“Uh, yeah. Sure.” He crouched down in front of the duffel bag, rubbing the back of his head.
Maliki and I shared a look overtop his kneeling form. That “sure” hadn’t sounded very convincing.
I glanced at Tobias. His hazel eyes met mine, went to Ace, and then flickered back. This was his way of asking if I wanted him dead. I gave a slight shake of my head.
Normally I’d have chalked this up as a loss, but Ace had only killed once before, so I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt and a nudge in the right direction. Sometimes a person just needed to be pushed towards their salvation.
Moving back to where he was kneeling, I crouched down right in front of him, making sure he had no choice but to look at me, and asked, “Do you remember why you wanted to come here?”
He paused his searching and met my stare.
“To be one of you.”
“No.” I shook my head and rose back up. “You wanted Maliki to find this place, to come here, because the bitch with the socks in her mouth falsely accused your brother of rape, and then,” I stepped to the side so he had a full view of the man tied to the chair, “This asshole beat the shit out of him with a tire iron.”
Seeing my words had the desired effect, I kept going. “And you know what’s worse? The fact that he didn’t kill em!”
“He smashed his skull in and left him half-alive for you to find with his goddamn brains spilling out.”
Head nodding in agreement with everything I said, the memory of that day rising back to the surface, and he began digging through the duffel bag again.
“Let’s not forget what caused all this,” Trix added, putting more pressure on Jamie’s chest where her boot still rested.
“A lie,” Tobias sneered. “She wanted that dick and got caught in a lie when her hubby found out another man had sampled her pussy.”
“He’s right,” I continued. “All of this is a result of one person’s choices. And you’re here to prove you can deliver the consequences that came with it.”
Ace licked his lips and tucked a strand of his long hair behind an ear.
Glancing up at me again, he asked, “How would you do it?”
“If it were me…?” I thumbed my chin as if in deep contemplation, grinning slowly.
I crouched back down, so we were eye level, and dug around in the duffel, pulling out a steel pick hammer.
“I’d make him listen as I fucked his daughter, and then I’d do to him what he did to my brother.”
“And the mom?”
“I can stick her in the oven,” Maliki suggested. “She’ll die either way, and it’ll hurt like a sonofabitch.”
“Yeah, Yeah. I like that idea.” Ace took the steel hammer from my hand and stood up.
There we go.
I watched silently as he moved around Trix, grabbed Jamie by the hair, and proceeded to drag her ass into her parents’ room.
Mom and pops screamed on helplessly, Jamie’s pleas mingling with their muffled protest. Ace slammed the door behind him, and the level of noise dramatically fell.
Her mother sagged into a puddle of helpless flesh, shaking her head back and forth.
Thing’s could have been different had she of thought her lie through more thoroughly. But she didn’t, and now one of my favorite prospects were dead and another man lost the only blood he had left.
All would be well soon, though. If Ace made it all the way in he’d have a family willing to destroy anyone that caused harm or posed a threat to his well-being.
Who wasn’t afraid to retaliate against anyone no matter how big, how small, or how fucking insignificant they were.
All of them for one of ours, that’s how it worked. Loyalty, fear, and undisputed power are what would make the Venom name notorious long before I perished and long after I was gone.