I could hear voices from down the hall, becoming clearer as we got closer.
“Prepare yourself,” Brianna warned as we came upon a simple white door.
I took a quick breath and readied myself for what I was about to see and hear. It’d been a few years since I’d last seen her and all I could think about was making sure she suffered like Maisie and my mother had.
And Marcus.
The man who loved me like his own despite being as monstrous as the rest of them.
I walked into a bedroom and almost came to an immediate stop. What the hell had happened to her face? It resembled a strong-faced squid. She was down on the ground in a robe that covered barely anything, pinned beneath Gavin’s shiny black shoe with Romeo sitting obediently adjacent to her head.
She’d been forced to lay on top of a shirtless man. He had to be who Judas planted. Even with a bullet hole between his eyes, I could see the similarities between him and Zacharias. He still didn’t come close to the real thing, but I guess Evie was working with what she had.
When she saw me, her eyes widened to such an extent that they looked like they were going to pop right out of their sockets.
“Rhiannon?” she gasped disbelievingly. “You’re here…”
“Well, thankfully I wasn’t in the car you just had shot up, right?”
I stopped beside Judas and leaned into his embrace when he wrapped an arm around me.
Her eyes became angry slits the second we made contact. “You came here because of that boy?”
“I came here because of you, he’s the reason it was possible.”
“What do you want to do with her?” Judas asked.
I studied the woman on the floor and could barely compare her to the one I’d grown up with. She’d been a beauty queen and prided herself on her looks. Even her voice was different now. It sounded like she’d put cigarettes in a blender and drank them every day for the past few years.
Now that I was right in front of her all the rage I felt seemed to wilt, leaving the hurt she would never be able to heal. She didn’t care to, and I could never forgive her if she tried.
“What do you think?” I asked Judas.
“I think whatever you decide will be exactly right.”
You don’t know how badly you’re going to regret this.”
We both turned to look at her. How was she still making threats while literally being on the ground?
“What was it you said to me about self-preservation?”
Judas grinned. “Either beg or shut the fuck up.”
“You’re not doing either,” I mused.
Her upper lip curled, and I could tell an insult was about to burst out of her until Brianna spoke up.
“If you say anything rude, I have permission to rip that nasty tongue right out of your whore mouth.”
It effectively had her lips slackening. She actually stopped talking and resorted to staring at the wall. If this were a pity ploy, she’d be sadly disappointed. No one in this room gave a damn about her. We all wanted her entire being to cease existing.
“You could drown her in her own pool,” Gavin suggested.
“That’s a little too simple for her.”
“I’d have to suggest shoving her in the fucking oven before she got off that easy,” Judas remarked.
He dropped his arm from around me and took hold of my hand instead. This got Evie’s attention almost immediately. It was weird. She’d always shown malice towards him. He did look like a copy and paste of his father…
She had been sleeping with a man that resembled him too.
I think everyone in this room with maybe the exception of Theo and our dog had a slight issue with obsession. Evie made my and Judas’ relationship look like a pamphlet of healthy couple goals.
If she wanted his father, why did she target my mother because of Marcus? I couldn’t make sense of it, but this wasn’t my history to delve into. It gave me an idea of what to do with her, though.
“Send her to the people this all started with,” I stated.
Right away, I could tell they were on board with this. Everyone but Evie. She clearly knew what that would mean for her because she started to fight with everything she had.
With a burst of strength, I don’t think any of us were expecting she launched herself off the ground.
The move nearly knocked Gavin onto his ass. She made it maybe two steps in my direction before Romeo had his jaw locked onto her arm. Her raspy scream of pain bounced off the walls as he sank his teeth into her flesh, shaking his head back and forth as if possessed.
Judas moved me behind him and gave a command that had Romeo immediately releasing Evie’s arm. The area around his mouth was damp with blood but not nearly as much as the amount running down Evie’s pale arm.