by Rina Kent
The walls and floor were lined with plastic and there was a smell coming from deeper within. Something revolting that had been covered by something decent.
My Rooks and my Knight were all together, so where was the Barron?
A sheet was covering something in the middle of the room. They had one lamp on to illuminate their surrounds so I couldn’t really tell what it was they had covered up.
“Do you wanna see him?” came from behind me, spoken softly in my ear. I jumped out of my skin, heart flying to my throat.
I stepped into the garage and turned to face him. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been behind you almost the whole time.”
That creeped me out on a massive level. And he was all the way dressed. How long had he been out of bed?
“We’re going to have to work on that.” He plucked the knife from my fingers, carefully. I looked at his hands and realized he was wearing leather gloves.
“Is there a reason you’re dressed like you’re about to commit robbery? All of you?” I asked, taking in each of them.
“We don’t wear anything that shows bloodstains, just in case,” Bri answered happily.
I couldn’t feign shock at her explanation. I knew something was off about all of them, and I met Judas under unorthodox circumstances. My gaze traveled the length of the garage again, noting a tool bench, large metal tub, lots of boxes. I found myself pausing on the mass beneath the sheet, finally understanding what it was.
“Who did you want me to see?”
“Go ahead, Bri,” Judas said, taking a step closer to me.
She stepped forward with the grace of a ballerina and plucked the blanket from the mass. It took me a moment to recognize the person I was staring at.
“What have you done?” I yelled.
“He deserved this,” Gavin stated in a bored tone.
I rushed over to the chair, reaching out but then thinking better of it at the last second. “Dax,” I said his name firmly.
His eyes were shut. At least I assumed they were. They’d swollen so much I wasn’t entirely sure. The revolting smell was definitely coming from him. It was urine and feces, and old blood covered by some type of chemical sheen they’d sprayed on him.
Taking him in entirely, I was disgusted.
He’d always been skinny but not like this. His skin was missing in places, burned in others.
An area of his ribs was an ugly yellow-ish color.
“How long has he been here?”
“Since the night of the party,” Judas replied.
“But he’s been online. His car was at the--.”
“All us, kitten,” Owen cut in.
I looked right at Judas and asked, “Why?”
“Well, one. He was never supposed to put his hands on you, hence the broken fingers. Two, he works for your father when he’s supposed to work for mine.”
“And he knew where Maisie was,” Gavin added.
I didn’t know what to do with what they were saying or how to process it. The rug had just been swept out from beneath my feet and my ass had definitely hit the ground.
I attempted to undo his binds, but they were expertly done up.
“You know his Dad died a few years ago,” Judas said, walking across the room.
That couldn’t be right. Dax told me he was driving to see his Dad every few weeks.
“He was going to get girls,” Judas kept going, giving explanation to my private thought. “That’s what his job was. He lured them in, and your parents did the rest. You think he was going to see his Dad all those weekends he disappeared? His Dad’s dead.”
I shook my head back and forth. “I don’t believe you.” Even as I said that, I moved away from Dax, leaving his emaciated body the same way I’d found it.
The thought of him going to do something like that, and then texting me he was back in town. It sickened me to the core. All those times he was at that lake he showed me a picture of, fishing with a man who was supposedly dead. But if that were true than the other part of what Judas said would be true too.
“What do you mean he works for my Dad?”
“Think about it. Your parents pushed the relationship so hard to keep you away from me.”
I stared at Dax, who had yet to wake up. I waited to feel something other than fading pity for the boy in front of me, but I couldn’t force what wouldn’t come. This was all a little surreal, but not so much so that it didn’t add up. They’d always had an odd relationship with Dax, liked him seemingly more than I did.
“That makes sense.”
“Dax was playing both sides of the field, then yes it does. Keep Judas happy, keep the Clermonts happy, and get the girl,” Owen explained.
“She just said it makes sense, not that it didn’t,” Judas stated.
The room went silent, all eyes trained on me. I didn’t have words for them, though. I just needed to go process.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“What do you think?” Brianna retorted softly. “And he’s not worth your guilt, so don’t blame yourself. We’ve got a lot of shit people in our world, but he ranks higher in my book,” Brianna soothed, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I stepped out of her reach and walked away, leaving them to do whatever it was they were gonna do. I couldn’t save Dax even if I wanted to.
Chapter Nineteen
Judas
Emotional responses weren’t common for us.
We didn’t break down when we had every reason to, and we didn’t react off feelings. If we did that we wouldn’t last long where we came from. People like us sniffed out weakness like sharks could blood in water. All emotion needed to be concealed until you were alone.
That’s when you broke if you needed to break. I did that a few times when I realized my sister had been sold off into an industry very few returned from.
I’d expected more from Rhiannon. She was new to all this, but then I’d only ever seen her close to tears once, and they hadn’t fallen.
Maybe she was doing what so many of us snuck off to do right then, and I would give her a moment but that was all.
“Grab me a towel,” I directed Owen.
“You still using the knife?” Bri asked, smoothing out the plastic in front of Dax.
“That’s my insurance policy. Once we leave Crudele, if Rhiannon ever changes her mind, that’s my ace of spades.”
Bri frowned, but kept her mouth shut.
“You shooting or holding?” Gavin asked.
“You can shoot.” I caught the thick white towel Owen tossed through the air. I walked up to Dax and studied his stiff frame. I felt nothing for him but anger for allowing him to be close to us.
He was a betrayer in the end. He’d been the only person who knew where Maisie was and never spoke up. The fucking Clermonts took her away and killed the whole operation two and a half years ago.
They went damn near bankrupt in the process, or so we thought.
Gavin approached with a silenced pistol in one hand and put a point-blank shot in the back of Dax’s head. I carefully wrapped a towel around the bullet wound to prevent too much of his insides from spilling.
As quickly as possible, Bri used the knife Rhiannon had grabbed to stab him in the heart to minimize excessive bleeding.
Owen came in next, moving the body from the chair and depositing it in a bathtub where it could bleed out as much as it was going to near a drain. He was our trained butcher and would be the one to quickly and efficiently dismember the body.
After that it was simple logistics. Dax’s parts would be packed in plastic and stuffed in cardboard boxes. The boxes would be discarded by the same mules that cleaned up Erin Moore’s limbs and the burnt cadaver Marcus had dumped on our property.
“We got the rest,” Bri said, dropping the bloody knife into a plastic bag. “I’ll get this locked up for safe keeping.”
I nodded and left them to it, going to find Rhiannon exactly where I expected her to
be.
She was back in my room, lying across my bed on her stomach, ankles crossed. Her perfect ass was slightly exposed, hanging out the bottom of my T-shirt. She wasn’t crying—thank fuck. She was staring at the wall with varying emotions written across her face.
“Is he gone?” she asked, her voice soft.
“He is,” I confirmed, lifting my shirt over my head.
“Good.”
I was a little taken aback by the relief in her voice. “You sound okay with that.”
“Because I am,” she replied, a thousand different meanings in those three words. I wouldn’t force her to talk or try and play therapist. That wasn’t my thing.
But I’d be here if she ever wanted to talk about it. Or distract her from it. Make it all better for her.
She rolled over, the shirt rising in the process, exposing every fucking thing below her waist. I lifted a brow and waited for her to tell me what she wanted.
I shouldn’t have been thinking about being balls deep inside her pussy after a traumatic experience. And I knew she was thinking the same thing, vice versa. It’s what made us fit. Not the fucking. Though she was the best goddamn thing to ever bless my dick. We were anomalies, atypical sick fucks who didn’t fit in with societal norms.
Our relationship wouldn’t ever fit in a perfect box, I expected it would always be a level of love-hate between us, me pushing and pushing, her trying not to bend.
“What happens now, Jude?”
Jude. She was the only person I could tolerate calling me that.
“You be what I told you to be.”
“You know what you basically told me I should be today?” she laughed bitterly. “A queen. A shameless deviant. A twisted slut that dabbles in depravity.”
“You already are all those things, principessa. That’s not what the fuck I was going to say to you, though. You forgot the most important one. Can you guess what it is?”
“Yours.”
“Mine,” I confirmed, unzipping my jeans.
Chapter Twenty
Rhiannon
I rose from the bed, pulling his shirt over my head.
I didn’t stop to ponder what was wrong with me anymore. I didn’t want to think. I watched Judas take off all his clothes until he was back the way he’d been a few hours ago, and all I wanted was his body pressed against mine.
I walked up to him and locked my arms around his neck, forcing him to walk backward with me. Once he was on the bed, I straddled him, leaning low to press my nakedness to his solid form, skimming my hands down his body.
“What are you doing?” he asked, when I began to follow.
“I want you to come in my mouth,” I murmured.
By the devilish smirk on his face, he liked the idea as much as I did. Following the path my hands had just gone with my lips, I glided over all the bumps and crevices of his six pack.
I gripped his hard shaft in both hands, moving them up and down as I got used to the feel of him. I opened my mouth wide, taking him as far in as I could, smoothing my tongue along the vein along the side of his cock.
He hissed out a breath when I sucked him to the back of my throat, came up slowly, and then repeated the motion, using my hands to work his balls and base. I picked up my pace, sucking him hard, slurping and bobbing my head until I tasted his pre-come.
Rolling his balls in my hands, I teased that same vein with my tongue again.
A curse rumbled from his chest, his cock pulsed, and tangy come coated the back of my throat.
I barely wiped my mouth before his hand was tangled in my hair and he was dragging me up to straddle his lap, sitting up to meet me halfway.
His mouth met mine violently, the kiss savage. We nipped and sucked, blood spilling from both of us. He lifted me up by one ass cheek, guiding me back on his rapidly hardening cock. I gasped and groaned as he thickened inside me, stretching what was still sore.
“You want to be on top? Fuck me good, baby, before I take over and fuck you.” He wound my hair around his fist, forcing my head to stay at an angle as I began to rock my hips. I shuddered against him, finding a steady rhythm.
His dominate nature took over without a warning, and he flipped me onto my back.
He stayed on his knees and gripped my thighs forcing my ass to rest against his, keeping my upper half flat on the bed.
He slammed back inside me as if he meant to tear me in half. I called for him, digging my nails into his hips as he pushed my state of pleasure further than it’d ever gone before. The headboard banged into the wall, creating a chaotic melody to serve as a background soundtrack to my moans and cries that made no sense.
The grip on my hips began to burn and bruise, I let him consume me, ride my body as hard as he wanted. I succumbed to anything he did, exploding around him so intensely tears sprang to my eyes.
We stayed wrapped in each other until neither of us could come or fuck anymore, lying on the saturated sheets in a pile of sore, worked over limbs. He looked at me silently for a long time, tracing his fingers up and down my spine.
When he brought his mouth forward to capture mine in a tender kiss, I let myself be okay with being his, needing him to hold onto as everything else fell apart.
“Why a scorpion?” I traced my finger over the tattoo on the right side of his chest.
“It’s one of the most enduring creatures in the world. It expresses protection. The society I belong to, the world that I live in, you always need to be defensive and protect yourself from danger.
“Sounds…intense.”
“It is, but there’s a plus side as well.”
“Like?”
“Famiglia. It’s everything there.”
I swallowed when I thought of my own family. I wasn’t ready to face them. I’m not sure I ever would be, but I knew I needed to.
“Where is there?”
“Someplace new, now. We’ll be going there soon actually.”
Did he mean we as in…?
“Me and you?”
“Do you really want to stay here?”
The immediate answer was no. “What about school? And I can’t leave Audrey.”
He ran a hand down my hair, toying with the ends.
“How about we go for two weeks then? Just so you can see what it’s like and meet my parents. They’ve waited a long time for this.”
I laughed lightly. “Um? We haven’t been together all that long. And two weeks? How do I get the school to agree to that?”
“No, the Clermonts and the Barrons used to be close. They hate each other now because of Maisie.”
There was that name again.
“She was my half-sister. Little sister, taken by someone on your side.”
“Taken…how? And you mean there’s more than just my mom and dad?”
He sat up and took me with him. “Rhiannon there’s over a dozen Clermonts.”
I’d always been told we had no other family. “Why would they keep that from me.”
“It was to keep you from them, principessa. You’re not their biological child.”
He’d skipped over the taken question and dropped this little bombshell. I suppose I’d already known it was something like this, though. And for a while now. “Do you know who my--.”
“No. We assume it’s one of the girls your father got attached to. He tended to do that.”
That explained a few things over the years. Not that any of it made me feel better. I wasn’t sure what emotion to grasp onto.
Things hadn’t fully sunken in yet.
“And your sister…”
“Was one of those girls. Is. Who fucking knows anymore. For my peace of mind, I like to think she’s dead, and not living that kind of nightmare day after day. It’s what made hating you so easy.
You should have been one of those girls too. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you and she’s…” He trailed off, his jaw clenching as he shut down these things people like me called emotions that I was struggling with.
; I did understand where he was coming from. I should have been in his sisters’ place and she should’ve been living her life, maybe even taking my spot at Pesadilla Prep.
“You know what we’re going to do, principessa.”
His commanding voice roused me from half-slumber.
“Hm?”
He gripped my ass and gently stroked the mounds with his thumbs.
“We’re not going to try and shove every conversation we need to have into one night. Tomorrow you’re going to tell Audrey she’s going on vacation.”
“What abou--.”
He slapped my ass, causing me to squeak.
“Don’t interrupt again or my dicks getting re-acquainted with your throat.”
I firmed my lips and rolled my hand, silently telling him to continue. “We’re going to a courthouse so I can put a real collar on your ass instead of an invisible one and you can have a last name that fits who you are.”
“I don’t know who I am, exactly. I thought I did,” I mumbled, forgetting his warning.
“Let me show you who you’re supposed to be, because I know her.”
“Do you?”
“You’re beautiful, wild, and stubborn, the queen of my lawless kingdom.”
I smiled so hard my ears popped. “I thought we were gods?”
“We’re everything that means people stay the fuck out of our way and drop to their knees when they see us.”
His ego was beginning to take over the bedroom, but I adored it. Especially right then when my heart felt like it’d been put in a blender.
Wait…
“We’re getting married?”
“I’m marrying you.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It isn’t. I’m marrying you without a yes or no on your end.”
I swallowed, fighting back tears. This would not be what made me cry. “You haven’t even said you loved me.”
“I’ve hated you from the moment I saw you in that little red costume, and I’ve loved you twice as fucking hard since. The rest of my life will be spent hating you and loving you to the point when I fuck you, I’ll be trying to break you into a million pieces while consuming everything you’ve got to offer.”