by Raven Scott
“No, probably not. They should be arriving in the next hour, and then I have to deal with Valerie’s mother. Sooner rather than later, I want to get to Oran and his issue before Esmarissa drives me insane.” For just a second, I whined like a teenager about school, and Illya smiled a little even as her expression became grave. “I don’t want whichever slut it is to get spooked, so I told him to bring it up gradually. Chances are, they won’t get here until next week. That’s when I’ll sleep.”
“He’s having a rough time with it?”
“They’re his pets. It’s like if someone just decided to tell you he was going to make you kill your own dog for shitting on his lawn. One of the four, he’s had for years. As much as it sucks for Oran, I can’t take chances, so it doesn’t matter if he figured out which one was the spy. These girls are together all the time— literally, they eat, sleep, and breathe the same air constantly. Even if one was the culprit, the others would’ve known and not told Oran, which means he obviously failed to break them as hard as he thought.” I didn’t want to bring this issue up with Valerie, and Illya ducked her head in a nod as I rested my head against the wall to stare at the sky. “He thinks so highly of himself that he let this happen. Chances are, the bitch who the Italians sent is pretty smart about it. Either way, it'll be hard for him, regardless.”
“Hopefully, he’ll have a little humility after this.”
“I’m hoping to force him out, actually.” The confession earned me a hum, and Illya scrunched up her face as I watched a huge, fluffy cloud drift above the quad. “My father might’ve tolerated him, but I won’t. I don’t need him or want him around. If this doesn’t break him, it’ll get him close enough.”
“You can’t just kick him out?” Illya’s bland question drew my gaze, and she shrugged as she sat down against the wall to take off her sandal and rub her foot. “It’d be easier than giving him a reason to hate you.”
“He did this to himself by allowing this to happen. If he’d hate anyone, it’d be himself. I’m used to fixing my little brothers’ mistakes, but it’s usually Mateo’s.” Speaking of . . . “I’m waiting on this to calm down before I send Mateo to New York City. I had considered sending Oran to oversee him, but I don’t want Oran overtaking the operation.”
“So, what? You’re just going to do the same thing you tried to do in California?”
“Yes. This time, though, if Mateo doesn’t pull through and makes another stupid mistake, he won’t get a third chance. I’m going to make it very clear exactly what I expect, and I’ll be sending Vanessa with him to make sure he gets it done. She’s a slave master even though she doesn’t seem it. Llane will be her replacement.” Illya tapped my leg, and I held down my cigarette for her to rub my hands up my face. “I’m not used to doing so much damn work.”
“Good thing you’re really good at it, otherwise someone might think you’re actually stressing out.” Chuffing a humorless laugh, I only shook my head, and Illya banged her head gently against my thigh. “I’m gonna stay out here and wait for Theo. Go get a blowjob or something.”
37
Valerie
Licking my lips heavily, I knocked on the big, imposing, metal door before it immediately swung open, and Carlyle gazed down at me with guarded eyes. Wordlessly, he gestured me in, and I pursed my lips as anxiety gnawed at my gut. Tension zinged up and down my legs and gripped my spine, and I rubbed my palms together to get rid of the tingles in my hands.
“What’s going on?” My straightforward question earned me ominous silence, and I stepped through the threshold to see Natasha already here, leaning against the wall with her arms tightly crossed. “This is a bad place to stage an intervention.”
“It’s the perfect place for an interrogation, though.” A surprised squeak escaped me when George spoke up from behind me, and I whipped around as Carlyle left the door open. The old man smiled almost sympathetically, but his eyes looked a little dead as they shifted between my sister and I. My mind raced, panic clutching my heart in a vice, and I gulped harshly while Carlyle sat on the table in the corner of the room.
“Okay . . . um . . . if this is about earlier, I can explain. We weren’t gonna do anything, I promise. I was just trying to make Carlyle feel better. Because, you know, it sucks about the b-bomb and my apartment, but, like, I’m totally over it at this point even though he’s obviously not, an—” Drying on my tongue at the amusement playing in the old man’s otherwise stoic features, I clamped my mouth shut and held my breath. Flames climbed up my neck, and my knees wobbled dangerously as embarrassment clung to my ribs like sticky tar.
“Not your interrogation, darling.” I wanted to die. Oh, this was horrible. Carlyle was horrible. What the Hell was with all the quiet? Did everyone in this place just read minds?
Was I being intentionally left out of the loop?
Because I was okay with that! Seriously! I didn’t want anything to do with the loop!
“Val . . . ” Whirling around, I tensed when Natasha frowned at me, and my cheeks threatened to melt right off my face. Her eyes flickered to a corner of the room, her head tilting, and I almost didn’t look because I was a scaredy bitch.
But I did look, and goosebumps blanketed my entire body at the frail body huddled in the corner. I hadn’t noticed the small cries coming from under that stringy, brown hair, and impressively thin legs riddled with track marks pulled up. There were even marks on her feet, straining as they curled against the cold concrete, and my pupils blew as the air knocked from my lungs.
“I-I don’t understand.” The declaration rolled thickly off my tongue, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off the pathetic creature cowering in the corner. “Why . . . why is she here?”
“I had her brought here. Why and what you do now is up to you.” My head snapped up and to the side, and Carlyle crossed his legs under him to lean against the wall. His expression was unreadable, his voice flat, and even his eyes didn’t portray any sort of emotion too strong to identify. “Natasha decked her in the face. If you need ideas, I have a few.”
“Um . . . oh, I-I . . . ” Sputtering, my words failed me completely when I turned back to my mother, and she rocked back and forth. Her clothes stuck to her and made her look skinnier. Even bunched up, it was obvious she was underweight. The drugs she used gave her a greenish hue, and she shook viciously. Blinking in disbelief, I wrapped my arms around myself as I shuddered a rasping breath, and my lips stuck together as the moisture on then dried.
“No one will judge you for anything you feel, Valerie.” I was struck with the notion that these people assumed I would feel something in the first place, which was preposterous. I mean, my mom abandoned us and sold us and lied and cheated and stole and . . .
Looking at her now, the only emotion swirling in my chest was . . . disgust.
“I’m not touching that.” Shivering from the powerful wedge between my lungs, I shook my head and scrunched up my nose. “I’m not touching that.”
“You don’t have to.” Carlyle slid off the table smoothly, and my eyelids fluttered closed when he gripped my shoulders in his strong hands and squeezed reassuringly. “I have tools for that.”
My stomach roiled when I made the mistake of looking at my mom, and I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. She fucking stunk to high Heaven of ammonia and general body odor, and her shaking just agitated it all. Her thin skin crackled around her track marks when he gripped her legs, and she looked around through glassy, doped up eyes.
Eyes that swept right past me . . . as if I wasn’t even there.
Cold metal pressed against my palm, and I sucked in a sharp breath when Carlyle’s warmth left my back. My eyelid twitched as my mom’s gaze focused on Natasha. She was so bad that the punch to the face my sister had supposedly dropped on her didn’t change anything about her features. My mom didn’t swell up. The only difference was her sickly green color turned grey.
“Nat, baby . . . ” Hoarse, barely a collection of sounds, my mom’s call squeeze
d my heart and made my brain pound against the backs of my eyes. Tightening my grip on the . . . what even was it? Glancing down, I frowned at the gun in my hand, the silvery piece glimmering in the moderate light streaming from above. When I looked back after what couldn’t have been more than a second, my mom was still staring dazedly at Natasha.
Blood drummed in my ears, and a cold sweat broke out on my body when my mom opened and closed her mouth a few times. Watching her actively try to make noise was surreal. I’d never been so close to someone so degraded my drugs, and the fact that this was my own mother only made me more numb.
“Did you bring Val like I told you?” My body went cold, and I twisted as Natasha clenched her hands into tight fists, rage painting her face and bulging the veins in her neck. “I have to pay rent. You don’t want to be homeless, right? You’re the good one.”
“You didn’t . . . ” Croaking as my throat closed completely, I shook my head weakly, and my sister glared at the floor. “No, no, no, Nat-t . . . you didn’t . . . ”
“I’m older, so it was my responsibility.” Tears sprung to my eyes at the lack of bitterness of resentment in her voice, but all I could do was continue shaking my head. “Six minutes really is a big difference.”
“You . . . how could you, Natasha?” She shrugged stiffly at my whisper, and I tightened my grip on the gun Carlyle had given me. Was I really going to shoot my mom? The question wasn’t one I’d ever contemplated before, but now . . .
“To be honest, I didn’t hate it. If I did, they’d just go after you. So, I guess, after a while, I managed to just . . . let it go. Besides, I wouldn’t be so hilarious without a little trauma.” Hiccupping a shallow breath as my tears streamed down my hot face, I struggled not to sob as Natasha walked over to me. Slowly, she turned me around, wrapping her arms around me, her palms gliding down to smooth the bumps on my arm. “It won’t change anything, Valerie, but it won’t make it worse, either. There’s not much worse it could get, and we have each other.”
“Y-you made me go to a different college because . . . ” Trailing off as my mind went blank, I leaned my head back against Natasha’s shoulder and closed my eyes. Her smell flooded my brain, and she hummed softly in my ear as she lifted the gun in my hand. Mine stayed hugging the grip, and her finger hooked on the trigger.
“Life without you isn’t a life at all, Valerie. Together in the womb . . . ” Her palm flexed, and our free hands tangled together as I turned into Natasha’s neck. “Together in the tomb.”
Bang!
The gunshot was quieter than I expected, and the recoil of the pistol sent a shock up my arm as I squeezed my eyes shut tight. My heart stuttered, and my nails dug into Natasha’s hand and hers mine. The stench intensified, and saliva pooled in my mouth as bile sloshed up my throat.
Doubling over at the mighty heaving of my stomach, I dropped the gun with an extraordinarily loud clatter, and my dry heaving echoed through the room.
Or should I say mausoleum?
Big hands that weren’t Natasha’s gathered up my hair, but nothing crawled up to slip off my tongue. Suddenly, I was really glad the only thing I’d eaten was ice cream and booze, and a long, slender arm wrapped under me to keep me off the ground.
“You look surprised.” Above my ducked head, Natasha spoke blandly, and I gasped hoarsely and arched sharply. Tears dripped off my nose, and that gross taste spread across my tongue as cold droplets of sweat streamed between my breasts.
“I honestly didn’t expect you to do that. You know, Natasha, you’re one badass bitch.” Colorful spots assaulted my vision when I shook my head, and I straightened, shivering and weak, to gasp for air. My sister took my cheeks in her cool hands to force me to look at her, and she smiled so beautifully even as she pressed her forehead against mine.
“We got a lot of ice cream to eat and a lot of alcohol to drink, Valerie.” And we walked out, together, always together, leaving even Carlyle behind.
38
Carlyle
Staring between the five people currently chained to the wall, I tapped my temple absently as I contemplated the best way to deal with them. Of course, the easy solution would be to just kill them, but I had revenge simmering in my blood. Dying was too quick and frankly not painful enough.
“What to do . . . ” Valerie didn’t even know these men were here, so I had them all to myself to do whatever I wanted, and she’d never see the aftermath. Each thing was on its knees, hands bolted to the floor, necks viced, and asses in the air. When I set this up, I was pissed, but my clear-headedness presented me with a problem I hadn’t considered.
Torture wasn’t my style—never had been. I thought I was angry enough to do it, but I guess not.
“Good thing I have a girl on speed dial who enjoys this kind of thing.” My murmur filled the otherwise quiet room, and I glanced over at Vanessa as she glared at the captives with murder glowing in her eyes. “Let me know when you want a break.”
“I won’t.” This was the problem with rape victims— there were far too many, and not enough justice went around. Vanessa was my secretary now, but she had actually been the one to come to me about being more . . . reactive. I had to admit she was scary when she wanted to be, and the husk in her tone told me this was one of those times.
Standing up, I nodded to her on my way out as she tugged her ponytail a little tighter, and a strange, almost alien sensation draped my shoulders. Boredom.
As I closed the heavy door, Vanessa’s gleeful giggle sent a shiver to lodge between my shoulder blades, and I pursed my lips thinly. She went a little nuts in situations like this, but they were so rare that I didn’t mind. Without her, things wouldn’t run nearly as smoothly as they do, and I was content to overlook her more psychopathic tendencies.
“I thought Illya had a tough time following through with shit, but you take the cake, Carlyle.” For the first time since Illya took off her toenails, Theo spoke to me, and I arched a brow quizzically as I passed him. “I thought you wanted to personally sodomize them until they bleed out or whatever fucked up shit you think of.”
“I may have let my anger get the best of me at the time.” My reply earned me silence, and I paused my way to the elevator to turn to Theo and catch his narrowed eye. “What?”
“You say all the time how you’d kill me and blah, blah, fuck all, but I’ve never actually seen you do anything.” Rolling my eyes, I simply turned my back on him to punch the elevator button, and I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Growing up, my father made sure I knew how to fire a gun, and martial arts were so cool to a twelve-year-old boy, but like anyone else, I mostly used intimidation and fear of what might happen to maintain order.
Like with Pedro . . . that dick. I’d never actually hurt him or even done anything at all to him, but he was still afraid of me. Was it the suit?
“You know, Theo, you deserve a vacation.” Nodding to myself, I ignored the surprised gaze on my back as my brows furrowed deeply. “Take Illya and go somewhere.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?” Tilting my head back, I huffed a sigh at the gruffness in his tone. Why would Theo do that?
“I need to rework my Italian plan from scratch, as well as spend some uninterrupted time with Valerie. I’m not leaving this building for a while. You should take advantage of that. Illya would like it, I think.” The elevator pinged shrilly, the doors sliding apart as I spoke, and I stepped into the metal box with mixed feelings in my chest. Some shit was going to happen with Oran, and I honestly didn’t want Illya to get caught up in the middle of it.
The very first night she was here, Oran had broken into Illya’s apartment. I knew about it, of course, but I hadn’t acted on it.
That was going to change.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Waving a hand in dismissal as the elevator worked its way up, I shook my head.
“Even if I did have a secret, you’d probably be able to figure it out from the maids. Mainly, I’m going to bring all of Oran’s kitten
s here, and I’m going to give him a choice. Kill them all and prove his loyalty to me or walk away with them and never come back. If I can’t get rid of him, I’m going to break him. It starts with those whores.” Leaning on the wall, I gazed steadily at Theo as his brows worked over intelligent eyes. “I just needed a valid reason, but I’m not my father— I won’t tolerate his bullshit.”
The box stopped moving, and I moved to step off the elevator to find my brother standing there, waiting. Clenching my jaw hard, I nodded at him to talk but didn’t slow my stride. Oran kept up with me, but I could feel the annoyance at how small and insignificant he thought I thought he was as if nothing he said had any value to me.
“The snake is trying to leave, and also, the girls are here.” That made me pause mid-step, and I arched a brow at Oran as his lips thinned in his effort to stop me seeing how much this hurt him. “She’s outside trying to take the car they came in.”
“Where’s Valerie?”
“Drunk and passed out, at the moment, according to the maid who just went in to clean up after them. Natasha was puking at the time.” Nodding firmly, I rubbed my jaw in irritation. Esmarissa was really grinding down my nerves. She’d overstayed her welcome before she even got here, and I started off towards the stairwell leading to the quad. “Carlyle . . . ”
Oran grabbed my forearm firmly, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I slowly cast my gaze on him. He didn’t let go, his face contorting in determination, and a wry smirk stretched my lips.
“Do you honestly expect that anything you say will make me change my mind?” Oran was my brother, sure, but in name only. Both of them, the little shits, just weren’t people I wanted to be around, but he surprised me when he shook his head. “What, then, little brother?”
“I want you to let me kill them. Please. They’re my responsibility, and I let my discipline slack.” In some fucked up way, this was Oran’s way of protecting these girls, and I nodded curtly. He knew how I liked to operate, to play games, and let them squirm and wonder and hope, only to kill it all off at the last second. He took a shuddering, deep inhale, releasing my arm, and I pushed open the exit door to head down the hallway.