softening. “I know a bit,” she finally said, glancing to Olivia and back. “I think she called you ‘the rose’ and said that she’s been wanting to see you for a while.”
Olivia turned back to me, smiling. “Azrael’s talked about me to you then?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he stated behind me.
But before I could respond, something white caught my eye, a low whine meeting my ears.
My eyes fell, finding a giant white animal being held back by Everett, ears back, fighting against his grip.
I gasped and jumped back, my heart pounding. What was that? Was it going to hurt me if he let it go?
At the thought, I immediately reached for my blade, pulling it out—
I heard a click and my eyes lifted to see a gun pointed at my head.
I laughed, looking between it and the creature he was protecting.
“If you’d like to see your master’s cunt again,” I heard Azrael hum, “I’d put the gun away.”
“Everett,” Olivia warned, placing her hand on the gun.
My eyes shifted to hers just as hers found mine, hardened and confused. “Have you never seen a dog before?”
A dog?
That was a dog?
No, the dogs I had seen were yellow and sometimes black. They were smaller with floppy ears, nothing like this. Nothing that could tear me to shreds so easily.
“You’ve read about her,” Azrael said, his voice closer now. “Lucy.”
“Read?” Emily asked.
Lucy?
I lowered the dagger, studying the dog. After a moment, I slid the knife away. “I thought Lucy was a child.”
“We don’t take children to the vet,” he told me, joining my side, his eyes locked on his brother who was now holding the gun at his side. “Vets are for animals. Pediatricians are for children.”
Silence filled the room until Rae finally spoke up. “Are you going to tell your friends to lower their guns?”
I straightened and turned around, finding all three brothers pointing their guns at them.
“No,” he answered. His eyes shifted to Olivia’s. “She learned sign language in a matter of weeks, I expect you to do the same.” He turned away from them, and I watched him go for only a moment before turning back to Olivia. So beautiful.
“They have a meeting room in the back,” Azrael said. “I suggest we all retire there.”
I beamed and held out my hand to her. “Let’s go.”
She glanced after Azrael before finding my eyes again and taking my hand, her smile glowing. “Lead the way.”
~~~
I sat between Azrael and Olivia, the Blackheart brothers leaning against the wall behind me, while everyone else filled in around the table.
They were all clearly still upset, but more willing to listen now that they had seen me, it seems.
Silence filled the room as they stared at me with different looks in their eyes. Suspicion, confusion. The eyes I noticed the most, however, were Rae’s. Every time she looked at Azrael, it was with anger, but when her eyes found mine, there was a bit of sadness in them, worry, question.
I looked over to Azrael. “Why is she looking at me like that and not how she’s looking at you?”
Azrael’s eyes shifted to the woman from where he sat at the head of the table. “Because I’ve kept her from killing her father, something she’s wanted to do for three years now.”
“It’s a fucking prick move, Azrael, whatever your excuse is.”
“Does she not understand that you did it for a reason?”
“Not yet,” he answered.
I turned back to Rae, studying the anger in her eyes, wondering why everyone else was being so quiet. After a moment, I turned back to Azrael. “Tell her what he said to me.”
His eyes dragged away from me, finding Rae’s instead. “Family trusts, little sinner. It isn’t my duty to make them feel better.”
“Better?” Jack asked, sitting forward. “You’ve been preaching about patience your entire life—”
“And you have yet to show an ounce.”
“We’ve been patient, Azrael,” he replied.
“We were patient when Malachi brought a psychotic miscreant to the building. We were patient when you started killing Initiates. We were patient when dead girls started showing up in the halls. We were patient when he sent you to that damn asylum, and we’ve been patient since you got out.
We’ve been waiting years for you to share with us what you’ve been doing, helping you escape the feds, erasing any story about a serial killer the news catches before it gets out of hand.
We’ve been covering your tracks for years, and for what?
For you to keep playing some sick game?”
I turned to Azrael, expectantly. He brought them all here to reveal the truth, so it was time to reveal it, wasn’t it?
Azrael’s eyes remained locked on Rae’s, and I could almost hear the ‘tick tocking’ of his clock echoing around the room.
“Every time Charles fucked Scarlett’s mouth, he called out your name,” he told Rae, her face immediately paling.
“Every time he came staring at her, it was you he was thinking about, but that’s not the end of it.
You want to know the truth? A truth that I now have to tell because of your meddling and your talking and your incessant need to be in control?
And make no mistake, daffodil, this rests on all of your heads.
So, here it is, here is the truth, starting the day I went to an auction. ”
~~~
“…and that’s the reason I called all of you here today. The woman will be returned to her family, and Scarlett will get to pop her murderous little cherry.”
I beamed, turning to them all, but the looks on their faces were less than excited. I mean, I suppose I should have expected it. Azrael had left out so much, but I thought they would be just a little excited about the revelations he had given them.
They exchanged glances with each other, looks I recognized because they were the same looks Azrael and I gave each other.
“So,” Grey finally started, his tone quiet and calculated, “all these years, your little ‘pop-ins’, your strange phone calls, your cryptic texts, it was all a way to manipulate us into doing what you needed us to do.”
“No,” he answered. “If that were the case, I failed terribly. No, I let you work, I allowed you your emotional outbursts, said nothing, did nothing, and behind the scenes, I did my best to keep you safe.”
“Olivia was fucking kidnapped,” Everett snarled.
His eyes shifted to his brother’s. “Is the wind whistling too fast between the trees, dear mountain boy? I warned you. I warned you several times. I even warned the dear wild rose. And then, after I did my due diligence, instead of allowing my rage to control my actions—” He gave Jack and Rae a pointed look.
“—I helped you find her. You never would have found that compound without me. You never would have found everyone in the Delepski bloodline. You never would have succeeded in bringing her back from the depths of the Hell she found herself in. Not without your dear youngest brother.”
“Okay, stop,” Olivia started, leaning over the table, her eyes finding Azrael’s.
“Eight months ago, you told me that the ace was ready to play. That’s when you started having your sessions with Scarlett.
You bought her hand, you legally married her, you Claimed her to protect her from Beckett sending people to ‘save her’. ”
I touched her hand and shook my head before turning to Azrael. “They think taking me away from you would have saved me?”
“I corrected them,” he responded.
Poppy rolled her eyes then. “She didn’t mean it the way she said it, Scarlett,” she began.
“She meant it as in ‘save’,” she put quotes around the word.
“Beckett and Malachi, and I’m sure up until now, everyone else,” she gestured to the people around the table, “believed that nobody could survive Azrael. It was a misguided way to think. Clearly.”
I pressed my lips together and leaned back in my chair, using my foot to push me back and forth. Very misguided, I would say.
“And then you trained her,” she went on. “Why? So she could get her revenge?”
“She deserves it.”
“So did we,” Rae said, although there was less bite in her tone.
Olivia glanced her direction, studying her. “But,” she went on, turning back to Azrael, “it wouldn’t have worked because the moment she got him, it would have ruined everything.”
“Rae would have exacted her revenge for what her father had done to her and nearly you, and they would have known that The Family was truly coming after them. They would have scattered, and we never would have found them all.” He straightened.
“The children at that house are hardly a fraction of the ones that still remain, and I was close to truly finding out the identity of the person who founded the church when a woman showed up at the museum a few hours ago with an ‘A’ carved into her chest and that label plastered to her display.”
“So whoever it is knows who you are,” Jack said, leaning over the table. “Who’s to stop them from scattering now?”
“They won’t scatter,” Azrael replied. “They’ve already shut down the branches and congregated themselves in the seven main churches.
They’re unraveling, they’ve been doing so since I took their precious blessing away from them, so their minds aren’t as sharp as they once were.
My belief is that they’ll only huddle closer. ”
“Did you figure out who the Founder was?” Greyson asked.
Azrael’s eyes locked onto his, a chill filling the room, but rather than answering, he pushed himself to a stand.
“Just remember why I waited so long to tell you this information. The plan is to hit all the churches at once, but not yet. I have a special assignment for my sinning doll first. Once she is done with it, then you will each be assigned a church, travel to that city, and remain there until I say. Seattle is ours. Take who you want but choose wisely. Beth and Jeremy seem loyal, make sure they and whoever else you bring understands that other than the children, there will be no survivors. Not one.”
He was right. Not even the Favorites who had become wives or husbands could live. There was too much of a chance that they were set in their ways. Children could be remolded, but adults? Those engrained habits were impossible to break.
My hand tightened around Olivia’s as Azrael headed for the door, and I stood, following after him and pulling her along. I wasn’t ready to let her go.
“Wait,” Emily started, causing Azrael to stop at the door. “Who is the Founder?” she pushed.
I could tell that he was smiling sharply.
“Be still your beating heart, little mouse, the bloodline will end with the true heir and their ever-faithful father.”