Chapter Nine
Kade
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We moved Crane to the basement, the cold concrete floor beneath his bare feet, his shirt stripped off in the process.
The air down here is colder, heavier, the kind that sinks into your bones.
The single bulb overhead flickers, casting shadows across his skin, making him look smaller than he ever did in my nightmares.
I stand in front of him. I look down at him. Then I crouch, lowering myself until my eyes are level with his.
I don’t speak at first.
I just stare.
The fear in his eyes is real. Not imagined. Not something I dreamed up in the dark. Real.
His frame shakes so hard the metal chair rattles against the concrete. His breath comes in shallow bursts. His pupils dart between me and the stairs, like he’s calculating escape routes he doesn’t have.
It is music to my ears.
“So you like them young.” I coo, voice soft, sweet, poisonous.
His jaw clenches. The fat beneath his chin trembles with the movement. He tries to straighten his spine, tries to summon the arrogance he used to wear like a second skin, but it slips. It cracks. It falls apart under the weight of the truth in this room.
He is not in control anymore. He is not the wolf. He is prey.
I tilt my head, studying him the way he once studied me. “Twelve wasn’t enough for you, was it?”
His breath stutters. His eyes flick to the stairs again.
He knows exactly what I’m referring to, exactly what he did.
He knows exactly why he’s here.
Behind me, I hear their father’s slow inhale. Jaxon’s quiet curse. A shadow at my back, unmoving, unshaken, ready.
Crane swallows hard, throat bobbing. “Mara,” he whispers, voice cracking. “You don’t understand.”
I smile. A small, twisted thing.
“Oh, I understand perfectly.” she speaks, her voice a solid object, immovable.
He flinches.
She leans in closer, my voice barely above a whisper. “You’re afraid.”
His breath catches.
“And you should be.”
Mara steps out of the shadows, heels clicking along the concrete floor, each sharp tap echoing through the basement like a countdown. Crane flinches at the sound. I watch his eyes track her movement, wide and frantic, his breath stuttering as she comes into full view.
She looks calm.
Too calm.
A steady, lethal feeling that makes something new unfurl in my chest. Pride, hunger. Something darker I’m not willing to name.
“I don’t understand?” she repeats, voice steady now, no tremor, no hesitation. The undertone of rage in her tone is quiet but unmistakable.
Controlled.
Refined.
Deadly.
Crane’s jaw clenches. The fat beneath his chin trembles with the effort. He tries to sit taller, tries to summon the authority he used to wield like a weapon, but it slips through his fingers. He is shaking too hard. The metal chair rattles beneath him.
Mara crouches again, lowering herself until her eyes are level with his. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t look away. She holds his gaze with a stillness that makes him shrink back even though he has nowhere to go.
“You don’t understand?” she repeats softly, almost sweetly. “You don’t understand what you did to me?”
Crane swallows hard. His throat bobs. His eyes dart to the stairs again, then back to her, then to me, then to her father standing behind us with murder in his eyes.
Mara tilts her head, studying him like he’s an insect pinned under glass. “You don’t understand why you’re down here? Why you’re shaking? Why you’re afraid?”
He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. His lips tremble. His breath catches.
She smiles. A small, cold thing. A mirror of the smile he used to force out of her.
“Oh, Senator,” she murmurs. “I understand perfectly.”
He flinches.
She leans in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that slides under his skin like a blade. “You’re afraid of me.”
His breath stutters. His eyes widen. His shoulders curl inward.
“And you should be.”
Behind her, her father stands rigid, fists clenched, chest rising and falling in sharp bursts. Jaxon is silent, jaw tight, eyes burning. I stay close behind her, ready to move, ready to strike, ready to tear him apart if she gives even the smallest signal.
But she doesn’t need me. Not right now. Not for this.
She steps closer, heels scraping against the concrete, her shadow falling over him like a curtain.
“You liked me young,” she says, voice soft, poisonous. “You liked me terrified. You liked me alone.”
Crane’s breath hitches. His fingers curl around the edges of the chair, knuckles white.
“But I’m not alone anymore.”
Her eyes flick to me for a heartbeat. Something fierce passes between us. Something that makes Crane’s face drain of color.
She turns back to him. “And you’re not in control.”
Crane shakes his head, barely a movement. “Mara… please…”
She laughs. A quiet, broken, beautiful sound. The kind of laugh that comes from surviving hell.
“No,” she whispers. “You don’t get to say my name.”
He freezes.
She straightens, looking down at him like he’s already dead. “You’re going to answer for everything you did to me.”
His breath trembles. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She steps closer, her voice a soft, lethal coo. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
She steps aside, revealing me, a scalpel in my hand as I approach.
“Bunny.” I coo at her, she stands by my side.
“Where?” I ask her, waiting for her response, waiting for her to give me the green light to cut this filthy bastard into pieces in front of her, for her.
She taps her foot on the floor, the heel clicking against the cold concrete.
“He liked my face…” She contemplates
“He told me that he’d carve it up so that no one would ever look at me again, so that only he would know just how beautiful I was. Don’t you think we should return the favor?” Her voice changes, her posture straightens, she wants this.
She wants him to hurt the way that she did.
And I’d be lying if I said that didn’t do something to me.
I raise the scalpel, my hand shooting out to grip his face, sweat and tears soaking into my skin.
“Fucking filthy.” I growl as I take the scalpel to his cheek, dragging it agonizingly slowly down the side of his face, the scalpel cuts through the fat and tissue with ease, splitting the skin in two, blood pours from the wound, coating my hands, my forearms as I watch him scream.
“Ah ah, we’re just getting started.” I coo at Crane, his face twisted in agony.
“I think you should make them match Kade.” Mara calls out from beside me, I glance up at her, she’s watching me with a morbid curiosity.
My Bunny.
She’s watching me cut this man apart with a fascination that makes my blood ignite.
I happily comply with her orders.
I shift to the other side of him and drag the scalpel down the opposite side of his face, flaps of skin hang beside his ears, the blood pours down his neck, trailing between his collarbones and pooling at his chest.
I place the scalpel down once again, standing to inspect the instruments that Jaxon placed on the table.
“Mara.” I call her over, letting her choose my next weapon.
Her gaze darts around the table, landing on the pliers.
A low chuckle sounds in my throat.
“Fitting.” I whisper to her as I plant a soft kiss on her cheek.
I grab the pliers and walk back over to Crane, his eyes wide with fear as blood continues to pour from his face.
“How many baby?” I ask her, she tilts her head at Crane.
“All of them.”
The sound of metal hitting his teeth rings through the room, garbled pleading coming from his lips as I crush the pliers around the first tooth “Ah ah, Open wide princess.” I coo at him as I rip the first tooth from his skull, the scream that echoes through the air freezes everyone in place, everyone but me.
I methodically remove each and every tooth, leaving the most painful for last.
I glance back at Jaxon and gesture for him to come over.
“Your turn.” I hand Jaxon the pliers.
Mara
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My father doesn’t lay a finger on him. He stands off to the side, arms crossed, jaw clenched, watching as Kade and Jaxon and I act on instinct, the need to make him feel even a fraction of the fear he carved into me.
I watch every second of it.
I don’t look away, not once.
Crane’s breathing grows shallow. His eyes dart between the three of them, then to me, then back again. His arrogance is gone.
His confidence is gone.
His voice is gone.
He is barely conscious, slumped in the chair, trembling.
My father steps forward. He doesn’t look at Crane.
He looks at me and hands me a gun.
The weight is foreign in my hands.
Heavy, cold, real. I glance back at him, my breath catching in my throat.
“Take back everything he took from you, Petal.”
The words settle into my bones. Into the places he broke. Into the places I rebuilt. Into the places still healing.
I look at Crane. At the man who stole my childhood. At the man who stole my safety. At the man who stole years of my life.
He looks up at me, eyes wide, terrified, pleading.
For the first time, I feel nothing for him. No fear. No shame. No guilt.
Only clarity.
Only truth.
“I will never fear your name again.”
My voice is steady. Cold. Final.
“You are nothing. Weak. Pathetic.”
The words taste like iron on my tongue. They vibrate through the basement, through the concrete, through the air that feels too still, too heavy, too full of everything I’ve carried for years.
Crane’s eyes widen. He hears the shift. He feels it.
For the first time, he understands that the girl he broke is gone.
I straighten, the gun still heavy in my hand, the metal cold against my skin. I don’t raise it. I don’t need to. The power isn’t in the weapon. It’s in the truth. It’s in the way he looks at me now. It’s in the way he shakes.
Behind me, I hear Kade’s breath. Controlled. Steady. Ready.
I hear Jaxon pacing like a caged animal.
I hear my father’s quiet fury, the kind that could level a city.
But none of them speak. None of them interrupt. This moment is mine.
Crane swallows hard, his voice cracking. “Mara… please… you don’t understand what you’re doing.”
I laugh. A soft, broken sound that echoes off the walls. “I understand exactly what I’m doing.”
He flinches.