“Death tastes good, doesn’t it?” he said, pulling the wooden chair over and sitting down in front of me, his head haloed by the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and throwing his features into darkness.
He puffed on his own cigarette as he laid the sledgehammer across his knees, his blue eyes turning red under the glow of the cherry. He looked like the demon he was for a moment, all shadow and fire.
My gaze moved to the gun at his hip and his eyes followed as he laughed low in his throat. “Now that’s more like it, pretty eyes, I awoke a little fight in ya. Try and take my gun, go on, I dare you.”
My fingers itched as no fear awakened in me. I was an animal at the hands of a butcher, already long dead. This skin didn’t feel. So fuck it.
I lunged for his weapon and his other hand came up fast, a knife in it which slashed across my bare chest in a furious swipe that made me curse and lose my chance as he drew the gun and pressed it to my forehead.
“Sit back and smoke your cigarette, boy,” he warned, his finger tight around the trigger as blood ran down to my stomach and soaked into the dirty grey sweatpants I wore. The wound wasn’t too deep, but it stung like a motherfucker.
I wasn’t afraid to die, but I sure as shit would prefer to take him out before I went. So I didn’t see the point in goading him into pulling that trigger today.
“So how are you, pal?” he asked casually as I sat back and took another toke on my cigarette, savouring every toxin that rolled over my tongue and ran deep down into the depths of my unfeeling body.
“I’m not your pal,” I growled as I released the smoke between my teeth.
“Don’t be like that,” he said with a taunting smile that made hatred rise in my blood. “You and me have a bond now, see? All this torturing’s gotta count for somethin’.”
I took another drag, shutting my eyes and remembering all the times I’d sat on Sunset Beach smoking with my friends, sunlight seeming to spill into existence behind my eyelids for a second. The nicotine in my blood unlocked a thousand good memories, but a thousand bad ones too. I smoked to forget, smoked to celebrate, smoked to smoke. I guess I’d been punishing myself my whole life, knowing every inhale brought me a little closer to death. But damn did it taste sweet. And that was probably the point. I always squeezed a little more sugar out of the good, and a little more poison out of the bad.
“I’m going to be the last face you see if you don’t give up the secrets in your head, Chase Cohen. I mean sure, I have a great face, but do you really want it to be your last? How about you and Fox, huh? Don’t you wanna be underneath the weight of all that pure golden tanned muscle when you go outa this world?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said dryly, though frankly at this point I didn’t really give a fuck what he thought.
“Well not anymore,” he laughed obnoxiously, inhaling another breath of smoke. “He kicked you out, didn’t he? Got rid of you for being a bad boy. I’m still waiting to hear what you did to deserve that.” He cupped his hand around his ear, but I remained silent. I expected him to start the torture then, but he didn’t, just continued to smoke and look at me like I was a puzzle he needed to solve before he cut up all the pieces so they never fit together right again. “I have a feeling it has to do with the little whore he stole from me, hm?” He eyed me closely for a reaction and my jaw tightened involuntarily. “Yeah.” He smirked, pointing at me with his cigarette. “That’s it, isn’t it? I always did have to keep on her a tight leash. Did Fox catch you with your pants around your ankles while Rogue choked on your cock? She’s got a damn talent for that after all.”
“Fuck off,” I snarled, my temper rising and a part of me relished the heat that rage brought to my veins. I was always so damn cold, always so numb, but I’d defend her until my final breaths. And a part of me was glad the fire that burned in me for her hadn’t gone out. If I was lucky, I could take it with me when I died.
“That wandering pussy always gave me trouble,” he mused. “I had to keep an eye on her so she didn’t spread her legs for my men, that’s the kinda girl she is.”
“She’s not a whore,” I spat. “Shut your filthy mouth, you don’t know her.”
He grinned, continuing as if I hadn’t spoken, “Oh I know her alright. I know how she feels on the inside, I know how she moans and begs and-”
“Shut your goddamn mouth!” I roared and he twitched the gun towards my face again in a warning.
“You’re like her in ways. You’ve both got this aura about you, it’s like…” He thought on it for a moment, wetting his lips. “Like you’re missing vital pieces. And something about that just draws me in. I wanna get into those voids and etch my name against their walls.”
I glared at him, my eyes moving to the gun in his grip as I wondered if it was worth attempting to get hold of it again. I’d relish shooting him, seeing his blood splatter the room, watching the smile on his face shatter into a thousand pieces of broken teeth.
“Lemme tell you a secret…” He leaned down, stubbing out his cigarette on my thigh and I gritted my teeth through the pain as he flicked the butt away and placed another cigarette between his lips, lighting it up with my Zippo. “I like being the centre of your world, Chase Cohen. Just like I enjoyed being the centre of hers. It gives me a high like no other, knowing you’re down here locked away just waiting for me to come back and tear your flesh apart. You don’t know if I’ll kill you, but you know I can any time I fancy. That’s how it was with her. She had bite in her at first just like you did, but I know how to break the strongest of backbones. And I enjoy every crunch of each vertebrae beneath my heel.” His eyes flashed with something truly evil and my upper lip curled back with hatred. I knew then why Rogue was shattered inside, why her trust in us could never be restored. We’d taken a few pieces of her heart when she’d left Sunset Cove, but this monster was the one who’d made sure to break the final ones beyond repair. And I found a purpose in that, something to keep living for down here in this cage. Because I simply had to live to kill this motherfucker deader than dead. It was the only thing that mattered. The one good deed that might just make all my shitty actions in my short life worth something.
“She made me promise to be loyal to her,” he said with a smirk. “Which made it much more fun fucking other women in secret while she waited at home for me, fingering that tight pussy which was reserved solely for my cock. She was obsessed with me. I was her one and only. It was fucking beautiful, and when I get her back, I’m gonna tie her to my bed for days and-”
I lunged at him with a roar of fury ripping from my throat, my fist cracking against his face as I reached for his gun, my hand clamping around the barrel.
The pistol went off and my ears popped with the blast of the shot. For a heartbeat I thought it was game over, but then Shawn yanked the gun from my grip and kicked me away, levelling it on me once more.
“Do not interrupt me while I’m speaking, boy,” he snarled in a tone worthy of my damn father, carefully pushing his hair back into place with his free hand.
My chest heaved as I glared at this fucking monster and my limbs trembled from the exertion. I didn’t get enough food down here and this was why. He kept me weak so I couldn’t win against him, but all he had to do was make one mistake and I’d destroy him. I may not have had my strength, but I had something fiercer than that. A promise to Rogue written into the essence of my flesh. I’ll kill him for you, little one. I’ll speak your name just before the light goes out in his eyes.
“Anyways, you and her are not the only broken toys I’ve laid a claim on, pretty eyes. I like seeing Luther’s little Fox crack and fall apart too. And I absolutely love how Fox despises him. They think I don’t know that. Acting like they’re unified whenever they’re on the front line, but I see the way Fox looks at his daddy and I hear rumours on the wind that confirm it. That hatred makes me very happy, Chase Cohen, you know why?”
“’Cause you’re an asshole?” I guessed dryly.
�
��Well obviously,” he roared a laugh. “But it’s more than that. Daddy Harlequin owes me a debt, see? A blood debt.” His eyes deepened a shade as a touch of pain entered his gaze that I’d never thought he was capable of. He ran a thumb along his lower lip as he thought on his next words, a thick silence forming between us. Shawn talked his mouth off to me but I had a feeling this was crossing a line, unveiling a piece of himself that he possibly hadn’t unveiled to anyone else before. It probably meant I was a dead man, because he wouldn’t spill his secrets to me unless he was planning on making sure I could never tell them. But I was curious all the same.
“Oh yeah?” I murmured to prompt him on and that was apparently all Shawn needed to keep going.
“Luther Harlequin took someone from me who I was very fond of, and there ain’t many people in this world I’ve ever been able to say that about, pretty eyes,” he said. “Most people are only useful or not useful. For example, my daddy wasn’t a nice man, but he taught me the ways of violence when I was just a kiddie. He wasn’t good for much else, the only thing he brought to my home was screams. Mine, my brother’s and my momma’s. So when I was ten, I took his pistol and pressed it the side of his head while he was sleeping on the porch, blew his brains out and tossed the gun down beside him. When Momma came running and found me covered in blood, she thought he’d killed himself right in front of me and so did everyone else. That was the first murder I got away with.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “I can still smell the blood if I focus on it hard enough, I can feel my momma’s hands sliding over my eyes too, the way she tried to shield me from the slaughter. But I liked it, pretty eyes.” He licked his lips slowly. “I got a taste for it that day. I felt this rush like my daddy’s power was filling me up, that hunger in him for bloodshed offered to me instead. I’m not a spiritual man, Chase, but I do believe one thing. The people I kill give me a piece of them when they go, a slice of their power.” He reached out, trailing the barrel of his gun down my cheek in an icy caress. “I wonder what I’ll get from you.”
I glared at him, hating that I shared something in common with him, having lived in a house with a man like that, dreaming about placing a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. Shawn had done what I’d hesitated to, and this was what he was because of it. Would I be like him if I’d acted on one of those violent urges?
“So this is all some revenge plot against Luther?” I asked, giving him a cool look as I steered the conversation back to the Harlequins.
“Nah, not all of it. I love chaos for the sake of chaos’s sake.” He shrugged. “But Luther’s had it coming for a long time, and I enjoy watching his whole world crumble. Fact is, he took my brother from me, so I took one of his boys, and I plan to take the other one just as soon as I can.”
I frowned, my ears pricking up at that. “What do you mean you took one of his boys?”
Shawn smiled broadly, clearly having been baiting me for that very question. He took another slow drag of his cigarette to build suspense, ever the fucking storyteller and I waited impatiently as he blew out a few smoke rings before he went on.
“My little brother was my favourite person. He was everything a little brother is supposed to be. Cruel, cold-hearted, bloodthirsty, funny, and downright loyal to his big brother.” He smiled at some memory and rolled up his sleeve to show me a tattoo of a bloody heart that had the name Nolan weaved through the jagged crack down the middle of it. “He could skin a bastard with more skill than I have ever seen. He didn’t have my way of talking though, he liked the quiet, only spoke to me mostly, but when he got to killin’…damn, it was like he came right out of his shell and painted the world red just for me. It was a sight to behold I tell ya. You’d have been lucky to die by his hand. Anyways, he got caught up with Luther and some of his boys one time, he was outnumbered and King Harlequin made me watch while he slit his throat.” His upper lip peeled back and my mouth hooked up at the corner to drive that pain a little deeper.
“Don’t you fucking look at me like that, sunshine.” His hand crashed against my cheek, fucking bitch slapping me then he went on with his story like nothing had happened. “After that, I swore I’d fuck with Luther real good. Killing him wasn’t good enough, he took my brother, so I decided to take his kids. But death’s too easy sometimes, you can only break a man while he’s still breathing.” His eyes glinted with some dark secret and I found my lungs constricting as he twisted the gun in his grip. “I was in the state penitentiary when Maverick Harlequin was transferred there from juvie.”
My mind whirled at that news and I found myself falling very still as I listened to his story.
“I was in for petty theft – well alright it wasn’t that petty – but anyway, I paid my way into a decent cell block and befriended me a few dirty guards by lining their pockets. They liked me, I always did have the knack to talk my way outa anything, and they fell for all my smooth talking as easily as everyone does whenever I turn on the charm. Those boys turned out to be real handy, because they did whatever I said. I never saw Maverick on account of us being in different blocks, but I sure did enjoy the tales the guards brought back to me about him. They agreed to take him from his cell night after night and beat the living hell outa him. But that wasn’t fun enough, so I had them tell him they were Harlequins sent there by his sweet old daddy who’d put his ass in jail in the first place. The guards told me he was ignoring all correspondence with the outside world anyways, so he was primed for being fucked with. It was too easy, pretty eyes, they even brought me a few photos to lighten up my afternoons, especially after they put him in a cell with a rapist.” He barked a loud laugh as the weight of those words crashed against my heart. “Can you imagine, poor little Maverick Harlequin all alone in that place, facing night after night with all the worst kinds of animals, believing his own daddy had sent them after him? It was fucking poetic, I tell ya.”
“You fucking monster,” I spat as he got to his feet, holstering his gun and weighing the sledgehammer in his hands.
“Yeah, I’m a monster,” he said, letting the cigarette fall from his lips so it hit the ground between us in a shower of sparks. “I’m Freddy Kruger, your living nightmare. Whenever you shut your eyes, I’ll be there until I’m all you can see. And when you go outa this world, you’ll go with my name scarred on the inside of your flesh. You’ll know who broke you, pretty eyes. I’ll be the most significant person in your life.” He leaned down, swinging the sledgehammer up to rest on his shoulders. “Or you can start talking about those friends of yours who tossed you away like the trash you are, hm? Maybe there’s a place in my gang for a man who’s not afraid to bleed.”
“I’d rather carve out my good eye,” I hissed at him and a sigh left his lips.
Before I could act, he swung the sledgehammer and it cracked so hard against my shin that a roar of utter agony left me as the bone shattered under the impact. I curled in on myself, clutching the injury as I clenched my teeth through the pain, white spots exploding in front of my eyes and bile rising in my throat.
“Motherfucker,” I snarled as he started whistling casually.
Shawn’s boot slammed into my face, knocking me onto my back and he placed the hammer down on my chest, leaning his weight on the top of it to keep me pinned there.
“As I was saying,” he said calmly as I bit my tongue over the agony coursing through my fucking leg. “I got those guards to get themselves Harlequin tattoos to make sure the lie was swallowed nice and smoothly by Maverick. And you know what?” He glared down at me, grinning as his light blue eyes glittered. “I never got to tell anyone that. I thought the secret would come out after a while, but I couldn’t believe my luck when it didn’t. I got outa jail long before he did, but I couldn’t wait for the day he returned to Sunset Cove, and when I heard Maverick had moved to an island and started up a whole gang of his own to destroy Luther, Fox and his boys, well let me tell you I laughed my ass off.” He took his gun from his hips, twirling it on his finger before pointing it
at my head. “But now my words have to die with you I’m afraid, pretty eyes. I’m done with your tight lips and all those secrets locked up in your head. I wonder if they’ll splatter across this room when I blow your brains out.”
I breathed through my teeth against the pain in my leg and shut my good eye, filling my head full of Rogue instead of this asshole, making sure she was the last thing I saw, not him. He was nothing. And he wasn’t going to steal her from me in my final moments.
“Do it,” I gritted out. “Do it you fucking asshole. But know that my family are gonna kill you. They’re gonna kill you so fucking good and I’ll be there to greet you in hell.”
My heart thrashed as I waited for the bang and for everything to go black, for the world to finally give me some goddamn peace. Don’t think of him. Don’t let him take her from you.
I focused hard, bringing her to the forefront of my mind and finding peace within the chaos.
“Are you sure it’s deep enough?” Rogue asked, standing beside me on the railing at the far end of Sinners’ Playground.
“I swear it,” I promised, offering her my hand and she wound her fingers between mine, making my heart thrash. She was smiling wide and there was a wildness in her eyes that I was captivated by. The drop didn’t scare me, but she did. She made my heart thrash and fill with this absolute fear that one day I was going to lose her. I held her hand tighter, wishing I could bottle this moment and keep it forever, so when a day came that she wasn’t there, I could still find her.
“Ready, little one?” I asked and she nodded keenly.
We leapt forward at the same time, hurtling through the air before colliding with the water and sinking deep into the blue. All the noise in the world was stolen away and it was just me and Rogue beneath the waves, floating in the endless sea.
“Shawn?” a man called from somewhere upstairs. “The hookers are here.”
Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3) Page 22