Bring it on.
Epilogue - A Few Years Later - Stella
The sun shone brightly overhead, making the top of my head hot. My hair had long since been cut to my shoulders, its dark brown lengths now wavy and highlighted. It looked good, I thought, and the guys thought so, too. Slowly but surely I was coming into my own, becoming my own person. It only took, what? Thirty-some years? Better now than never, right?
I sat on a metal chair on the patio of a deli, one shop among many storefronts on the busy street. Four lanes, two for each side of traffic. The shop was also diagonal from the doors I was staring at. Big, gilded, golden doors that would soon slide open, people pouring out. It was enough distance so no one would see me, recognize me.
Plus, the big black sunglasses I had on my cheeks would help with that, too. I never wore sunglasses before. Never had short, highlighted hair. I hardly looked like myself, especially in the nice, fancy clothes I wore.
I sipped the coffee sitting on the table before me, my head turned slightly. I would not take my eyes off that set of doors across the street, because I knew if I did, I’d miss it. Miss them. For some reason, I felt nostalgic today. I wanted to see her, see how she was doing. I wanted to see if she was happy.
I hoped she wasn’t, but I knew she had gotten good at hiding it all those years ago.
Edward sat beside me, wearing sunglasses too, hiding his brilliant blue eyes. On days like this, his eyes matched the sky. It was a stare I adored, along with those dimples. I could never get enough of those dimples. Or the chains on his bed.
Yes, chains. Because we graduated from rope a while ago.
Edward’s blonde hair had been cut short; the style made him look older, more mature, but I liked it. He was handsome all the same, no matter what his hair looked like. He’d beefed up a bit since we started working for the family, and I had to admit, I liked the added muscles on him.
“I still don’t understand why we’re here,” he said, commenting about my need to see the one woman who reminded me of the shit we had to run from all those years ago.
Bree. My baby sister. I still hated her guts, which Edward knew. Probably why he was so confused as to why we were here.
But I had to see her. Had to know.
“I’m curious,” I said, leaving it at that. I’d been following her exploits for years now. She’d postponed her marriage to Brendan after our mother was discovered dead in my house. They got married eight months later, but the marriage only lasted two years. This was wedding number two, to man number two. Some guy I never met, another real estate mogul like our father. Our father, who had started looking really old as of late. Maybe he stopped caring after mother’s death. Maybe it was my fault, too.
If so, good. I wanted that family to perish in the most horrific way possible.
I didn’t think this would be Bree’s last marriage. If I had to bet, I would say she’d marry at least five times in her life, always trying to get it right, to do the right thing by our father. Our old man would not dare to kick the bucket until after he knew his baby girl would be taken care of when he was gone.
“Your curiosity gets people dead,” Edward remarked, grinning boyishly as he sipped his own fancy coffee. Tons of caramel, whipped cream, and caramel drizzle. Funny how I was the one who got the large black coffee while he got one of the most expensive things on the menu. Money was no longer an object to us, not now, since we were with the family.
“Not this time,” I said, mentally adding, not yet. Would I want to kill my sister? Eventually. I always had. But right now, there wasn’t just me to think of. There were other people in my life that I could not disappoint.
The FBI had left town a month after their leads vanished. I was long gone by the time they found Perry, my mother, and Callie, as was Killian. Their two lead suspects, gone in the night. Little did they know we were just at Edward and Lincoln’s for a few hours, and soon enough we were on the other side of America, with loads of money and wrought-iron fences between us.
It had worked so far, and I knew it would continue to work, as long as I kept a low profile. Not that many people knew my face; most people knew the Angel Maker, though. Killian was always more prone to the spotlight than I was, and I didn’t blame him. He was the serial killer, not me. I might’ve had three kills on my hands at the time, but they were each different, each necessary. Each had awoken a part of me I had buried deep inside.
Now, my body count was much higher, thanks to the family.
Before Edward could say anything else, the doors across the street opened, and through the traffic that zoomed past, I spotted well-dressed people. They lined the steps just outside the golden doors, tossing rice into the air as my sister and her new husband walked out. Husband No. 2 was laughing, looking genuinely happy in spite of the stifling clothes he wore. Bree, on the other hand…
She looked awful. The smile on her face was fake, I could tell, even from this distance. Strained. Like she was depressed deep down and trying to hide it. Our father followed them out, walking them to the car parked on the curb, the one with cans tied to the end, the one with a sign that said newly married. It wasn’t as an extravagant wedding as her first, but it still was fancier than most Americans could afford.
Good. I was glad she wasn’t happy, even on a day like this. Bree didn’t deserve happiness. No one in my family did. Not even my father. He was guilty by association. He never once tried to right the wrongs my mother had made; he just let her do whatever it was she wanted to do, including shunning me and acting like I was the black sheep of the family.
And I was, I knew. But still. Parents shouldn’t act that way toward any of their children, no matter how different they were.
I watched as they drove off, riding into the bright light of day, trying to find their happily ever after. The cold, harsh truth of life today was this: there was no happily ever after. This wasn’t a fairy tale. This was life, and it was cold, it was cruel, it was awful. We just had to make the best of what we had, and I had everything I needed.
I reached for Edward’s hand, squeezing gently. “Let’s go.”
Edward glanced at his phone, checking the time as he said, “Yeah, we better get to the plane. If we waste any more time here, we’ll miss her. Tori will kill us if we’re late again.”
We both got up, heading to the car parked not too far from where we were. As we got in, I glanced at him, buckling my seatbelt. “You think?”
He laughed. “Oh, I know not to underestimate that one.”
I smiled. He was right.
It took us thirty minutes to reach the private loading dock where our plane was waiting for us. We were in the air and flying high soon enough. When we landed a few states away, we were greeted by a fancy black car, all shiny and new, complete with a driver, who waved us over. We got in the back seat, letting him take the wheel and drive us where we needed to go.
Edward checked his phone again. “We’ll make it,” he told me, leaning over, pressing his lips on mine.
Even after all of these years, I could not get over the taste of him. How hungry he was for me constantly. They were all like that, which blew my mind. I never thought I was worthy of love, let alone the attention of three men. Three monsters.
Twenty minutes later, the driver parked in our usual spot a little off to the side of the school’s doors. Kids in uniforms scattered everywhere, most of them being picked up in expensive vehicles or by private chauffeurs. None of the kids rode in buses, mostly because this school didn’t have buses.
Edward and I scooted over when we saw her coming. The door beside me opened, Tori’s backpack appearing before she climbed in, catching her skirt on the door. She yanked it hard, splitting the fabric. I was too late in reaching over and trying to help her.
Tori was only seven, and she was quite the handful.
Once she was safely inside, the driver started moving, taking us home.
“How was school?” Edward asked, peering around me at our daughter.
Tori swiped the black hair out of her eyes, her bright blue gaze moving to him. “It sucked. I hate it. Do I have to go back?” The same question she asked every day.
I ran a hand through her hair. Soft and shiny hair, smooth. “Yes,” I told her. “You have to go back. You still have a lot of years left.” The hard truth; I was all about the truth when it came to Tori…except one thing. She was a bit too young to know what the family did. Not yet. Couldn’t have her blabbing to her classmates about it.
She let out an earth-shattering groan, turning to stare out the window, pouting like the child she was.
I was glad she seemed normal, didn’t take after me in certain respects. She’d gotten both Lincoln’s hair and Edward’s eyes, so I wasn’t sure who the father was. It didn’t matter, because they were all fathers to her, even Killian. I’d thought I was on birth control, but of course, that was just another trick my mind had played on me. Tori had been a surprise, but one we welcomed.
Even killers felt love.
We pulled into the private property that belonged to the family. Acres and acres of land, all fenced in with pointed iron spikes and gates that required a passcode and an ID coming and going. The security here was tight, but for good reason. The house itself was more like a mansion, with wings and ballrooms and even an indoor pool. I still hadn’t explored the entire thing, and I didn’t want to. I liked the bit of mystery.
The basement, however, was an area of the house I knew very well.
As the driver pulled up to the front doors, Tori leapt out of the car before it even came to a stop. I gave Edward a look, and he only laughed. She was a bit of a wild child, that’s for sure. We followed her into the mansion, immediately greeted beneath the glass chandelier by Lincoln, who swept Tori into his strong arms, twirling her around as she giggled, instantly happier now that she’d gotten his attention.
After putting her down, Lincoln’s dark eyes fell on me. “They want you downstairs,” he said.
I creased my eyebrows. “I thought Killian—”
Lincoln came closer to me, sweeping me into his arms much the same way, only he didn’t twirl me, and he pushed his lips upon mine. “They want you,” he whispered. “Specifically.”
Nodding once, I said, “Take Tori to her room. Make sure she does her homework.”
Lincoln saluted me like I was his boss at his old job. A chief, someone who could boss him around and he had no choice but to follow my orders. In a way, I was. We might not have been married legally, but we were pretty much like a wife and her husbands.
I glanced at Edward. “Want to come?”
“I love watching you work, so hell yeah,” he said.
We took the stairs to the basement, nodding at the guards we passed as we went. The family’s reach was wide, and their money was ridiculous. We had dozens of guards all throughout the mansion, more patrolling the grounds. You couldn’t be too careful, especially when you dealt in death, assassinations, and hired murder.
The basement was where our…untraditional killings went. Sometimes people hired us to bring in their marks, and they wanted to kill them. It was safest to do so here. We had furnaces to get rid of the bodies. Today, however, the buyers wanted a tape, and apparently they wanted me.
I found Killian standing beside Markus just outside the sterile white room where our mark sat, tied to a table, helpless and screaming. Killian’s red hair was a bit longer than it was in the past, but I liked it. I liked running my hands through it and tugging on it when he was inside of me.
Markus, well…I tried not to pay too much attention to him. We didn’t get along well, mostly because the bastard didn’t get along well with anyone. But he was part of the family, so I had to suck it up and deal with him on occasion.
Right now, for instance.
Killian handed me a facemask, our fingertips brushing against each other’s as he muttered, “They want the Butcher, not the Angel Maker.”
I took the mask, putting it on before meeting Markus’s eyes. The man gestured for me to go in, ever impatient. The mask was plain white, only covering the bottom half of my face: my chin, nose, and cheekbones. My eyes and forehead were visible, but you could not see most of my face, and my hair was held back by the elastic band.
This family and their stupid masks, but I suppose it was a good precaution, just in case the tape ever fell into the wrong hands.
I pushed into the killing room. A small ten by ten room, a single window on the wall behind me. Those in the hall could watch whatever went on inside, just like the camera could in the upper corner of the room. A red light blinked from it, meaning it was on and recording. Markus would have the tape edited before sending it off to whoever had paid for it.
The mark was a forty-year-old man. He was naked, restrained to the operating table, his arms and his legs spread. His mouth was not bound, not gagged, meaning the buyer wanted to hear him scream and wail as I cut into him like a—well, like a butcher. I hadn’t gotten the nickname for no reason.
“Please,” the man begged. “Let me go. I haven’t done—”
“There’s one thing I forgot to mention,” I heard Markus’s voice fill the room. He must’ve been using the com in the hall. “Our buyer wants a piece of him in the jar. I’m sure you know which part.” Silence filled the room after his voice faded, though not for long, for the man before me started to scream.
I glanced at the side of the room, where a table sat, full of shiny metal instruments, though only a select few called my name. Knives, mostly. Beside the numerous blades and saws, I spotted a jar full of some kind of liquid. I went over to it, able to smell it through the two small nose holes in the mask.
Formaldehyde.
Oh, yes. I knew exactly what part of him our sponsor wanted.
I picked up a bone saw, turning to him. “This is going to hurt,” I said, moving between his legs. His dick would soon be in the jar. Maybe I’d throw in the balls, too. I wouldn’t doubt that our buyer was a spurned wife. Or maybe even a spurned husband who wanted to teach his wife a lesson in infidelity. Either way, I didn’t care. I’d get the job done, one way or another.
First I would cut off his dick, then I would carve into his flesh, cut him so deep his guts fell out. I would only stop when the walls of this room, when the entire floor was drenched in blood, coated in thick maroon, including my clothes. I had a bunch of other clothes, anyway. These would go in the incinerator too.
“No,” the man shouted, pulling at his restraints with new vigor, but he was tied down hard. There would be no escape for this pathetic man or his tiny dick. Our eyes locked, and I brought the bone saw between his legs.
His screams were musical notes to my ears, and his blood was the reddest I’d seen in a while. When I was done with him, he would be unrecognizable. It would take me a while, but my work was good.
They didn’t call me the Butcher for nothing.
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I have more planned for this world, a lot more. Stella and her killer men just might make some appearances…
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Sick Twisted Minds (Cruel Black Hearts Book 3) Page 18