Chapter 77 Lex
LEX
My cock gets hard when she’s bloodthirsty like that, but we have work to do waiting for us in the banquet hall.
All those bodies and fucking Cillian locked in the closet wait for us.
I crave the moment I can put his body on the pile, but I still have a few questions to ask before I can satisfy that itch.
In silence, we move back up the stairs to the hall as I mentally make a list of everything he has to answer for in the five minutes before I’m done with his ass.
As soon as we arrive at the corridor, I know something is wrong.
The hairs on my arms stand on end, and I’m not in the slightest surprised when I see that the door is open.
I stop Sable from entering by pushing her behind me, eyes on the others when I show them the door is open. I never cared to lock it since no one has access to this part of the castle.
Quietly, I make the gap a little larger to fit through it, and I push inside. I know Parker is behind me and the others too. I don’t want Sable to be here at all when I’m not sure who is inside, but I also don’t want her waiting outside alone if there are other lurkers around.
The moment my head pokes inside, I see the problem.
No one but fucking Arabella Aragona is crouched in front of the locked door keeping Cillian in, trying her best to free him.
I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I know they are talking in murmurs.
She’s so focused on jimmying the lock that she doesn’t notice our approach.
“Fuck, Cillian! I don’t know how to do this!”
“Just listen to my instructions!” he urges her. “Try again, we need to hurry.”
“You don’t fucking have to tell me.” Arabella shakes. “I’m not risking another meeting with that fucking psycho.”
The name-calling must have shaken everyone into reality because we all stop in our tracks, but Sable.
My mouth waters as I watch her take a knife strapped to her leg and sneak behind Arabella.
I’m so fascinated, I forget to be scared for her.
It all happens too quickly. Arabella is trying to open the door, Sable is silent as she approaches with the knife, and in one second, Arabella is complaining about her task, and in the next, Sable slashes her throat.
Soren’s rapist falls with a thud, blood pooling around Sable and ruining the beautiful gown Orion designed for her. We will certainly hear about it.
“Ara? Are you doing it?” Cillian cries from the closet.
I sigh and wait as Parker hands the key to Sable, and she opens the door with one clean swing.
“Sorry, Ara can’t talk right now.”
She’s a sarcastic goddess, and I’ve never been so fucking hard in my life. I’m never getting over this woman, that much is fucking obvious. I’m marrying her as quickly as I can. I need to be sure she’ll never leave me.
“What the fuck did you do to Arabella?” Cillian asks even though he knows the answer.
Sable doesn’t answer. Instead, she shows her knife, still shining with Arabella’s blood, and smiles so innocently it aches. Fuck me. She’s a wonder.
Our guest doesn’t look good. Every inch of him is covered in sweat, and his long hair has fallen loose from its tie in his effort to escape.
For how hard he tried, he hasn’t made any progress.
He breathes slowly, trying not to let us see just how tired he is now.
He’s already worked himself out of energy before we even get started.
His eyes are hard on Sable. The hate he lived his life carrying around now aimed at her.
“You shouldn’t have involved anyone in this, Cillian,” I say, and his eyes snap in my direction.
“Arabella knew this was risky. Playing with the four families always is,” he says, trying to justify her death.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t feel so guilty.” Sable shrugs. “I’d search for that bitch high and low to kill her for what she did to Soren. She just made things easier. Hadrian, please add a check beside Arabella’s name on our list.”
Hadrian laughs and makes a check in the air, keeping up with the joke. We are all crazy at this point.
“Let’s start with that one, Cillian. Why did you decide to help her drug and rape Soren?” I ask.
Sable flinches with the word, but there’s no other way to put it. If he was the mastermind, that’s exactly what he did.
“Rape?” Cillian laughs. “Please. He was always fucking Arabella. Are you going to pretend you didn’t want that?” He aims the question at Soren who’s face crumples.
“I didn’t want her!” Soren finally explodes, stepping forward and punching Cillian.
The pathetic man is too weak for this, but I don’t stop Soren as he goes for another punch and another. Blood drips down Cillian’s now broken nose, and Soren’s anger is not close to being quenched, but he steps away.
“Care to answer now?” I ask, tipping my head to the side.
“Sable shouldn’t be here. She’s a bitch, but it’s wrong to bring a Colefax as the Offering. The four families were making a mockery of our family names, and she was tainting our name by letting you do the same. She’s a Colefax heir!”
Sable shakes her head. “So because you thought it was a disrespect to keep a Colefax as the Offering, you made a plan to rape someone, you vile piece of shit?”
“I knew if you saw him with Arabella, you’d leave for good.” Cillian shrugs as if it’s not a big deal. “And you were standing in my way.”
“And you were the one watching all the time. The cameras, when Arabella went missing,” Parker takes a guess.
I wondered if Cillian wasn’t going to resist talking to us, but the smug expression on his face tells me everything I need to know. He’s waited his whole life for this kind of attention, and even though he’s bound and minutes away from his death, it’s worth the spectacle.
“Of course it was me. I had to know everything you morons were doing.”
“You’re the one who thought the four families would open their arms to you.” Sable scoffs. “Who’s the moron?”
Cillian’s face is swelling more by the second. “They couldn’t argue for much longer. If you hadn’t killed them, they would have come around.”
“They would have killed you. You’re one man claiming space at the table. If you wouldn’t shut up, they would have killed you and finished the conversation.”
The reasoning doesn’t work for Cillian. It’s sad, really, working his whole professional life under my thumb just to see his big finale wasted so easily. I’d feel sorry for him if I didn’t hate him so much.
“Did you really think this was going to work?” I ask.
“It did work,” he says, and I’m not sure if he’s delusional or perhaps has some plans that we should be afraid of.
“Look how long I fooled you,” he clarifies as he looks up at me, a slow, evil smile spreading across his lips.
“I almost got every thing I wanted because you were going to hand it over to me.”
I can’t hold back anymore. I punch his mouth, relishing the pain and the splash of his blood, but after the initial impact, he returns to smiling at me with that half-crazed look.
“I’ll always be the man who almost took you down, and you’ll never trust again.” He might be onto something. I am very unlikely to trust anyone outside of this room again. He’ll be incredibly trustworthy once he’s dead.
“Raping Soren, watching our every move, locking me out of the room…” Sable shakes her head.
“Everything you did was for status? To make sure you’d have a place at the most horrid table?
You know they are pedos, right? They pinned it on my father just to destroy what he had against them.
Why would you want to be part of that club? ”
“It’s my birthright!” he roars, fighting against his restraints for the first time since we got here. “I’m the male heir! These assholes you whore yourself to loved the power. They aren’t blameless little boys.”
“No.” She’s serious as she takes him in. “They found out what it means to be from the four families and walked away. You knew everything, and you still wanted in. You’re so pathetic. So fucking sad.”
“Me?” He laughs, and I know right then is the last time he’ll ever laugh. “You’re a whore. You don’t deserve a place as the fifth family.”
Cillian’s eyes are so hateful that I want to intervene.
I don’t like that he’s talking to her like that.
His voice brings chills down my arms as if he still has something up his sleeve.
I move closer to Sable, taking the knife from her hand.
He might be her family, but years around him have earned me the right.
“There aren’t five families anymore.” Sable sighs. “There’s only us, our money, and a new order.” She steps away and kisses me tenderly on my jaw. “Kill him.”
Cillian realizes his time to talk is over. He screams her name, trying to get her to come back. God knows the fact she wanted to talk was the only thing keeping him breathing, but time’s up. I slice his throat quickly, quieting his screams permanently.
Who is the fool now?