by Sweet, Izzy
Dammit. I’m my own worst enemy.
My mind races, trying to think up a way to get out of this.
I could throw a fit. I could barge in there and declare that there’s no way, no fucking way, I’m marrying that Russian.
But what good will that do me? My father? Anyone?
It certainly won’t do me any favors. They’ll probably beat me or worse to get me to go along with their plan.
The way I see it, I only have two choices. I can balk, resist, and fight—and suffer the consequences, whatever they may be.
Or I can go along with this entire sham for the time being.
“Meghan,” my father says more firmly, and I hear the leather of his chair creaking.
No doubt he’s getting up to come get me.
Mind racing, I come up with the perfect plan.
I can let them believe I’m docile, compliant.
Even obedient.
Gag.
I can be the perfect little daughter, the perfect little fiancé.
And as soon as they’re not looking, as soon as their heads are turned the other way…
I’ll run and never fucking look back.
1
Gabriel
Staring through the windshield of Simon’s SUV, I can’t help but think that things couldn’t be looking up for me any more than they are right now. I was in prison for ten years, only to get kicked out like a fucking roach in the kitchen…
All so I can cause some bedlam and mayhem.
Fuck, maybe my life isn’t over just yet.
The hum of the wheels on the asphalt feels almost like a dream, and it’s cold as fuck outside when I open the window a bit to let some fresh air in, but damn does it feel good on my face.
“You’ve got this car as hot as my nutsack, Simon. You roasting your little balls for the holidays?” I ask, turning toward him.
“It’s never too late to let you walk to the truck stop,” he snarls as he leans toward his door. “Though the fresh air does help with your offending smell.”
Asshole thinks he’d be able to get away with leaving me in his dust…
That’s fucking doubtful. I’ll fucking kill him before he gets the chance to leave my ass to rot anywhere again.
Lucifer asked me to take the fall for what happened ten years ago, but it doesn’t mean I’ll ever go back. Fuck that shit. I’ve had enough cramped spaces and isolation to last me a lifetime.
“The smell’s from living in a six by eight cell with nothing but time. Fuck your delicate sensibilities,” I say as I spot the sign for the truck stop we’ll be stopping at.
“Delicate…” Simon chuckles as he hits the blinker for us to merge off the interstate.
“Why’d the Devil bring me out, Simon?” I ask him quietly.
I was the sacrificial lamb. The one to take the fall for the carnage Lucifer needed.
Lucifer said he’d get me out before I went in, but I think we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. And if that fucker, Simon, had his way, I’d still be in prison. After a couple of years, I figured Lucifer felt the same way. I mean, I’m the one who wiped out the rest of the family when he took over. Even his uncle.
“Like I said, he wants Garden City to be brought back under his control. We’ve been hit too many times from forces outside his sphere of influence.”
“What forces?” I ask, trying to remember exactly who the powerholders were ten years ago.
“Like I told you earlier, the Yakuza, Russians, and Saudis, just to name a few,” Simon says with obvious annoyance as we pull into the parking lot.
“The Saudis?” I ask with a snort, remembering he did mention them. “How the hell did Lucifer manage to piss those sand-fuckers off?”
“He didn’t. My wife did,” Simon says as I hop out of the car.
Looking back to the SUV, I watch as he sits there, waving me on. I guess he can’t risk contracting a cold from the truck stop.
Fucking pussy.
Stepping into the store, I look around and finally feel something akin to freedom. I can buy any drink I want. I can eat anything I feel like, and I don’t have to worry about some fucking guard coming in to slap his wooden baton up against my head for the hell of it.
I slip my hand down into the bag Simon handed me when I got in his car and fish around for a wallet. Pulling it out, I open it to see what John gave me. Knowing that fucker, it probably has some chick’s driver’s license in it.
Flipping through the wallet, though, I’m pleasantly surprised. There’s an updated driver’s license for me and a couple of brand new credit cards. That, and the thousand or so in cash, help me feel like I won’t have to be too reliant on Simon.
* * *
Climbing back into the SUV, I smirk as Simon looks at me in revulsion.
“I thought you were going to shave the beard completely off, at least. You know, try to advance past the Neanderthal stage of your life,” he sneers at me as I close the door.
“Nah, I think I’ll keep this scruff on a bit longer. Bugs the fuck out you, doesn’t it?” I ask with a smirk.
“Infantile ass,” Simon mutters as he opens up his glove compartment and hands me a little black plastic thing with a glass top.
“The fuck is this?” I ask as I look down at the screen.
“A phone. Technology has come a long way since you went in,” he says as he pulls out of the parking lot.
Heading back to the highway, he motions to the phone.
“Push the button at the bottom, that pulls it out of rest. Once it’s up, the icons should be self-explanatory,” he says with a laugh, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s because of my lack of knowledge when it comes to technology.
Pushing the button on the phone, I watch as the screen comes to life and feel as if I really am a caveman coming into the twenty-first century. I swipe where the screen says swipe and reveal what looks like a computer desktop.
Fuck me. I guess things have come a lot further than I thought.
“Interesting,” I say as I shove the phone into my pocket. “Where we headed?”
“Matthew is having a little get-together to welcome you home. It should be right up your alley, if you haven’t turned into a rat while you were in prison.”
“Yeah, yeah. Suck a dick,” I grumble and lean my head against the glass of the car door.
Motherfucker knows I didn’t turn rat.
Folding my arms across my chest, I slip into a slow doze as I think of the things that could be waiting for me once I get out of this car. I highly doubt it’s going to be a balloons-and-cake kind of event.
I can feel my eyelids growing heavier as I shift enough to feel the comfortable presence of the forty-caliber pistol snuggled into my hip holster. It’s been a long time since I’ve had my little mistress at my side, and I ain’t going to lie, it’s giving me a sense of peace that helps me feel better about falling asleep.
Violence gives me purpose, something beyond sitting in a cell block waiting for death to come. Violence gives me the power to take control of the world.
* * *
My dreams are fucked up. In my mind’s eye, I can see everything floating around me in a crimson lake of fire. There are bodies bloated from the gases built-up after death. Charred planks of wood surround them, encased in frames.
Snapping awake, I go from frozen, unable to move, to instantly putting my hand on the gun nestled at my hip.
Old habits die hard.
Even back in prison, I’d go reaching for my gun when the guards would start in on me. Not having it is the only reason they’re still breathing.
I just need to get the fuck out of this SUV. I’ve been confined for too long, and sitting in this car for hours is starting to get to me.
Too much surrounds me. Seats, heat, windows, and another human are just too fucking much to deal with right now.
Just before I start putting fucking holes in everything around me, Simon pulls up to our destination.
Lucifer’s favor
ite little hidey-hole of torture.
Getting quickly out of the car, I slam the door behind me and take in my old killing grounds.
The old sheet metal warehouse looks exactly the same as it always has—like it’s about to fall down around its concrete footers. I have no doubt Lucifer has spent money to keep it this way. When I look closer at the ‘rusted’ beams keeping things in place, I can tell he’s had them painted to look that way.
I guess this place will stay up and looking this way as long as he has a use for it. A use for violence and answers.
“What’s the situation we’re heading into?” I ask as I walk beside Simon.
His gimpy ass tries to take the lead and walk in front of me, but he doesn’t have the sack to take the pain his cracked ribs will cause him. That’s his problem, he’s never had to endure pain long enough that you come to crave it just a little. Crave how it keeps you sharp.
Crave how it feeds the anger and violence pent up inside you.
“Same as always. We have someone who annoys us, and we need to get all the information we can from him,” Simon says as we open the heavy steel door of the building.
Inside, the cold isn’t as bracing. The spring winds that rip through Garden City are shut out.
A high-pitched wailing scream suddenly pierces the air, and the sound causes a bit of that old, familiar excitement to pump through my heart.
I missed being on the outside of the cage. Missed being able to hurt people when I needed to, and when I just felt like it.
I’ll be the first to admit that there’s nothing healthy about my brain. I like to cause people pain, and I don’t mind watching the light dim from someone’s eyes.
“Sounds like they started without me,” I say as I walk past Simon. “No need to show me the way, gimpy. I know it.”
“You miserable, suffering cunt,” Simon hisses as I leave him behind.
“Yeah, so was your mother,” I say over my shoulder.
Walking through the rows of unused machinery, I wonder how much of this shit was used before Lucifer bought the building. Used for different, more legitimate purposes, no doubt.
“Just hold the asshole still, James. Jesus fucks a mule, hold him down!” I hear a loud, gruff voice shouting over what sounds like a gagged-asshole trying to yell his head off.
For the first time in what feels like an eternity, I feel the blood starting to course through my veins.
It’s like getting fucking high, but so much better.
Walking into the room, I stop short as I take in the scene unfolding before my eyes. A man strapped into an old metal chair bucks and thrashes as he rages behind a taped-up mouth. He’s got that Eastern European look to him, and from the tats on his chest, I can tell he’s been inside a Gulag. Long years in a Gulag, if I’m reading those tats right. He’s one tough fucker, and I’m betting he’s got stars on his knees.
So this is my welcome home present.
Removing my coat, I stand in place for a long moment, just watching the room. Most of the guys are here, and the ones that aren’t are most likely dead.
Sucks for them, I guess.
“Gentlemen,” I say, and the words annoy me because my throat aches as I talk.
I haven’t talked this much in ten fucking years.
Almost as one, Andrew, James, Jude, Johnathan, and Lucifer, all turn to look at me. Each one has a different expression on their face, and it’s startling to me that I can read the emotions now when all I ever saw for so long were the cold emotionless faces of the guards.
Everyone’s all smiles that reach their eyes, even dear old Lucifer. The man I spent ten long fucking years in a cell for. From what Simon said, I probably would have spent the rest of my life there if they didn’t get the governor in their pocket.
They know I didn’t rat on them, but the fucker in the chair will mostly likely be my baptism back into the family.
Instead of water, I’ll be christened in blood and murder.
John takes three long strides over to me, his arms opening up as he tries to wrap me up in a hug. He stops short though when he looks into my eyes. He knows better than to touch me right now. He spent enough time in a cell.
Nodding his head, he shoves a hand out to me. “Good having you back, brother.”
I force myself to shake his hand then look over to the rest of the guys. After nodding to them all, I focus on Lucifer.
He’s perched on the side of a desk and his face is pensive now. He knows I served a long ass time for him, and I’m betting he’s trying to figure out where we stand with each other.
I’ve done time for this man’s will and sins. I did ten long fucking years in a cage. Ten long years of beatings. Ten years of my sanity slowly slipping into this dead husk that’s now who I am. All that I have left inside me is rage and barely controlled destruction.
My hands clench into fists so tight I can feel my nails threatening to break the skin on my palms.
Ten long fucking years for my crimes, for his crimes. I should have been in the chair, though. I should’ve fucking fried for all the things I’ve done in my life.
But I’m out now.
And like I said earlier, I’ll fucking kill anyone who ever dreams of putting me through the system again.
I should have killed them for even doing it in the first place.
That thought rips through my mind as I stare at the man. The devil. From this distance I won’t miss. He’d be dead in a matter of seconds.
Dead at the hands of his own fucking hellhound.
He holds my stare without flinching or apologizing. He knows what I’ve done for him. He knows the lengths I went through to keep him on the outside.
I’m not sure how long we stare at each other, but the tension in the room grows so thick I can’t fucking stand it. Before I snap and start punching all the shit around me, I decide the unfinished business we have will have to wait until later.
Walking over to him, I pull my gun from its holster and hold it firmly in my hand. “Matt, been a long time.”
“It has,” Lucifer says to me when I call him by his real name. “That gun for me?”
The corners of my lips quirk up and I hold the gun a little longer than necessary, letting him wonder what I plan on doing with it, before I set it down beside him.
I nod my head and the tension in the room instantly evaporates.
And I feel like I fucking belong again.
“You still have my gun as long as you need it,” I say, cementing my place back in the family.
Lucifer nods his head and then visibly relaxes. He even smiles when he stands up from the desk and straightens his jacket. Then he motions to the man that’s strapped to the chair.
His eyes light up with amusement as he says, “John was wanting to castrate him, but I said you had better ideas.”
Chuckling, I turn to look over at Johnathan, giving Lucifer my back. “Still with the dicks, dude? You remind me of my boyfriend in prison, Doug.”
“Oh shit,” I hear Lucifer mutter behind me.
“Dude, you went gay in prison?” James asks me.
“No, you jackass. Your dick rot off yet?” I ask him with a grin.
“No glove, no love. My shit’s good.” He smirks.
Nodding my head, I take in the men surrounding me again. It feels good to be back among my brothers. But at the same time, I can feel the space closing in on me. They’re too fucking close. Too fucking happy. Lucifer and his band of merry fucking men.
Too fucking close.
“Can we stop the tomfoolery and actually work?” Simon asks with an annoyed huff.
Well fuck, I never thought I’d be grateful for Simon, but he’s giving me a valid reason to move the fuck away and put some space between me and everyone.
I walk over to the restrained Russian, all the while keeping an eye on the guys.
Simon’s face flushes as he slowly removes his outer coat. The pain in his ribs must be getting to him.
Shit, if I�
�m not mistaken John isn’t as spry as he normally is, either. He’s hunched just enough to show me he’s got a wound somewhere.
Fuck. Taking another look around me, I see all the gaps and missing faces. I’m not fully up to date with all that’s happened since I was locked up, but if it’s as bad as Simon has been saying, we’re missing a lot of men.
I know Paul and Peter are dead, but what about the others?
“Where’s Thomas and Bart? They out on assignment? What about Thad?” I ask.
The silence around me is instant and deafening.
Searching their faces, hard resignation stares back at me. All except Andrew. Andrew’s face tells me all I need to know.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask.
“Bart betrayed us. Thomas took a bullet because of him,” Andrew says.
Damn.
Thomas was a good man. Quiet as could be, but solid as a fucking rock.
“Where’s Bart?” I ask.
“Dead,” Lucifer says with a sigh. “Peter and Paul are both gone. Peter was blown up investigating our recent bombings, and Paul… He died protecting Evelyn and Abigail.”
“Who are they?” I ask.
And that question causes another fucking silence.
“Evelyn is my daughter, and Abigail is Andrew’s,” Lucifer says with a smile.
“Your what?” I ask with surprise.
This has to be a joke, right?
“Dude, me and Jude are the only ones who haven’t gotten pussied up. Everyone’s married and shit.” James motions to the guys around him.
“What?” I ask again and stare at the guys. “And Thad?”
“Thaddeus went back to Ohio to help the Italians. He’s trying to help plug a bunch of holes over there,” Andrew grunts. “Fucker’s been out there living like a playboy while the rest of us are here in the trenches.”
“We have a lot to talk about, but first lets get to work,” Simon says as he points to the Russian. “We need to know what the fuck is going on.”
“Someone blew up our strip club with a shit ton of people inside. Cherry got wasted, and when Peter was searching her house, they took him out with a big ass bomb,” Johnathan says as he walks over to stand beside me.