They nodded just as another explosion erupted inside, shattering all the windows on the top level.
“Move it. Move it! Clear the way!” the officer yelled, as he led us to the ambulance.
“We’re fine, I just want to go home,” Mel told them.
“Ma’am, we need to get you check—”
“I’m going home. This damn city is trying to kill me! Massacres, bombings! I feel like I’m in a fucking war!” she snapped as another bomb went off. The back part of the building began to collapse, sending a thick plume of smoke towards us.
It wasn’t ideal, but it gave us the cover we needed to escape.
“Liam!” Mel yelled with a smile on her face as we moved away from the scene.
“What?”
“Did we just win?”
“Almost.”
After all, we still had Avian to deal with.
MELODY
Dirt and dust coated every inch of me. My hair was heavy with it, and I noticed that even the ends were burnt. Liam looked just as bad, and from the smug look on our faces, it’d be hard to imagine what we’d just escaped. We walked into the basement, not expecting to find anyone but Avian.
However, Monte, who sat at the computer, pulled his gun on us as we walked in.
“Really?” Liam said, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Boss! What happened? Everything’s gone. How’d you do it?” he asked, as he wheeled his chair around to face us.
“What the fuck?” Liam grumbled as he noticed both Neal and Declan beating the crap out of Avian. “I thought I told them to leave!”
“Neal said he had nothing left, Declan called Coraline and then they both went in there before I could talk to them,” Monte responded.
“Really? Before you could talk to them?” Even with one leg he could have said something.
“Alright, maybe I wanted the bastard who took my leg to get what was coming to him.” He fought back a grin.
Shaking my head at him, I walked over and grabbed the handlebars then wheeled him over to the window.
“Then here’s a front row seat,” I told him. I patted him on the shoulder just as Liam entered the room.
“Enough! I want him alive so I can kill him slowly,” Liam said to his brothers.
They froze, their faces covered in blood splatter, no doubt shocked to see him.
“Liam, what in the hell are you doing—?”
“Get out,” I said to them as I entered.
Dropping the brass knuckles, they cleared the room, but not before spitting on Avian.
Avian’s head dropped, and blood dripped from the tip of his nose. He took a few deep shallow breaths before he spat up blood. With what little strength he had left, he pushed himself back in the chair. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and bruised. I had to give it to him, he was a tough old man.
“From your brothers’ reactions, I’m assuming it’s done?” he asked Liam as his good eye looked us over. “You all have more gall than I thought. I was sure you were going to kill yourselves. It’s in your nature.”
“Was it worth it, Avian?” I asked him. “I was in your office, I saw all your hard work and you threw it all away. I don’t understand that.”
“You can’t win if you aren’t willing to lose it all. I fear nothing. I lose nothing. I grieve for no one, and in return, I can spend my life torturing you as you did to me. The fear rolling off you made it worth it. Besides, if I truly wanted to, I could’ve made a deal with the DOJ, and spent the rest of my life under house arrest…”
“You thought you could get out of this?” Liam asked him. “Why not go straight to the DOJ and make the deal? Why did you allow us to do this to you?”
“I’m not afraid of pain. I welcome it. It makes us strong. Bones, bruises, cuts, they all heal. My mind is something you can never touch.”
“The Department of Justice wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole,” I said to him.
He snickered as he spat out more blood. “I didn’t get to where I am without collecting dirt. Before Olivia, I paid off your maids, I went through your trash, and I hacked into satellites just to triangulate your jet. I have dirt on them all. They would sooner drop me off on a deserted island than let me spill their secrets. I’m the ultimate hunter, I know how to protect my back.”
“You mean my mother was,” I corrected.
He shook his head. “Your mother couldn’t move without me, let alone think. She did as she was told. She wasn’t a hunter, she was bait, a pawn.”
“She was smarter than we all gave her credit for.” I pulled out my phone and played the video.
“Having trouble there, Father?”
I watched as his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in shock.
“No,” he whispered, before he started to scream. “No! You stupid cunt! NO!”
“Well, Mr. Hunter, it seems like the fox tricked you,” Liam said as Avian struggled against his seat. He walked around him, stood at his back and placed a hand on his shoulder, he leaned down to his ear and whispered, “But it’s okay, you don’t fear pain, right?”
“I’ll ask my question again.” I smiled as I put the phone away. “Was it worth it?”
Liam began to take off his shirt.
“Wife, I may not make it to dinner,” he said to me softly, and I knew what he wanted. Revenge. Blood by his own hands for his father, and I would let him have it. Taking his shirt from him, I nodded.
“Take all the time you need,” I said before turning to Avian. “Goodbye, grandfather. It was never a pleasure.”
“This will be a very barbaric,” Liam whispered to him as I made my way out the door.
LIAM
I whistled as I wheeled him into the crematorium. He screamed against the duct tape, but it was music to my ears. Slamming on the button, the steel gates opened up as the heat from the pre-warmed oven escaped. The fire roared, exciting me even further. He was incapable of moving anything more than his neck after my little chair episode.
“Have you ever read A Thousand Horrible Ways to Die?” I asked him knowing that he couldn’t answer. “It’s a great read—crucifixion, pit of snakes, impalement. I was going to just pick a random number, but the wife said we needed to go deal with Rsamas now. I’ve spent too much of our life on you already.”
He didn’t fight against the straps as he was already weak from blood loss. I patted him on his chest and I knew it burned.
“Stay alive for a few more moments. In the end, I need to see you burn. You’ll die by fire, while we were reborn through the flames Aviela unleashed at your office. It’s all quite poetic, don't you think? We can’t all be the phoenix, some of us have to be the ashes.”
Pressing the button, I watched with joy as the flames took him before the doors closed.
“Just think of it as returning to hell,” I said, as his instincts kicked in and he began to struggle.
His loud muffled screams could’ve woke the dead.
“Checkmate,” I said, turning as the gate snapped shut.
MELODY
As Liam made it onto the plane, I looked over the seats and waved to him.
“Finally,” Declan muttered from the first class seat behind us.