I Will Revel in Glory

by Stunich, C. M.

“I’m gonna kill Cat,” Beast growls out, reaching for me. I put my hands up and offer him the Magnum instead.

  “No, I’m not done,” I tell him, glancing over at the wall and spotting several meat cleavers stuck to the magnetic strip. I move over to it and grab one, hefting it in my hand before I pause beside Giulia’s body.

  “Gidge,” Grainger says gently, but then he stands aside with Beast and lets me do my thing. I end up finishing my task and swiping an arm over my bloody face. I chuck the cleaver into the sink and then head into the storage room that’s attached to the kitchen.

  The very first thing I see is a canvas bag filled with dry rice.

  I blink through the sensation of déjà vu before I move over to it and dump the rice onto the floor. Bag in hand, I load up my cargo, tie a loose knot at the top and then give the two men a look.

  “I need to find my phone,” I say, but then Beast is grabbing me and throwing me over his shoulder the way he did the day of the wedding. I let him do it with barely a protest, allowing Grainger to take the bag from my fingers as he follows.

  “Where is it?” he demands, and then he retrieves my knife and my clutch—including my phone—as Beast heads to the back door and kicks it open. It isn’t locked anymore, that’s for certain.

  We head into the cool wetness of the night, the scent of the blood on my skin mixing with that delicate wet earth smell and the omnipresent reek of ash.

  We don’t stop until we’re near the woods and Beast is setting me on my feet.

  “What happened to you guys?” I ask as Beast picks a quick pace and enfolds my entire hand in his so that he can drag me along with him.

  “Cat happened,” Grainger snarls, holding the morbid, bloodstained sack in his right hand, my sparkly clutch in the other. It’s macabre and weird and totally and completely fucked. “After he gave you the go-ahead, he fired off a shot and drew heat on us. Took us this long to get over to you.”

  “Crown and Sin went in the front,” Beast says, frowning hard as he looks over at me. “Nobody else went inside.”

  Ah.

  “Cat was testing me, challenging me … maybe he was even hoping I’d die?” I murmur, but then I shake the feeling off and practice my stupid fox walk, trying to keep quiet as we head back in the direction of the bikes. “Where are Crown and Sin now?”

  “They should be back already,” Grainger says, tucking my clutch beneath his arm and checking his phone. “They slipped their cuts off and took a risk. We’re just lucky they’re not dead.”

  We stop talking as we get farther from the casino, and the woods grow darker and wilder. There are blackberry brambles leaving sharp vampire kisses on my legs, but I ignore them, trudging through with dogged determination.

  Once I get home, I might feel things. A lot of things probably. Right now, I feel nothing but sick satisfaction and relief. My men are alive; I’m alive; Giulia and Cosimo are dead. That’s all I care about.

  We pause just a few meters away from a clearing and Beast hefts my duffel bag up from its hiding place in the bushes, handing it over to me. A quick outfit change, and I’m ready to ride: leather pants, long-sleeved shirt, boots, as per usual. I ditch the bloody wig, too.

  When we finally emerge on the area where Cat is waiting, straddling his bike and smoking a cigarette, I feel my red lips twist into a smile.

  “Give me the bag, Grainger,” I say, and he does, keeping pace with me and Beast as we make our way toward Cat, the headlight of his bike illuminating a narrow path in front of him.

  I pause just in front of his red and black motorcycle.

  My eyes find both Sin’s and Crown’s, even though they’re cloaked in shadow, and I’m drenched in light and blood. I feel them when they look at me, and then I turn back to Cat.

  “Well,” he says with a bit of a laugh. “I’ll be damned.” He leans forward, the cherry of his smoke illuminating his face. “You really are my daughter, aren’t you?”

  I untie the bag, reach inside, and grip a hank of Giulia Wolfe’s hair.

  And then I throw her head at my father’s feet, just as I promised I would.

  There’s a very sudden silence among the men that have come with him, a dozen or so of Cat’s and Crown’s favorites. I’m pleased by that; word of this will spread quickly through DBD and maybe the other men and their wives and the groupies and whoever else will remember to keep their traps shut when it comes to my relationship with the officers.

  “And I did it all while pregnant.” I keep smiling. I’m sure it’s hideous. I’m sure I look like a demon from the Old Testament, something wicked and carnal and sinful and violent. “But hey, maybe I should’ve been born with a dick, and you’d patch me into your club?”

  I turn and head over to Beast’s bike, accepting his jacket as he puts it over my shoulders and slipping my arms into the sleeves. I climb up behind my old man—I know it’s a weird thing to call your husband, but that’s how we do it in DBD—and he kickstarts the engine.

  Told ya that between Giulia and me, I wasn’t going to be the one who broke.

  I am Gidget Kesselring, and I am un-fucking-breakable.

  I gasp as I pull my helmet off, chucking it aside and letting my head fall back so that I can look up at a sky that’s disturbingly bereft of stars. Can’t see a fucking one of them due to the smoke. It makes me wonder if we aren’t all trapped in hell, cut off from the rest of the world, with nothing but a dome of grit and ash over this dark bubble we’re all living in.

  In that moment, however, I don’t care.

  My veins run hot with violence, and my entire body is sticky with blood. I hate how much I like that, how disturbed I am. Two of the people responsible for the deaths of my sisters have joined them in the grave. Good riddance.

  The only part of this night that’s upsetting to me is the fact that we missed the other four members of the tactical team.

  “You alright, wife?” Beast asks, glancing over his shoulder at me as I close my eyes and let the small, cool droplets of rainwater spatter on my overheated skin. I’m surprised that they’re not sizzling and steaming, evaporating as they make contact with the savagery in my aching flesh.

  “I’m fine,” I say, dropping my chin back down and opening my eyes. I throw my leg over the side of the bike and turn to find Grainger standing far too close to me.

  “Bullshit. You just beheaded the don’s wife. No part of me believes you’re unaffected by that.” Cade puts his hands on my hips and sighs. “Maybe we shouldn’t have let you do that? It’s a lot, Gidge. You’re putting yourself through a lot.”

  I give him a look, reaching up to swipe at some of the blood on my face. Much of it dried during the ride, but the rain is bringing it back to life again. That, and I’m not sure if my hip is still bleeding. Oh, or the slices across the backs of my calves. I can feel the sting, but it’s a distant, unremarkable thing.

  “Let me do it?” I clarify, and Grainger gives a low growl of frustration.

  “You know what I mean,” he says as Beast climbs off his bike to stand beside me, and Crown and Sin join us. I look over at the pair of them, their faces illuminated by the distant flicker of the porch light. I’m curious to see what their reactions are, considering they had to remain stoic in front of Cat and his men.

  “You need to get your ass inside and get cleaned up,” Sin tells me, barking orders like he thinks he’s Crown or something. “You might think this isn’t going to affect you, but it will. When you least expect it, probably.”

  “Don’t fuss,” I warn him as my eyes sweep past Crown’s and he exhales.

  “You impressed Cat tonight,” he offers, putting his hands on his hips. “But you know what?” He looks up at me. “From now on, I am your commanding officer. You should never have chased after Giulia and Cosimo.”

  “We can’t risk defying Cat right now,” I return, but we all know that isn’t why I did that.

  I was proving myself. To the boys. To Cat. To the club. To the mafia.

  Mos
tly, to myself.

  I might not have been able to shoot Grey in cold-blood, but I cut his mother’s head off.

  People who fuck with my family don’t deserve empathy or kindness, just a quick ticket to the underworld.

  “Regardless, you defer to me from now on. If Cat has a problem with it, I’ll work it out with him.”

  That’s the way it’s supposed to be done with old ladies anyway. The thing is, Crown’s really sticking his neck out for me yet again. He’s claiming me—even if he knows Cat won’t like it.

  I study Crown for a minute and then nod, turning away from him to head toward the porch steps. First thing I need to do is check on Reba. Leaving her here alone freaked me out, I won’t lie, but I’m hoping tonight gives me the leverage I need to convince Cat to leave her alone.

  I delivered him Giulia Wolfe’s head for fuck’s sake. The least he can do is let my friend go.

  I pop up the steps two at a time, the men at my heels. The tension in the air is thick; I know they’re worried about me. Not simply because tonight was dangerous as hell—it really was—but because they think I’m going to have a mental break over what I did.

  Yet, I still don’t feel anything but the spicy heat of adrenaline.

  I pound up the staircase and open Reba’s bedroom door to see if she’s in there. She is. I see her sleeping on her bed as soon as I pop my head into the room, the dull glow of a night-light the only light source. Fem lifts his head to look at me, ears perked, body alert.

  I fox walk quietly into the room and offer him a pat on the head. “Stay,” I command as I grab a blanket from the end of the bed and lay it across my friend’s sleeping body.

  It’s the last kind or decent thing I’ll do for the rest of the night.

  By the time I get downstairs again, all four men are in the living room and Grainger is holding a bottle of whiskey by the neck. He takes a swig of it as I walk in, his clever gaze caught on my bloodied form like it’s drawn there by dark magic.

  He seems mesmerized by me, and I like that. I want to hold these four in thrall and keep them forever.

  “Do you see now what you’ve gotten yourself into?” I ask, and Beast chuckles, accepting the bottle when Grainger passes it over to him.

  “You think we didn’t know what you were capable of, sugar?” he asks, raising both of his sandy blond brows. He swigs some of the alcohol, and my throat burns with want for it. That, or a cigarette. Being pregnant sucks. Didn’t stop me from taking care of business though, now did it?

  “If you ever decide that you don’t want to be with me, you better come to me first. If I find any one of you balls-deep in some bitch, I’ll kill you both.” I smile as I sit down on the edge of the couch, wondering how I might be able to satisfy the dark urges rolling around me without the use of weed, booze, or tobacco.

  There’s only one thing that comes to mind.

  “Show me the cut on your hip,” Crown commands, opening a first aid kit on the surface of the coffee table. Sin leans against the wall next to the TV with his arms crossed, watching me with eyes the same color as the storm outside.

  “This one?” I ask innocently, popping the button on my leather pants. I push the fabric down lower than I probably should, revealing a neat wound that’s already beginning to scab over.

  “You could’ve been killed tonight,” Crown tells me, opening an alcohol swab and swiping it over the wound. He isn’t nice about it either, putting enough pressure on the cut that I hiss in pain. He actually wipes so hard, so aggressively, that the initial clotting comes away, and fresh blood oozes to the surface, a violent, disturbing red.

  I sit there panting, my pants pulled low, the other three men sharing a bottle of liquor. There’s a fire crackling in the brick fireplace, too. It’s small now, freshly lit, but the flames are beginning to eat away at the kindling, catching along the length of the log and flaring with bright orange heat. It matches the heat in my heart as I lift my eyes up to look at Crown.

  He purposefully ignores me, studying the wound and trying to determine if I might need stitches. He shakes his head, so I take it that it’s not a very serious injury.

  “You’ll go shower here in a minute, scrub yourself down. Then we can put ointment on that and bandage it up.” He gives me a dark look that’s very clearly a command. “Any other injuries we need to know about?”

  I nod, and his jaw tightens.

  “On the backs of my legs. But they’re shallow. Even less important than this.” I tap my finger against the now bleeding wound.

  “You could’ve lost the baby you know,” Crown tells me, heaving a huge sigh as he glances over at the other men. He looks back at me before opening a new wipe and swiping the fresh blood off my hip yet again. “You keep reminding us that we’re mortal; so are you.”

  “Mm. But only just barely,” I say, lifting up a finger. Crown ignores me, wadding up the bloodied wipes into a pile and snapping his fingers.

  “Show me the wounds on your legs,” he commands, but I give him a look.

  “That’ll require me to take my pants off. Are you sure you can handle it?” I ask, but Crown is too annoyed with the situation and chooses to ignore the innuendo. My husband, on the other hand, hears it and responds.

  He heaves a breath, and I look up, seeing that edge of violence in his gaze that I know is reflected in my own. We really do make a perfect pair, me and Beast. He wanted an alpha female; he got one.

  I also know how he likes to calm down, what soothes his nerves. It’s the same solution that came to mind when I realized that I couldn’t drink or smoke my way out of this wicked haze.

  “Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” I stand up and move over to Beast where he’s sitting on the opposite end of the couch.

  “For such an unholy sinner, you sure do know the Bible,” he murmurs, letting a dark smile edge his gorgeous mouth. He hasn’t shaved since the wedding, but I like the thick, dirty blond stubble on his strong jaw. My fingers tease the roughness of it, and I debate asking him to shave maybe once a month to keep this look. I’m obsessed with it.

  “Too much time spent with Reba,” I admit, running my hands down to Beast’s shoulders. “But I’m not worried about the defiling part. In fact, I’d love to defile our marriage bed over and over and over again. As far as adulterers? Well, I already told you all what would happen if you betrayed me like that.”

  “Duly noted,” Beast murmurs as he stands up from the sofa, and I take a step back.

  My breath releases in a rush, and I can feel the other three men watching us, unsure as to what, exactly, they should be doing right now.

  I’m about to show them.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I say, casting a look over at Grainger, at Sin, back toward Crown. I move around Beast, and he turns with me, watching me in the flickering glow from the fireplace. There are no other lights on, and the night outside is utterly black and empty. Just woods filled with buried bodies. We’re on the compound, sure, but this is a new addition to the property and it’s far enough away from the concentration of people at the clubhouse that we may as well exist in our own world.

  With my pants still unbuttoned and hanging low, I push them down over the round swell of my ass, bending over the side of the couch as I do. My dark hair falls forward, and I sweep it back, looking up at Beast in blatant invitation.

  I want him now.

  No, I need him now.

  I need all four of them, just like I did that night. Except, unlike that wicked, awful night, I’m not chasing my pain away. I’m present and accepting of the shadows that make up my soul. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like if I gave into the darkness. Well, here I am. Let the night consume me; I want that.

  I want this; I want them.

  “Shit, Gidge, what are you doing?” Sin asks, his voice choked and his gaze covetous. He likes this. But he also isn’t sure he can handle seeing me with another man. I fe
el his jealousy pulsing like a bright beacon from across the room.

  My eyes meet his as Beast moves around behind me, his huge, hulking body a hot press against my ass and naked cunt. I know what it must look like from back there, swollen and tight and wet. I’m soaked down to my thighs right now, practically dripping.

  That’s how fucked-up I am.

  I killed two people tonight, and all I can think about is screwing my men.

  “What am I doing?” I ask, my voice breathy, almost perverse. “Being an old lady to four men. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Grainger growls, and I know that even with his possessive nature, he won’t have any problem screwing me right here, right now. He doesn’t care if the others watch. If they participate. Only that he gets his piece.

  Crown says nothing at all, but I can feel his eyes on me as I throw a coquettish look over my shoulder and Beast grips my hips with strong, capable hands. A moan slips out of me as I arch my back and press into him.

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Sin mutters, but I notice that he doesn’t leave the room.

  He stays.

  Even if I have lost my mind, even if this is fucked-up, I don’t care.

  “Fuck me,” I murmur, and Beast laughs. This is a thing between us now, isn’t it? Me begging and him resisting, and I just hope like hell that he doesn’t tease me tonight. I can’t handle that.

  “Don’t need to tell me twice,” he drawls, his voice hot and sticky and thick with need. I want to go to Tennessee with him so badly in that moment. I want him to show me where he grew up and introduce me to his family and imbed me into his life like a thorn that can never be removed.

  The sound of him removing his belt and unbuckling his jeans makes me squirm.

  I lift my eyes up, flicking my attention to the side and finding Grainger’s hungry gaze on me. He watches my face as Beast slides a finger down my slippery folds, teasing me as I huff out a breath. I’m still wearing his jacket, too. That must account for something.

  Beast pushes a single finger into me, and I gasp. Holy shit, that’s tight. Why am I so damn tight tonight? Must be because my leather pants are creating a cage around my legs. There’s no give there. I’m stuck with my thighs pressed more or less together.