Venomous (The Clans Book 11)

by Elizabeth Knox

  "Technically, I am taking you to get and bury your parents' bodies. You and they deserve that respect," I say as if it’s nothing. I don’t want to bring things up to the surface when I don’t have to.

  "What does technically mean?"

  "So many questions." I grin at her, but then look away again. "I have a plan. But you'll have to face Jezebel alone, at least, apparently alone. It will make her vulnerable only because you are. She'll think you’re a bleeding heart who couldn’t resist the danger to give your parents their rites. That’s all you need to know right now."

  Chapter 29

  Blanka/Belladonna

  "How quickly can this be done? I just want to put them to rest," I ask, playing the part of the demure daughter of dead parents. A real orphan now.

  I'd always felt like one, going out into the world so young and being exposed to the worst of it in order to make a living in any way I could. But now I am one. My parents killed by their own daughter.

  Who does that?

  A she-devil, that’s who.

  "With the amount you gave us, there won’t be an issue having them ready by morning. I'm very sorry for your loss, Miss Donna."

  It’s not the most inventive of fake names, but the point is to be noticed. To be found.

  I give a sad smile to the man that’s been helping me pick out the urns and order the cremation of my parents. They had been left in the state they were in to rot. A neighbor had been threatened and paid off to call after a few days, citing the need for a welfare check. By then, there would be no reason to suspect Jezebel, though there was a chance I would be in town for this exact reason, and then I could be framed for it.

  I walk out to the car I rented, on a credit card with Davide's name on it. If I see her and she asks, I stole it. That has to be believable. We were whores for a living, and I never wanted to be one. Plus, after all that happened with Bianchi, if I wasn’t with Davide, I would be desperate.

  This new Blanka is much more Belladonna than I've ever been.

  Sure enough, leaning in that mentioned rental car, is Jezebel in all her glamour and glory.

  She wears a designer black dress, stopping at her mid-thigh with off the shoulder straps. Her hair is curled and shiny. Her nails newly manicured.

  She’s living the good life now, even after Valentin got shot and paralyzed.

  "Little sister, I knew you were weak, but I never thought you were dumb. Why would you come here out in the open? And for Mami and Tata no less." She tsks at me, shaking her head as if she actually fucking cares.

  But the joke’s on her because I've learned how to not care too. How to shut it off, put it somewhere else for safekeeping until it's alright again.

  "So, where’s your attachment?" she hisses at me. Just like the great snake. The original tempter.

  "Davide is done with me. Discarded me the moment he realized I came with so much danger. He likes a life of fun, no matter who he answers to," I say, no ticks to give me away. It would be his right to do so. "He never cared about me, I'm just a very pretty whore to him. Intriguing. Or, I was."

  "Men. It figures. Well, what I offer, is not so easily lost. Maybe if you come with me and beg for forgiveness, and accept whatever punishment Valentin gives, you will have a place with me and not be tortured and killed the way Galina will be."

  She sneers at the name of the woman who seemed like her best friend. But I guess helping me made her a traitor.

  "I don’t see any other way. I don’t want to fight anymore. I just wanted to do right by them." I nod in the direction of where our parents' bodies will be burned so they may be scattered somewhere beautiful or remain as a shrine to their existence.

  "We aren’t too far. Prague turns out to be a very good place for this kind of thing." Jezebel releases a dark laugh.

  "I will follow in my car, or I can drive us, if you'd rather. I don’t know how you came. I took his card with me. How long do you think before he misses it?" I grin a little, flashing the plastic.

  "Oh, you are smart sister. Let’s go."

  We climb in, and I remind myself I will be returning this car one way or the other. I won’t have to be reminded of her presence next to me.

  She’s right when she says it isn’t far. We're in a dreary part of Prague, though there’s plenty of that to go around. A beautiful city in pictures hides the lives of thousands of homeless, sick, and dying.

  I'm led into an attic, one that's actually huge, connecting several buildings together. Up here is a gathering of some kind, men and their whores. Russian men. And at the center of it all is Galina.

  She is filthy, pale, and silent. She hangs upside down from the ceiling, her blood dripping in a pool on the floor. She has a small cut in her head where all the blood form her body will slowly drain from, and there’s no telling how long it’s been or how long it will be.

  But she’s taking it like the strong bitch she is. I feel like when this is all over, maybe I want to get her a slight bit of mercy.

  I’m brought to Valentin, who sits in a wheelchair, his upper body unable to move. Women scantily clad still climb all over him, his cock out, which clearly still works despite his injury.

  As I am made to bow at his feet, I know it is only seconds until not just my rescue, but the rounding up of the Clans' enemies is here.

  No, our enemies. I am a Clan wife now. I need to remember that.

  Sure enough, the bangs come before anyone can get away, and people scream. I grab onto my sister for dear life, a gun pulled from a hidden holster below my long dress to hold to her head.

  "You’re fucking coming with me, Jezebel. So, you just hang tight."

  Philippe and Carla come up to the attic along with Davide who meets my eyes. It’s Carla with the gun pulled and aimed at Valentin as Phillippe and Davide go to get Galina down, hopefully without killing her.

  Carla taunts Volkov only for a moment before shooting him in the chest. The dangerous man is finally dead.

  Philippe looks at the pitiful sight of him in his chair and says, "Such an unsatisfying ending for such a powerful asshole."

  Chapter 30

  Davide

  I have been dragged to New York, as we all have, but I know as I stand before Ion defiantly that I'm about to be ripped a new one.

  "What is to happen with Regina and Galina?" I dare to ask. If I'm going to be in trouble, I might as well make it worthwhile.

  "You question my authority?" Ion asks, getting dangerously quiet. "Even after everything you’ve already done."

  "They hurt my wife. They are mine to torture."

  "They’re mine!" he roars. I know the women waiting outside will hear us and probably more. Philippe, Ion, and I are the only ones in the room. Ion is so angry he even managed to send Mariana and Carla away. "If you would shut your defiant fuckin' mouth, then you can have Regina. She is not a Clan problem but a personal one. She is nothing without Valentin. But Galina, you may or may not ever get your chance with her, and no attempts by your wife to speak on her behalf will work. I don’t care if she’s turned a corner and met fuckin' Jesus himself. She tried to blow us all up more than once. She will be treated as a traitor. "

  "Can I at least be present?"

  "The only use you are to me now is that now your line will bring an heir, now that you are married. You will behave, and we will see what you get."

  "Fine." Fuck, he basically just told me I better start having babies or else. At least I'll have a lot of fun making them.

  "Regina and Galina are being kept in two different cells. We are going to join Carla, Philippe, and Mariana in there to handle Galina. Keep your mouth shut or you won’t even have ears to hear what she has to say."

  I nod, knowing I am on thin ice.

  I follow him into the large room, an abandoned apartment in the worst part of town. And there she is, bound and gagged, Carla and Mariana already present, Philippe walking in behind us.

  Carla has a gun in her hand, and I don’t even know the point of be
ing here. We won’t get any answers before that bitch shoots and kills Galina. I love her like a very sexy sister, but she’s insane.

  Carla is already pointing the gun at her, and by now, Galina is weeping, the most weakened I've ever heard her being. She’s supposed to be this tough broad. Nothing gets to her, but she’s been through too much now.

  "Please," she says, looking past me where Philippe stands, "don’t kill me. The baby is alive. A little girl. And I know where to find her. Don’t you want to know if she’s yours?"

  "Fuck," Philippe curses, looking at Carla. Carla spits on Galina and kicks her causing her to flinch. Then, she’s gone, over to Philippe.

  "I'll leave you to Ion. You’re too weak for me to bother." She whispers something in Philippe's ear and then they walk out together, Mariana following. But she stops and places her hand on my shoulder for a moment.

  "Regina is yours to deal with. I will tell Blanka to come. Do you need anything from us?"

  "BP meds, morphine maybe. A drip."

  "I'll make sure it happens."

  ***

  Blanka/Belladonna

  I walk in to hear her already screaming. This is the moment I’ve waited for, and it’s finally here. I've hardly slept a wink since my wedding night, and all because I can’t stop counting all the ways I want to make her suffer.

  She’s hooked up to a drip of morphine and being force fed BP meds and water, just like we talked about. Davide warned me that it would be over much too soon if we didn’t keep her out of enough pain and she didn’t go into shock.

  But now that I see her, all tied up and at my disposal, even though she deserves to be tortured, I just want her dead.

  I want her out of my life.

  So, I vote for a shorter torture session.

  "I'm going to offer you a choice, a choice you didn’t give our parents," I say to her, pulling up every ounce of anger and pain I've been suppressing. "We're going to play a little game of would you rather. You get to choose your own torture before I release you and maybe let you die."

  She grunts at me, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. A give her a grin and then ask the first question. "Would you rather be slowly and painfully blinded or for your tongue to be sliced out of your mouth?"

  The Internet is amazing, and when she chooses to be blinded, Davide is told exactly what I found for a recipe on the Internet.

  "It’s called abacination," I explain as rotting paper cups are strapped to her eyes full of an acidic liquid that will cause them to burn and lose all their sight. "Now, while you sizzle there, I have another. Would you rather be covered in bullet ants or rats?"

  I can’t help but laugh at this one as she squirms. It’s the one fear she has. Odd for someone who could kill their own parents and have someone rape their sister that they should be afraid of such small things. But that’s her.

  Davide disappears for a moment as I begin describing to her some of what I read of the pain of bullet ant bites and then what the rats can do in a swarm.

  She finally chooses what I thought, the rats, and Davide returns, rats spilling out over her body as I leave the room for a bit, listening to her squeals and screams from outside the door.

  I have to admit, it’s turning me on a little, and I let Davide dry hump me against the door, one leg around his body. It’s as good as I imagined.

  "I want to kill her," I say to him. "I don’t want this to go on any longer. I want the light to leave her eyes and me to know it’s over.

  Davide shakes his head. "I know why you say it now, but it’s too good for her. You will regret it. Do you trust me?"

  I nod. "Of course, I do."

  "Then, one more round of the game, then we take the rats out, and then we take the trash out too."

  I agree. Fighting over the rats as Davide sets up rat traps around the room, hoping they will stay away from me while I do the next part, I give her one last choice.

  Taking off the cups, they are useless now, melted at the bottom, her eyesight either severely impaired or gone by now.

  "What else you got for me? I'm already in the fucking dark." She is spitting. Angry, but I can tell it’s getting to her. Her tone is short. Running out of steam.

  "Would you rather have your teeth pulled out with pliers, or would you rather undergo female circumcision?"

  This has to be the worst yet, and even I cringe at it. No one in their right mind would choose the latter, but she had never been in her right mind.

  "You know that answer," she croaks out.

  I order Davide to take down the amount of morphine and pull out a pair of pliers from my bra. I count the teeth in English and Czech as I pull them out, the screaming turning to whimpers by number 17.

  I leave just a few in there. The point has been made. Maybe this torture thing isn’t for me. I bore too easily and am too impatient. I want to know what Davide’s plan is. He is so much better than me I'm sure.

  But I don’t expect what he does.

  By the time he is done with her, she is in the back of a black SUV being taken to the ER, what’s left of her broken and very much alive body dumped and rolled down to the ER entrance, and we drive away.

  With both an arm and her tongue gone, and every orifice and pocket tucked with illegal amounts of drugs, she will never bother me again.

  Epilogue

  Blanka/Belladonna

  Galina points a shivering hand up the lane, a quiet suburban street. I imagine it's been many years since she’s been here herself, and I can’t even say that the woman who answers the door, if she answers, will recognize what’s become of her daughter.

  Galina has become personal errand girl, slave, whore, whatever she is wanted for, to the Clans. She was only allowed to survive because she has information, information she's supposed to have been giving Davide, Philippe, and Ion this whole time. She was spared because of her mention of a baby, one that belonged to a Clan member. Or might have, anyway. Her sister had been pregnant, possibly by Philippe, and as Galina and her sister plotted the demise of the Clans, the baby was shipped off to live with their mother in the Czech Republic.

  But there was something that came out after she was handed to Ion for further questioning, his curiosity getting the better of him. Ion was certain she had information about the Italians and the Russians since she had help escaping and evading for so long. That her connection went far and wide in her quest to take him and the whole of the Romanian mafia down. No one knows still if she has spilled all the beans, so she remains alive until Ion is satisfied, and until a day like today was able to happen.

  See, I have followed Davide here to the Czech Republic because Galina revealed one last tidbit, the reason that I came home to find my poor roommate butchered.

  Raquel had been carrying Davide's baby. Using Spanx and any other techniques she could to hide it for as long as possible.

  And now, Davide wants to find the child that he lost, one that was shipped right here to live with the other one at Galina’s mother's house.

  I try to hold it together and not throw up or freak out. Things have been amazing for Davide and me, even though it has not been that long. We have had our adventures, but now, as I have been battling what seems to him to be the flu, the fun is coming to an end. Because I am pregnant with his child.

  Any other time I might be happy, but I worry, as fucked up as I've become, as broken as Davide is, and now with another child possibly in our lives, what’s going to happen.

  Will one of these children turn out to be like my sibling and torture the other like she did? Will Davide not want me or my child now that he has another?

  Will he not want any of us because it takes away that spontaneity he loves so damn much?

  I put all those aside for him as we walk up and knock on the unassuming, canary yellow door. And then a woman, an older one with dark, thick, black curls, and a rigid face, answers the door.

  "Miss Badescu?" Davide asks, Galina hanging back from us as I take his hand in mine. I can�
�t say if it’s more for his comfort or mine.

  "Come in. I do believe I know who you are."

  She is a fiery and smart woman, I can see it in her eyes, but whether enemy or not, I can’t yet tell.

  "No!" she says suddenly, glaring at Galina. "You are not welcome here. You and your sister have brought too much pain and suffering down on a poor, lonely widow."

  "She's our prisoner," I offer to appease the woman. “She has to come in, so she doesn’t run. But no one will be here long."

  She nods but looks away as her daughter comes into the home. Galina casts her eyes to the ground in shame, something she’s gotten used to since her submission to us.

  "Are you the father? Of the little girl?" Miss Badescu asks, and Davide’s eyes go wide. I can feel him tense, and I'm afraid his anger will get the better of him. I squeeze his hand, so he knows I'm here. Knows he can take it out on me later in the bedroom the way we always have.

  "Yes. Where is she?"

  "I’m afraid I can’t tell you because I don’t know. A man came for my grandchild not too long after your daughter arrived to me. The children were so close in age, I thought I could get away switching them, so my granddaughter could live. Maybe she would have a better chance outside the trouble my daughters stuck themselves in for their father. But I was naive in thinking this man wouldn’t find out. He came back to me empty handed. Or rather, sent others to do his bidding. I was nearly killed, and my actual granddaughter taken. He wanted payment for helping my daughters and nothing coming from it, and that payment was my granddaughter. I didn’t dare ask what was done with yours."

  "Name?" Davide asks darkly. I know the name of the man will lead us to someone who won’t be alive for long, or will regret he was ever born.

  "Jacques Beaumont."