“Liam we can stay in the summer home—”
“We are not moving!” I yelled, breathing through my nose before taking a step back. “I will not be chased out of my home like a poverty stricken street rat. There is plenty of house left. Pick a room and deal with it, Father.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, grinning before he nodded.
“As for Vance and Saige, take photos of Amory’s body and send it to them. When you’re done, throw Amory’s body anywhere you fucking please. Ship him to the moon for all I fucking care. Just make sure Vance knows those pictures are all that he will ever have left of his son.” Part of me wished I hadn’t killed Amory outright and used him for some leverage to bring down his father.
“When are we hitting back, boss?” Fedel asked me, and I do believe that was the first time he had ever called me his boss.
“We start now.” I glanced over to them all. “Declan, gather every motherfucking hacker and suck him dry. Anything you can destroy, do it. The rest of you, your orders are the same. Shoot to kill. I don’t care if they’re in the street or their damn beds. We’re ending this if I have to bomb all of Russia to do it.”
TWENTY-NINE
“The family that mourns together
survives forever.”
~ J.J. McAvoy
SEDRIC
It was déjà vu. No father ever wanted to watch his son suffer as he had. Our sons and daughters were supposed to move forward. Make new mistakes. Forge new paths and conquer new mountains. Yet Liam was fighting my battle. I should have killed off Vance years ago. I should have prevented all this, but I failed.
Allowing the smoke to fill my lungs, I stared up at the sky.
“Sedric.” Jumping at the sound of my wife’s voice, I looked back to find her glaring at the joint in my hands.
“Sorry,” I whispered, preparing to throw it out, when she simply took it from my hands and took a long drag.
Smirking, she handed it back to me. “Only tonight. After today, it should be allowed.”
“This reminds me of college.” Smoking on the roof after a long, hard day of sex. There was some studying every once in a while also, but still.
“I was pregnant, remember? I couldn’t smoke.”
“Oh, right.” I laughed as she hit me, but I just held on to her.
“Will they be okay? Can they get through this?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. It’s only the first day.”
CORALINE
I really didn’t know how I got to the maternity ward. I was simply walking and next thing I knew, there were babies as far as the eye could see. They were all enchanting and peaceful. Looking at them almost made me forget that the world sometimes sucked.
“They are cute, aren’t they?” Declan whispered next to me.
“Shouldn’t you be guarding Mel?”
He smiled. “Neal, Fedel, and Monte are all standing watch.”
I said nothing, and he looked at the babies.
“I keep trying to wonder what ours will look like. Liam was so happy. He was kind of high all time.”
Again, I said nothing.
“Cora—”
“What Declan?” I snapped. “You want me to give you the time of day because you sat outside my door and played music? But you wouldn’t give me the time of day even after I let you fuck me any way you pleased.”
He took my hand and kissed it before taking a step back, not speaking any longer. When I looked through the glass, a few of the babies were crying.
“See what you did?”
DECLAN
I couldn’t help but smile at her. Even now as she cursed me out, as she should have, I smiled. She had killed someone. She was in the east wing when the bombs went off, and she fought her way to the safe room. A knife right in the motherfucker’s throat. If I didn’t know better, I would say I was falling in love with her all over again. But the truth was, I had never stopped loving her. I never could. I could wait her out. I could take every jab as long as I got her in the end.
OLIVIA
Staring at my phone, I read Neal’s text message over again. It was all that was keeping me together right now.
I love you and the moment I can, I will be at your side. I’m so sorry I wasn’t before.
I tried to breathe. I tried to think. But all I could feel were the hands of those men. I almost fell out of my seat when Adriana took a seat beside me.
“You were raped once weren’t you?” she asked me, and I did, in fact, stop breathing.
“What? Why would you say—”
“Don’t insult me by lying.” She smiled sadly. “I know what a rape victim looks like, and I also know what it feels like when Melody saves you from it. She takes you and she makes you unstoppable. She gives you your power back. She brings you back to life. So the next time a guy thinks he can ever lay a hand on you, you can show him what it feels like to piss off God himself.”
With that, she left me wondering who her Harvey was and what had she done to him.
THIRTY
“I want to see your face when I kill you!
I want to see the light leave your eyes!”
~ Voldemort
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film,
J.K. Rowling
MELODY
Day 5
“Liam can be such an ass sometimes,” Coraline said as she fluffed my pillow. “You should be resting in the summer house drinking a Sex on the Beach and watching the Young and the Restless. But instead, he has us all on lockdown. Can you believe that? We’re on house arrest!”
I said nothing.
Sighing, Coraline fell onto the bed next to me. “I killed someone.”
I said nothing.
“Right, that’s probably not a big deal to you,” she whispered. “But for me it’s a huge deal. He came out of nowhere and I just reacted. Adriana told me to always carry at least two knives on me at all times, so I did. I still do. And that day I just pulled them out . . . and killed. But you know the most fucked up part?”
Again, I said nothing.
“I didn’t care,” she said. “The prick came into my home and tried to hurt me. And when I threw the blade right into his jugular, blood went everywhere. But all I could think was, ‘fuck this asshole better not have AIDS.’ That’s fucked up right? I’m a good person. I was a good person. Before, I would be freaking out, praying over him or something, and yet all I wanted to do was kick his ass because he might have just given me AIDS.”
Nothing. I said nothing.
“Mel, please speak to us. It’s been five days. At least say something. Anything,” Coraline begged me, but I couldn’t.
Shifting onto my side, I tried to go back to sleep. I just wanted the darkness. I just wanted to sleep. It was the only time I felt anything.
“We love you, Mel.” It was the last thing I heard before the darkness returned . . . thankfully.
LIAM
“Where are Vance and Saige?” Neal yelled. The prisoner he was speaking to dangled from the ceiling in front of us as I cut into my steak.
“Go fuck yourselves,” the fool choked out.
Neal looked to me, and I simply nodded while taking a bite of the bloody beef in front of me.
Taking the drill from Declan, Neal held the point to the man’s collarbone.
“Last chance. Where are Vance and Saige?” Neal asked again.