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My mother doesn’t have time to respond before Gunner is next to Beverly, holding a blowtorch. Clicking the mechanism to light the torch, he holds it up to her arm without touching it. Beverly flinches away, but I know the bitch can feel the heat. Gunner stares into her eyes.
“You were never my ol’ lady, not in the eyes of the club or mine. You’ve never earned the right. You were an obligation, a noose around my neck, nothing more and much less. The one who is nothing is you. You have been and will always be nothing. Just another power-hungry cunt that doesn’t have the balls to stand on her own two feet, always leeching onto anyone that would fall for your bullshit. You. Are. Done.” Gunner sneers and lowers the flame to the tattoo.
The smell of burning flesh has my stomach churning uncharacteristically. Her screams are music to my ears. Snot, drool, and tears run down Beverly’s face. We all watch as she sputters, screams, and pleads for her sons to help her. Bull and Vex remain rooted in place. Neither of them acknowledges her pleas. They don’t see her as anything but a trader to the club. She will never again get sympathy from them or anyone in this room. Once she realizes this, her demeanor changes, and the fire and hatred return.
“Yo… you won’t ki… kill me, you can’t, you know you c… can’t. Whatever you do to me, I will heal. … whatever you do... That is a… a promise.” Her eyes droop as she tries to narrow them on my mother.
My mother’s face remains cold and calculating when she approaches Beverly.
“Yes, and I will await the day. I’ll await the day when you are smarter, stronger, and more equipped to come for me.” my mother says in an indifferent tone. “No, Beverly, I will not kill you; you don’t get to have that. No, you will live. You will live to watch everything you’ve worked for ripped away from you. You will watch as everyone you know turns their backs on you. No, I will not kill you, Beverly. That would be no fun.” My mother laughs.
Beverly rears back and spits, narrowly missing my mother. With a tsk, my mother goes to work, taking her pound of flesh and beating the ever-loving shit out of the woman. My mother, usually controlled, is in the zone; I can see the wildness and bloodlust in her eyes. She is so focused on her task that she doesn’t realize when Beverly passes out, which happens more than once.
After a long while, I surveyed the damage. Beverly lost all her nails on both her hands and feet. Both kneecaps have shattered. Several teeth are missing. Beverly also has multiple burns all over her body. Something about the burns seems odd to me. My mother is not one to burn someone, peel skin, remove teeth and nails, or die by a thousand cuts–that’s more her style.
“What am I missing?” I say more to myself.
My mother looks over at me, and her eyes look pained, which has me taking a step closer to her. She raises her hand to stop me.
“The wounds that I’m giving her are ones that Princess would have received if she were to become Marco’s wife. Nothing he said to her was a lie. He would have used and abused her in ways that would break her body and mind.” She stands from her kneeling position after slicing into Beverly’s feet.
Blaze hands her a rag.
“The Prime minister’s daughter was found, barely clinging to life. It has been kept under the radar, but she was…” My mother shakes her head. “I knew that child since she was a little thing. She didn’t deserve what was done to her. None of them did.” My mother tsk and turns around, returning to her task.
She walks around Beverley, and with two swipes of her blade, she places a big “X” on her back from shoulder to hip. She adds a “W” at the top and an “M” at the bottom, her signature, and a message. The larger the offense, the larger the message.
Beverly’s sins stretched far and wide. As my mother tortured her, she explained to all of us just how depraved the woman was. Before her younger brother took over, Beverly's family was into some dark shit. My mother explained that she helped bring down the old Berlusconi Don and his heir. The sick fucks were trafficking minors for sick and sadistic shit. Beverly was to lure children in, grooming them for her father to sell. Watching my brothers take in that information made me so sad for them. They did not know, nor did our father. They see the true monster she is. Vex tries to get his father to end her. He doesn’t. Beverly is not just the monster that would sell their sister, but would have sold so many other innocents and wouldn’t have a single regret. By the end, there was just so much that even I was shocked at the depravity of the woman my father married. No one spoke for a long time as we watched Beverly’s unconscious body being removed. She will be dropped on the current husband’s doorstep as a message–we are watching.
Once Beverly was removed, my mother turned to my brothers and father and apologized for not telling them everything she knew. She told them Beverly’s involvement stopped when she married my father, but she was still guilty of her crimes. Something about how my mother said that had me not believing her. I think she said it to give them some comfort. I don’t know. I question it because the Don was assassinated ten years ago, which means it has only… It doesn’t matter. They are all dead now.
Ferrari couldn’t save face, no matter how hard he’d tried. His legitimate businesses took a brutal hit, and he lost more than he gained by aligning himself with Beverly. We did a good job in the coverup of her alleged drunken single-car accident. Being a prominent public figure, things had to be done to make Ferrari into a scorned husband in the public eye. Within the Cosa Nostra, he is paying his penance, which is why he was given the grace he was. His and his family's lives are now at the mercy of the Barones.
Beverly’s younger brother disowned her not long after discovering her part in what she had planned for his niece, her daughter. He saw the writing on the wall and washed his hands of her years ago, and there has been no contact. This recent development solidified his stance because there was no saving her.
When Don Barone said Marco had to be breathing, he was when he left the clubhouse. No one ever said anything about the man being able to speak or walk. Marco didn’t fare any better than Beverly did. As far as I know, he is now wishing for death, exiled to some secluded location his father sent him to.
We are criminals, assassins, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers and cousins. We are a family. The life we lead isn’t easy, but it is the one we choose. We may not live in the light, but we love hard and fight harder for what we believe in. And I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it because this life, my parents’ past, has brought me to my future. It allowed me to find my home.
All that’s left for me to do now is find bliss.
