Chapter 22 - Scarlett #3
“Scarlett,” she said, taking me in. “Look at you, gorgeous. I need to get a robe like that, it would do me some good. Perhaps in pink.”
I couldn’t help but smile back as Azrael walked by me, Lucy sniffing at him as he passed only to return her attention to me, her tail wagging. “Glad to see you,” I signed, following after him slowly. “Has Poppy been down here yet?”
“No,” Azrael answered. “She doesn’t know what we know, but I’m sure the rose will catch her up the moment she goes up.”
Olivia frowned. “Of course I’m going to tell her, she should know everything we do.”
“You do cherish ruining games, don’t you?” he hummed in response.
Just as I passed the second hanging person, Alaric appeared from behind the first, looking me over on his way to the table. “Why couldn’t my cane look like that?” I asked before he turned away from me.
He dropped a bloodied metal horse hoof file onto the table and turned back to me, blood covering him as well. “You need it to walk. He needs it to fight.”
I glanced down at my cane, admiring the beauty of the simplicity of it and when my eyes lifted, Alaric asked, “do you want one like his?”
I shook my head. “I like my dagger.”
As I came to a stop in front of Carl, I saw that he was missing most of his teeth. His hands were bloody, and his shoes were gone, revealing the toes they had removed. His shirt and pants were torn to shreds, long, thin cuts across his ribs and thighs.
He was barely conscious.
“Did you hear what he told me?” I asked as Azrael stepped up behind him, gazing at me around his arm.
He nodded. “We’ve also come to find that dear sweet Marla has a woman in her life she calls ‘baby’. The fiery daffodil doesn’t have any other siblings, and Marla’s cousin is not a contender. The woman looks forward to meeting me.”
I remember when Azrael told me about Marla’s cousin. He was supposedly the same age as Rae. Azrael knew who it was, but he had yet to tell me. I never pushed, there was no point. Not unless he was relevant to our mission.
“Some of the women in our church stared at me too,” I told him, my eyes locked on Carl’s bloodied face.
It looked like they had used him as a punching bag.
“It was against their laws to own same sex Favorites, but you’ve confirmed with Louis that there were some Pillars and Leaders out there who risked breaking those rules. Perhaps she’s Marla’s Favorite.”
Azrael angled his head. “In our world, we call them girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses,” he said, gesturing to the two of us so subtly, I was sure no one else saw. “Lovers, even.”
I sneered at the word. “I don’t like that word.” My eyes returned to Carl, searching his swollen eyes carefully. “Perhaps another spouse then. She did like to cheat.”
“The woman pretended to be her,” Olivia put in, joining my side. “These guys all thought she was her. He was convinced it was Marla, to the point that when Azrael brought her in, he still didn’t believe it.”
“Was there a picture of the woman?” I asked, finding Azrael’s eyes.
“None of them met her in person. There were no pictures on their phones.”
“You trace phones.”
“She’s smart,” Olivia noted.
I searched his eyes. Smart, but not smarter than him. “Was it Malachi? He sent the others after you.”
A flicker of a smile touched his lips. “Father dearest likes his woman as much as we do,” he hummed, sliding his fingers into Carl’s hair and jerking his head back.
Carl groaned, pleading leaving his lips on breaths.
“And he’s ever so busy. Traveling, meeting partners, trying to retain his seat on his throne, but there is still a possibility that it could be the little crime lord’s brother.”
“Which is why we need to call a family meeting,” Olivia stated evenly.
“Wild rose, I don’t deal in uncertainties,” Azrael hummed, releasing Carl’s head.
“Yes, but you’ve had a feeling it was him since the very beginning.
Since you first caught wind of this church.
Now I see it, and they will too. All the trails, the coincidences, the meetings.
You need to tell the others to come here so we can all talk.
Your brothers included. They should know the whole truth. Every word of it.”
He turned away from us and headed for the table. “Uncertainty is death, wild rose,” he hummed.
“Sometimes you have to take that chance,” she argued back. “I took a chance talking to Everett in that bar.”
“You had no choice.”
“I took a chance going to that house the day Steven attacked me,” she pushed, trying to prove her point.
“And look at your pretty little smile,” Azrael sang.
Her spine straightened. “I took a chance throwing that earpiece away.”
“Trauma bonding isn’t something to brag about, deary.”
Her hands clenched at her sides quickly before releasing. “I took a chance at confiding in you when I was at my lowest. You gave me what I needed to become who I was.”
He turned back to her, an icepick in hand. “You were already you, wild rose, you just needed…sharpening.”
“And you gave me the sharpener. The point is that you know it’s him. You can feel it in your gut, I know you can, but for some reason, you’re holding back.”
Azrael walked over to me and handed me the weapon. “Do with it whatever your heart begs you to do.”
I felt the weight of it in my hand, my eyes shifting to Carl, my heart as steady as ever, the need for revenge burning through me in chilling flames.
I stepped up to him and released my cane, although the sound of it falling never found my ears.
I grabbed his jaw and forced his eyes to find mine.
“Look at me,” I thought towards him. “I want my eyes to be the last you ever see.” I lifted the icepick and pressed the tip against his temple, his whimpers becoming louder, only to shift into screams when I broke through the skin.
“This is for what you took from me,” I thought towards him. “And what you gave to me.”
I felt the grip slip in my hands as I slowly shoved it deeper and deeper into his head, memorizing the feeling of breaking through tissue, blood vessels, brain matter. He screamed and screamed, his eyes growing wider and wider until he finally stopped screaming, his face frozen in absolute fear.
He jerked, the light slowly fading from his eyes, his muscles relaxing until finally, he collapsed.
I stepped back, falling into Azrael when my knee gave out from under me.
He easily steadied me, handing me my cane.
“Are you afraid they’ll deny you when you tell them the truth?” Olivia asked steadily.
I looked over, Azrael still staring at Carl, his hand still holding my arm.
“They are your family, Azrael.”
His eyes shifted to hers, his muscles tensing, but none of that anger finding his hand. “Then you tell them. Call them here, you know how I would handle it. Havoc will let them in, and we will meet in the meeting hall. You can tell them the truth. Perhaps they will take it better coming from you.”
I knew she didn’t want to do that. I knew she wanted him to speak, but I could also see the truth in her eyes when she realized that he was right. They would take it better coming from her than they ever would from him.
She straightened and nodded. “Fine, we’ll meet tomorrow. Lus.”
I tracked her as she left the room before turning back to Azrael. “What is the truth?”
His eyes gazed into mine as if he yearned for something he could never allow himself to have. “She put together today what I figured out in the asylum all those years ago,” he hummed, brushing a strand of hair from my eyes.
“Which is what?” I asked, although my cunt was suddenly aching for him. I knew it wouldn’t be that fun with the pain I was feeling, but I also knew that pain could cause a lot of fun.
His slowly darkening eyes found my lips. “Malachi is the Founder and his daughter the true heir.”