“You’re all going to pay for this. You especially. How could you do this to a child who adores you? And how could you believe him? You really are stupid, aren’t you?” I narrow my gaze at Henley, pinning the little shit in his place. He licks his lips and strips me naked with devious eyes. Acidy bile rises into my mouth from the thought of me ever finding this man to be sweet and kind. He played us all.
“She needs a good, hard fuck before she dies. You should let me take her down the beach and fuck her ass while I fist her pussy. You two can stay here and finish the kid and that fucking cop boyfriend of hers.” Oh my God, has he lost his mind?
“Nah, man, you aren’t taking my sister nowhere. In fact,”—Jesse stands, spins around so fast my head reels to keep up with the scene that plays out before me. Cutter sneaks up behind Henley, while my brother covers his mouth, silencing the violent scream that rips from his mouth. The sound of flesh being ripped open and bones severed cuts through the room. I’m witnessing a man being gutted alive, and I do not care. It can start with him and end with them.
“Don’t you even pass out on me, you dumb bitch. He was a pawn. I only needed someone to keep an eye on you for the last several months until I got out. He served his purpose. Now I deal with you. I’ve waited too long for you to fuck up so I could breack my promise,” Jesse seethes before he lands a hard kick to my gut that sends me into the fetal position. I gasp and gag frantically as I try to catch my breath when all the air from my chest is forced out in a startled whoosh.
“Oh my God. You two are fucking crazy!” I scream. I’m in so much pain I can barely breathe. My chest is weighted down. My lungs are surging to inhale air. Find an opportunity to get that gun, Cora. Shit, I pray it’s loaded. Not checking was as dumb as me coming over here in the first place. I need to bide my time, do and say what I can before they know I’m missing and Riddick comes over here and kills them both.
“Guard the door, Cutter. Shoot anyone who tries to get in here. If it’s Murdock, you make damn sure that bullet splinters his heart. And you, you stupid whore, I told you to bring that fucking kid. Once again you disobeyed me. You’re just like her, aren’t you?” Satisfaction creeps over my face in a slow devious smirk when the look on Jesse’s face becomes clear.
“I’m not sure who the she is you’re referring to, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. What I do care about is the fact you will never get your hands on my son, you son of a bitch. Did you really think once I found out what you had done that I would hand over my child to you? Riddick is going to demolish you, Jesse. He’s going to rip your heart out.” I cringe through the pain in my throat and chest. I swear to God he collapsed a lung. The pain is unbearable. I refuse to give in to him, though. I will not beg him to spare my life. Not this time. I’m going to do whatever the hell I can to distract him so I can kill him before anyone finds me.
“I’m not surprised since you’ve never listened a day in your life to do what you were told. Trust me when the words hit your goddamn ears this time that I’m putting a bullet straight through Riddick’s head the minute he lines himself in my sight. You fucked up, little sister. Now your poor precious little boy will live without either one of you. I’ll make damn sure he knows that you could have saved the lives of not only his dad but everyone else, too. I’ll put them all in the ground. Every motherfucking one of them. All because of you,” he responds. Then he pulls himself up from the kitchen floor and begins to pace. This is when I’m thankful for a pair of skintight leggings and a thong. I may be sitting on a gun, but it’s secure behind the tiny scrap of material in the crack of my ass.
I look around the room and laugh out loud when I see he has the blinds drawn on the kitchen window, allowing no room for light to enter. Jesus, this story is perfect Hollywood material.
“You find this funny?” He bends down in front of me. I freeze instantaneously from the gunmetal emotionless eyes narrowing sharply at me. But I will not cower. I will not stop until one of us is dead. Preferably him. His hand clasps the back of my neck, jerking me forward until his nose is touching mine.
“Fuck you, Jesse. You are so stupid. So damn desperate to end me that you’re willing to die right alongside the sister you hate. I’ll bet anything that Riddick is next door by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cutter were dead in less than a minute. You are finished, Jesse. Do you hear me? Riddick is going to walk through that door and blow your goddamn head off, and then I’m going to laugh. Laugh so hard that my family who loves me will think I’ve lost my mind. But you see, the only thing I’ll have lost is a piece of shit excuse of a brother who dug his own grave. I’m not afraid of you anymore,” I maliciously stammer, striking back with a solid hammer to the first nail to seal his coffin.
“You think just because he’s a cop means I’m scared of him? I want him here. Why in the fuck do you think I’m sitting in this fucking fancy kitchen of yours? Hell, Cora, I couldn’t have planned the death of the two of you better than this if I tried. The minute I found out you were moving next door to that piece of shit, I laughed my ass off over how easy you made this for me. You are so goddamn stupid that if I didn’t hate you like I do, I may feel sorry for the stupidity that’s crept into your brain and made its home there. You couldn’t wait to spread your legs for that filth, either, could you? So yeah, baby sister, let him walk in here, because the minute he does is the minute he watches me blow your fucking brains all over this place.” He scoffs. My vision blurs when he slams a gun I never knew he was holding into the side of my face. My eyes roll into the back of my head as the pain radiates down my neck in a slow, tortuous pace.
“That man will do anything for you. Why, I have no idea. You’ve been nothing but a piece of white trash, a spoiled, untouchable little cunt since they day you were born. Do you honestly think I was going to stand by and let you inherit all that money? Money that should have been mine? You didn’t give a fuck about anything that pertained to our parents’ gang. So fuck you and your self-righteous lover. If I don’t get that money, then neither do you.”
I lie there, my mouth gaping open, my words stuck on the tip of my tongue. I struggle to sit up, and when I do, a fierce pain in my arms catapults my blood to boil. I’m tired of being scared of this lunatic who thinks the world owes him when in reality it’s me who was left to scrape and scatter to fend for myself. I survived, but I’ll be damned if I allow him to breathe anymore.
“I would have given it to you, all of it, if you had simply been my brother. My protector like you should have been. Instead, you hated me. A little girl who was lost, a child with no one. You’re not the victim here, Jesse. I am. I’m the one whose life you destroyed. I’m the one whose parents trusted you with, me. You’re right about one thing in your sick little speech. I wanted nothing to do with whatever illegal bullshit our parents did. Not a damn thing. All I wanted was my brother,” I lash out my words violently to this stranger before me. I hate him more than he hates me, and the sad thing is that neither one of us cares.
“See, that right there shows me you’re exactly like our mother. Always wanting. A needy bitch who will stop at nothing until she gets what she wants. Well, not this time. This time, you are going to die in vain. You are going to suffer in ways that you’ve never imagined. I protected you when you needed it the most. I could have easily killed you that night, but no, I let you go with one stipulation, and you betrayed me. You ran back to that fucker the first chance you got. So don’t sit there and say I didn’t protect you when we both know that with a snap of my fingers, Cutter would have had his way with you like he wanted. Then he would have cut you into a million pieces.”
And then it all hits me at once. The she he was referring to is our mother. My God, he really is delusional. “Oh God. It was you, wasn’t it? You killed our parents and tried to frame Riddick’s dad, didn’t you?” I scream so loud that my throat burns. The cold wall behind me does nothing to cool my heated skin. My parents, me, even his so-called friend, Cutter. All of us have been tiny kitten
s in Jesse’s box of betrayal. He planned it all.
“Wow,” he snaps back sharply. “You’re finally catching on.”
“I suspected that you might have been the one to kill them. It wasn’t until Riddick told me about the will and taste for my blood that my suspicions were confirmed. I don’t need an explanation as to why you did it. I already know; and one more thing, you reeking, no good excuse for a human. I’m proud to be like our mother, because unlike me, both our parents must have hated you. Hated you so fucking much that they left you with nothing but a group of weak-willed, pathetic, drug-dealing assholes, who are out to kill you now because I bet you fucked them all over, too. You’re nothing but a dead man, Jesse.” I seethe his name with viper venom, my voice rattled, full of every bit of confidence I can muster to stare my brother down. He’s going straight to Hell for what he’s done.
His head tilts to the side, stunned that I have the courageous guts to stand up to him for once in my life. My heart whittles away to nothing as I look past him and relive my parents’ death all over again. God, how could he take the lives of the two people who brought him into this world? How I wish I could sit here and strum up some sad excuse that Jesse was dropped on his head as a child. That incident alone is what made him lose the chemical imbalance of normalcy he lacks. He’s so delusional it’s unreal.
“Well then, I guess there’s nothing left to say, except good-bye for real this time.” His snide remark ends in a lip curl that would scare the Devil. Except my brother is him. He has to be to create such a fantasy in his fucked-up head. Where are you, Riddick?
“You might kill me, Jesse, but you’ll never get your hands on that money. Too many people know about it. Your death will follow mine.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. The only ones dying here today is you and that asshole who calls himself a hero. You fucked me since the day you were born. I got nothing, bitch, not a goddamn thing because of you. So, if I have to spend the rest of my life behind bars, at least I know you aren’t living out here enjoying money that should have belonged to me. Killing you is a pleasure, it’s a craving my body needs, and do you know that’s not even the best part of my plan? The best part is you’ll never be free of me. Your precious little soul will weep for a child you’ll never see again.” My entire body trembles listening to this delusional man create his own story in a mind so out of control that he truly believes what he’s saying. He may destroy me, but he’ll never get to Riddick or Ethan.
“You’ll never get your hands on Ethan, you crazy fuck.”
“And you, baby sister, will never fucking know if I do or not.”
I close my eyes as the impact of his first punch to my face sends a trail of warm, red liquid down the side of my mouth. My head instantly snaps to the side. He lifts me by the hair on my head. Those deadened eyes of his bore into mine as his hands wrench my hair so tight it feels as if he’s pulling it out. I should reach for the gun, but Jesse is quick with his assault on my body when he lifts me off of the ground, swinging me around and tossing me clear across the room, causing my head to smash into the side of the stainless steel refrigerator, hard. I refuse to allow him the satisfaction he wants in knowing he is causing me pain. That my heart is shattering into fragments that can never be replaced. My head becomes fuzzy, and yet I take blow after blow to whatever part of my body he wants to destroy. My mouth stays closed; my eyes remain shut, while he spews his slander of make-believe with every brutalizing thrash of his fists he delivers. Ethan will live. Riddick will live. They’ll live without me, but I can die peacefully knowing that they will be together. That’s enough for me to give in. To surrender my life. It’s more than enough to know that even though my life ends here, that Jesse’s will, too.
“You tell Mom and Dad hello from me,” he says right before he shouts so loud that my eyes pop open as blood splatters all over my face. I feel the blood dripping down my neck, but his scream isn’t what startled me. It’s the scream ripping from my own mouth. A scream so loud it dates back twenty some years ago to the day my parents died. I’m screaming, because I just shot my brother!
“Vivian,” I choke out as I face plant onto the floor, my eyes burning with the tears of agony that mix with the blood. A choked sob that started in the depths of my soul rips from my bruised lips. “Vivian.” I suppress her name out on a startled cry. I see her on the floor by the door. I know it’s her. Face down amongst a pool of blood.
I remember nothing after that. Absolutely nothing!
22
RIDDICK
“Jesus. Fuck. No,” I growl after three muffled gunshots ring off. Their rhythmic cadence echoes off my walls. I start running toward the open slider, down the stairs until my feet hit the ground.
“Riddick, be careful!” Tyson calls out behind me as we race down the fence that separates our houses and into the wide-open space of her backyard. I draw my gun quickly, slow my gait, and creep up the lighted stairs. I hear a loud deafening scream and then silence as I make my way to the door. My pupils widen, my heart refuses to beat efficiently, and my blood flow hits my upper extremities to fight when I see Vivian face down on the floor. Dane is kneeling beside her, a large pool of blood underneath her body.
“Fucking hell. Call 911!” I yell to Tyson as I swing open the door, point my gun, and come to a dead stop when I see Jesse on his hands and knees crawling toward Cora, who is face down on the floor with my father’s gun gripped in her hand. Cutter is up against the wall with a bullet hole in the side of his head, his eyes glazed over. And what in the fuck? Is that Henley lying with his back sliced the hell open? What the hell happened over here? Jesus Christ, all of this happened right under my goddamn nose in a matter of minutes.
“She better be breathing, you crazy fuck. Now, stop,” I bark out to this piece of shit, who is wheezing for air. There’s a trail of blood behind him. I don’t know what the fuck went down in here or how the hell Vivian escaped without Dane getting to her first, but it sure as hell looks like they all shot one another.
“Is she all right?” I ask the guys behind me as I step further into the kitchen, eyes alert and my gun trained at this narcissistic, soon-to-be-dead man’s head.
“She has a pulse. It’s faint.” My lips thin in a frown. The noises coming from behind me rise as I hear Jude hiss out a loud “What the fuck?” right along with the rustling of men’s voices ordering me to put the gun down. I ignore them all while I keep my dominant eye trained on Jesse and my other alert on Cora. I exhale when I see that her back is moving up and down slowly. I need to get to her. To touch her, hold her, and make sure she is going to be all right.
There’s so much blood in this room it looks as if a massacre happened in here. I smell it, see it, and it makes me want to draw out more. To do the one thing I should have done years ago. Kill this animal. I don’t have time to torture him like I hunger. Not when the woman I love needs me more than the need I have to torture this man until he begs me to put a bullet through his head. I want him to live knowing he didn’t win. I want us to be able to send him a Christmas card with my family’s picture on it every year while he rots as a reminder that we’re living. That he may have stolen years away from us, but in the end, it was his sister who drew last blood. That she survived.
“Fuck you, Riddick. This isn’t about you; it’s between her and me.” Jesse stops his slow crab crawl, slowly pushes himself up on his hunches, blood pouring out of his chest, and reaches forward to retrieve a gun.
“You’re dead wrong, you slimy bastard. Everything about her involves me. Now, give me the final reason to end you. Reach for it, motherfucker. I dare you.” I rush my words over the delay Jesse is holding on me to get to Cora. She needs me so damn bad I can taste it.
“Put the gun down, Murdock,” McGraw demands.
I let out a doom-laden laugh. One filled with no humor at all. One that’s not directed at McGraw, who I damn well know has his gun drawn behind my back, ready to fire at this pussy who thinks it’s written in
the goddamn stars that it’s his right to lay a hand on a woman; and not just any woman either. Mine. The one he so deviously stripped away from me.
“This”—Jesse sputters, brows pulling together, shaky hands coming up to clench his chest—“is epic. You can’t fucking shoot me, can you, you fucking pig. I always knew you stunk. And now look at you, you desperately want to pull that trigger, but you can’t. I’m unarmed.” He coughs, eyes starting to drift, teeth clench together as he tries with what little air he has left to intimidate me to shoot him.
I lower my weapon without giving him the satisfaction of my voice. Of words I’ve waited way too long to say to him. Cora needs me more than the need I have to rid the earth of this pile of scum. I’m not taking the liberty to solidify his death, not when my gut tells me that somehow Cora is the one who shot him. She deserves the credit, the reward for wiping him from ever having the ability to touch her again.
“Get him the fuck out of my sight,” I demand, my body angling in the direction of the beaten woman on the floor. A surge of bile rises to my throat when I get a good look at her.
There is so much racket going on around me with the paramedics and Jesse yelling that every damn word they say is like a low drudge to my ability to think straight. My only concern is her. To get Cora to the hospital and away from our son’s curious eyes. I can only pray that Ron and Sylvia are hiding his innocent eyes from the devastation, the sadness, and the scene before me that would scar him for life.
I drop to my knees, my chin resting on my chest. Her slightly parted mouth blows out shallow wisps of air. She’s so pale in her fragile state it frightens the fuck out of me. Yet, I know she’s a fighter. Cora has proved it tenfold with what she accomplished here. She shot her brother. I pray with everything within me that he dies knowing it was her who caused him to take his last breath, that it was her who sent him to rot.
Then There Was You: A Single Parent Collection Page 29