Chapter 35
C H A P T E R3 5
Bloodthirsty Princepin
Ella
The Present
L ate at night, I was riding down the road when I heard the rev of another motorcycle. I didn’t have to look back to know it was my boyfriend.
Cade’s matching black Ducati slowed once it reached mine. We shared a quick glance and fist bumped, our grins hidden under our helmets. Riding alongside each other, we finally pulled up to the private property owned by the Remingtons, parking our motorcycles strategically behind a heap of trees.
Located between South Side and East Side, this old property once served as an amusement park in the early 2000s. Now it was abandoned and resembled a ghost town with most of the rides defunct, except for the carousel. Cade mentioned that Vance had plans of gutting it soon and rebuilding something new in its place.
Which meant it was the perfect place for our escapade.
As soon as I kicked down my bike stand and removed my helmet, I jumped Cade’s muscular frame, climbing him like a tree. His deep laugh rang in the night like a symphony, muffled when I stamped my mouth to his in a lip-lock.
“Hi, baby,” he murmured when we pulled away.
“Hi.” I pressed tiny pecks all over his face. “I missed you.”
His hands tightened on my waist as he lowered me to my feet, leaning into every little kiss. “I missed you too, Ella.”
I pulled Callie’s phone out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Here you go. Her passcode is 0000.”
He unlocked her phone and perused the contents. “Did everything go smoothly?”
If painting her face into a clown, giving her a piece of our minds, posting her diary entries online, and revealing her identity on Secrets of St. Victoria counted then yes, very smoothly. “Oh, yeah. We got our revenge and I’m satisfied.”
“Good.” Cade smirked, pulling open the text conversation with Gavino. “Josh let me know the guards are with Callie and she’s being driven to the next city.”
Good riddance. “One down and one more to go, querido .”
Cade kissed my forehead. “I’m going to text Gavino to meet us.”
I hugged his arm and watched him message Gavino, pretending to be Callie.
Gav, we need to talk. It’s urgent. —Callie
His reply came instantly.
What is it? —Gavino
Cade and Ella. I think they’re onto us. —Callie
What the fuck?! —Gavino
He called and Cade automatically declined.
Callie…PICK UP. —Gavino
I can’t answer right now. Can you meet me somewhere? —Callie
Fuck. —Gavino
You’re joking, right? —Gavino
I’m not. But maybe we can sneak in a quicky afterwards? ?? — Callie
“He’s going to fall for it,” Cade mumbled and I hummed in agreement.
Okay, fine. Where? —Gavino
Cade texted him the address.
The abandoned amusement park? —Gavino
Baby, you’re a freak. —Gavino
Gavino sent a smiling face with heart eyes emoji.
We gagged.
I’ll be there in an hour. —Gavino
Can’t wait for you to fuck my pussy HARD. 3 —Callie
Cade and I cackled like villains when he pressed send.
See you soon, babe! —Gavino
“The unassuming idiot has no idea what’s coming his way.” Cade scoffed and pocketed Callie’s phone before grabbing my hand. “C’mon. The boys are already here and they’re helping us tonight. Let’s go meet them.”
We walked through the lot, taking inventory of the dirty ground from years’ worth of pollution, rusty rides, and a broken-windowed concession stand until we finally arrived at the back of the outbuilding that once served as the public restrooms.
Wearing all black attire, Nico, Nate, and Sam were there, making graffiti on the brick wall before spotting us. “Lovebirds, you finally made it!”
I smiled good-naturedly at their teasing. Boisterous greetings echoed in our circle as they did that thing boys did whenever they saw each other—half handshake, half back claps.
Nico came to hug me first, brown eyes warm and dark inky curls whipping in the wind. “Hey, Ella. Good to see you again.”
“You too, Nico.” I hugged him back. “I hope you’ve been well. I’m sorry I haven’t been to any of your races lately—”
“Hey, what about me?” said another familiar voice.
I glanced over my shoulder at Samuel, relieved to see his mischievous smile and green eyes without an ounce of contempt. Unfortunately, I cut ties with these guys, who were also my friends, after my breakup with Cade. I appreciated them acting like their usual welcoming selves, proving that the past was water under the bridge.
“You haven’t been to any of my fights either,” Samuel rasped, crossing his arms over his barrel chest. “I’m butthurt.”
I grinned at his playfulness and ruffled his dirty-blond hair. “I’ll make it up to you guys. I swear.”
“Deal. Now that you’re back with Cade—thank fuck, by the way, we were getting tired of his moping ass—will we be seeing you at the gym again?”
I learned how to fight courtesy of Cade and these boys. I missed the gym and wanted to start bringing my girls for self-defence lessons as well. “Yes.” I gave him a hug too. “I’ll be there next week.”
“All right, time to talk business,” Cade announced and we gathered in a circle. “Gavino is arriving within the hour.”
Unlike the other boys, Nate didn’t say anything except for throwing a brotherly arm around my shoulders in a silent greeting…and an olive branch. Considering our last exchange ended with me yelling at him for interrupting a situation I had under control. Whenever I ran into Nate after that moment, the mood between us was hostile. I regretted it. So I squeezed his hand back and we smiled, calling it a truce.
I felt much more at ease now that I knew I was back on good terms with all of them. I didn’t realize how depressing it was to have my entire support system reduced to Callie after that summer night. Especially when I used to have so many people in my life who loved and championed me.
Another burden slowly lifted off my shoulders.
Everyone listened carefully as Cade provided updates on the whole Callie/Gavino debacle. “Callie’s out of the city and Gavino’s coming to meet ‘her’—AKA us—soon. The property has three entrances, therefore we’ll split up to stay on the lookout. Ella, you’ll be with me, while the boys cover the rest. The minute Gavino crosses into the lot, we’re all over him. Beat him. Taser him. Shoot his leg if necessary. But do not kill him. That’s my job.”
Of course it was. Nobody but Cade was allowed to deliver the killing blow.
After a few more instructions, it was go-time.
Ski masks slipped into place, Cade towed us towards the entrance closest to the carousel.
“How do you feel?” I asked him as our strides ate up the distance.
I heard Cade’s smile in his voice. “Thrilled at the prospect of ending that motherfucker’s life.”
Cade
E xactly an hour later, a gunshot rang in the air, followed by Gavino’s pathetic shriek. The boys’ footsteps echoed in the lot as they brought him to us.
Baseball bat resting on her shoulders, Ella sauntered next to me, face covered in her ski mask and booted heels clicking loudly on the pavement. I cocked my gun as we met them.
They threw Gavino’s trembling body at our feet. Blood poured out of a bullet wound in his shin. “P-Please, stop!” he wailed. “Who are you people?”
Ella lowered to her haunches in front of him and used the end of the baseball bat to tip his chin up. “We’re your worst nightmare, Gav.”
“W-What do you want?”
I shared a secret smile with Ella. Gavino grew more distressed, blue eyes teary, blond hair mussed. “Where’s Callie? What have you done to her?”
“Your manipulative fuck buddy is far out of reach,” Ella drawled. “She left the city and you at our mercy.”
Callie hadn’t, but nothing wrong in painting her as the bad guy after everything she did. He’d die thinking she betrayed him.
Gavino panted with little whimpers when he realized he’d walked right into a trap. “Who are you people?” he asked again.
I crouched down and patted his cheek condescendingly the way he’d done to me all those months ago. “I bet you didn’t see us coming, huh, Ricci? We’re going to enjoy exacting revenge. Even your dead brother Kian won’t be able to recognize you in hell once we’re through with you.”
His blue eyes flared in recognition. “C-Cade? Ella?”
“Bingo!” My girl raised the baseball bat and thwacked him.
Gavino fell back, momentarily losing consciousness.
“Let’s get this show on the road, pretty girl?”
Her eyes gleamed with wickedness. “Yes.”
I tilted my head, signalling to my crew. They nodded and backed off, receding into the shadows until we were through with this traitor.
Grabbing Gavino by the scruff of his neck, I dragged him towards the carousel. Ella skipped beside me, humming a little tune under her breath.
I threw his limp body onto a paint-chipped mechanical horse and Ella dug through our supply bag, handing me ropes and my knife. I tied his ankles and his hands together around the pole. Now he resembled a pig getting roasted over a fire.
Stepping back to appraise my handiwork, I pulled off my ski mask.
“Ready?” Ella asked, doing the same. We both wanted to be the last faces he saw before it was game over for him.
“Ready.” I kissed the tip of her nose and went over to the control panel.
I came last night to test run and make sure it still worked. Turning on the switches, warped carnival music resonated from the carousel and a few flickering lights came on, giving the entire thing a creepy allure. The platform started spinning slowly with a creaking noise and the horses shunted up and down rhythmically.
Ella hopped on the platform first, baseball bat and red gasoline can in her hands. I smiled seeing the back of her leather jacket bedazzled with Property of Killian .
Then I stepped onto the turning platform and poured an entire bottle of ice-cold water on Gavino’s head. He awoke with gasps and a coughing fit. Those quickly turned into wheezing when he noticed he was strapped against a mechanical horse with nowhere to run.
Ella and I stared at him with smirks.
“Good evening, sleeping beauty.” I leaned against an opposite horse with my arms crossed. “Did you have a good nap?”
Propped against the center pole, Ella snickered and popped a gum bubble.
“Why are you doing this?” he bemoaned. “Please let me go.”
“Don’t act stupid. You know this is payback for what you did to me. For what you did to Ella on Initiation Night.” When I remembered this asshole put hands on my girl and hurt her ankle, a new wave of anger washed over me. So I shot his ankle to even the score. Gavino howled in pain. “Now I’m going to ask you a few questions and if I’m satisfied, I’ll let you walk out of here as a free man.”
I was lying, of course.
He was never leaving this carousel. It would be his final resting place.
Before the hour was up, he’d know why they called me a fixer.
“F-Fine,” he whimpered. “I’ll do anything. Just please, let me go. It hurts.”
It’s going to hurt even worse, Gavino.
I loaded more bullets into my gun. “First question: why? ”
I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew what I meant. And while I knew the answer, I wanted to hear him say it.
“You killed my brother,” he barely managed to growl, body straightening on the horse as much leeway as the ropes would allow. “Kian was the only family I had and you fuckers took him away from me.”
“Good answer. But you should know that Kian was a piece of shit.” I began listing the reasons on my fingers. “One, he stole money from us. Two, he was overly handsy with women who told him ‘no.’ And third, he tried to sexually assault my girl at Jared Roy’s party. So while he may have been a good brother to you, he was a fucking douchebag by every other standard.”
“N-No.” Gavino gulped. “Kian wouldn’t do those things. He was innocent.”
Ella and I shared a look. Gavino spoke with conviction, obviously having no idea of the extent of Kian’s depravity. He obviously thought brother dearest was a good person.
“Second question: how did you figure out we killed Kian?”
“Can you loosen these ropes at least?” He whimpered again. “I’m in pain.”
Ella came forward to tighten the ropes.
“You are in no position to make a single demand,” I threatened. “The next time you do, you’ll get another bullet. Understood, Ricci?”
He visibly paled, reining in his insults and pain as best as possible.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” I said through clenched teeth. “How did you figure it out?”
He struggled to find his words, the blood loss already getting to him. Glassy-eyed and swaying, he mumbled his explanation, “The night you killed him, Kian was supposed to meet me at a bar after concluding his dealings. When he didn’t show up…I got suspicious and went to the location he was last at. His car wasn’t there, but…I found his watch—identical to mine—bloodied and half-melted, and his chopped-off hand with the same tattoo as mine. The smell of fire still lingered in the air and he was nowhere to be found, which meant he was either hurt or dead. Some of Kian’s peers helped me track down the guard who kept watch on the warehouse. We tortured him until he confessed that you and Ella were the last ones there. My brother’s car was located in the junkyard shortly…with blood speckles on the paint job. It didn’t take a genius to figure out you two killed Kian.”
“Kian got what he deserved.” Ella shot him a menacing grin. “His death wasn’t quick and he cried like a beggar every time I bashed him with my bat.” Ella popped another gum bubble and slid the weapon along his body, letting Gavino know that she could do the same to him. “Then Cade butchered both of his hands and shot him until he bled out.”
Gavino screamed, shaking in his restraint with renewed anger. “You fucking bitch!”
Ella threw her head back on a taunting laugh.
When would these brothers learn their lesson? No one was allowed to call Ella a bitch. I aimed my gun for his thigh and pulled the trigger. “Talk to my girl with disrespect again and the next bullet will land on your dick. Just like with your brother.”
Gavino cried hysterically. Snot ran down his nose, his lips, and his chin like a waterfall. At least now he wouldn’t say another word to Ella.
“Who were the men that helped you?” Old Johnny was found dead in his apartment over the summer. Bullet wound in his head and a gun in his hand. Now I realized Gavino and company made it look like he shot himself.
Whimpering, he snitched, “Vinnie, Douglas, and Bruno.”
All low-ranking associates. Already dead. Meaning Uncle Vance and Josh wouldn’t be able to partake in the fun like they initially wanted. “Were they the same masked men who helped you in the summer?”
To fucking drug and assault me.
“Y-Yes.”
“Why did they agree to help you?”
“They didn’t want to work for the Remingtons anymore,” he cried. “They were part of Kian’s circle.”
The three fuckers probably thought they could either A, kill me for petty revenge or B, use me as a bargaining chip to obtain their freedom. “Vinnie, Douglas, and Bruno all died late July in a deal gone wrong. Is that why you waited until Initiation Night to try exacting your revenge again because you had no backup or brains, you idiot?”
Instead of answering, Gavino wept from the pain of the three bullet wounds and the tight ropes around his limbs.
I’ll take that as a yes.
“P-Please, I’ve answered all your questions. Let me go. I’m getting d-dizzy from this stupid merry-go-round!”
I couldn’t believe this was the same jackass who got into St. Victoria through a scholarship—the same one I played hockey with for years. Clearly, he was only book-smart and not street-smart. He’d failed both times at getting his revenge. And while his execution was nearly successful the first time, the fact remained that Gavino Ricci was an amateur who bit more than he could chew.
“What did I say, goldilocks?” I shot his left shin to match the right one. “You don’t give me orders.”
Over his pleas and cries, Ella said loudly, “How did you convince Callie to help you?”
“N-Not hard,” he hiccupped. “She’s wanted me for months. Willing to do anything. Plus, it was a bonus that she didn’t like you guys.”
“Did you bump into me the night of Josh’s party?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Did you send Cade the text messages to meet upstairs in his room?”
“Oh, God!” Gavino panted from the pain. “Yes, it was me!”
“How did you unlock my phone?” Ella asked her final question.
His hiss broke into another pitiful wail. “Callie gave me your passcode the night before. I met her at a bar, she was drunk, and it was easy to coax any information I wanted out of her.”
I waved my gun at him. “So not only did you want to drug and assault me, but you wanted to drive a wedge between Ella and me by making it look like I cheated on her in the middle of a crowded party?”
When Gavino just cowered under my angry gaze, I barked at him, “Answer me, you lousy fuck!”
“I-I did, okay?” he wheezed. “It’s not my fault it worked—ah fuckkk!”
I shot his right arm because he pissed me off. “The next bullet is going in your left one unless you give the gloating a rest.”
I promised myself that once I caught the asshole behind the entire shitshow, I was going to force him to write a letter of apology to Mabel Garcia for implicating her in this mess. Unfortunately, Gavino wasn’t in any state to crawl, let alone write, which meant I’d have to create a fake letter on his behalf to give her some form of closure and justice.
“Please,” he slurred. “Can you just let me go? I’ve given you all my truths. I won’t tell anyone about this night. I-I’ll fuck off to another city.”
I glanced at Ella.
She was already staring at me.
We got all our answers.
The puzzle was finally complete.
Gavino Ricci stupidly messed with us to get revenge for his good-for-nothing foster brother—someone who wasn’t even a decent human being—and now he’d pay the price.
Wordlessly, Ella grabbed the gasoline can and started walking around the spinning platform, dousing the entirety in layers of slick oil.
I placed my gun back in my chest holster and cracked my knuckles.
Gavino, through a hazy gaze, watched me wearily.
“You want to know why they call me the fixer?” I smirked. “I fix pesky little problems like yourself, Gavino. And I’m damn good at it too. You should have done your research before choosing to fuck with me. I’m not a merciful man. I’m even less merciful where my girl is concerned. Fuck with her or me…and you’re a dead man walking.”
“B-But you said I could walk away if I answered all your questions!”
I tilted my head, my cold smirk turning into a frightening grin. “I lied.”
Then I cocked my fist back and smashed it into his face, breaking his nose, his teeth, and the skin of his cheeks. Blood poured out of his orifices as I punched him to a pulp and shoved his head against the pole repeatedly until his cries were a distant sound compared to the vivid heartbeat rushing in my ears. “This is for putting drugs in my drink.” Slam . “This is for trying to paint me as a cheater.” Slam . “This is for messing with Mabel.” Slam . “This is for touching my Ella.” Slam . “And this?” Slam . “This is your final lesson: You never fuck with a Remington.”
I bashed his face against the pole one final time, but he was already dead, his skull cracked open, oozing out like an egg. His body slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, his blood covering the once pastel-coloured mechanical horse. Some of his blood had landed on my face during the assault.
When I glanced at my reflection in one of the little carousel mirrors, I looked like I was bathed in his life force. The beast inside of me finally received his pound of flesh.
I was sated.
My eyes cut to my girlfriend, standing next to us with the gasoline can.
I looked like a monster.
She gazed at me like I was her saving grace.
“My bloodthirsty princepin,” Ella said with awe and stars in her eyes, throwing her arms around my neck. “How I love you.”
I smiled down at her. “And I love you, mi vida .”
She wiped the blood on my face with her handkerchief and then I doused Gavino’s dead body with the remaining petrol.
We stepped off the spinning platform.
I handed her my Zippo.
Ella shook her head. “No, Cade. This one is all yours.”
Flicking the flint wheel, a small flame ignited. I lowered it to the trail of gasoline licking the ground and leading straight to the ride.
Within seconds, bright fire burst all around the merry-go-round, engulfing Gavino Ricci’s corpse and the horses in a diabolic sight.
See you in hell, Gavino.
“How are you feeling now?” Ella asked.
“At peace.”
“Good.” She smiled. “I’m at peace too.”
I extended my gloved hand towards her. “Let’s go, princess.”
Hand in hand, we sauntered away like thieves in the night.
Leaving absolute unhinged chaos in our wake.
Just the way we liked it.