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His sobs punched through my gut, the pain so raw and open. He’d lost his other half and his baby sister. He was going to bear the marks of our brothers’ betrayal for the rest of his life.
If anyone needed to let everything out it was him. He sobbed into my chest, clutching at my leather jacket like a child who was lost and didn’t know what to do.
I held him in silence, gently rocking him back and forth and fighting my own tears. I needed to be here for him. His grief and pain would always be there but eventually it’d be more of a painful throb than a crippling blow with every breath he took.
That’s when the rage would set in, and when that happened I knew I’d lose him too, if I hadn’t already. He would never be the same again.
When he was done he leaned away and stared at me a minute. He shut his eyes, leaning back against his pillow and didn’t open them again. After he squeezed my hand, saying all he couldn’t yet with words. It wasn’t long before his breathing evened out and he was sleeping.
I leaned over, swallowing a sob of my own as I placed a kiss on his forehead.
This wasn’t fair, it never would be fair, and we would go on because that’s how life worked. She was the biggest bitch I had ever met. She’d come in and wreak havoc, and then demand you keep going or that you give in to her alter-ego, death.
Leaving the room I pulled steady breaths into my lungs, doing pretty well until I spotted him at the end of the corridor. He looked so sad, Daddy never looked sad.
“You been avoiding me?” he tried to joke but failed.
“I thought you needed space. Time to process,” I answered quietly.
“Or I just needed my little girl.” He pushed off the wall and slowly approached me, as if I were a skittish animal.
His words broke my resolve.
He pulled me into his arms, where I had felt safe since I was a small child, and led me into one of the empty rooms.
Beside him on the leather sofa, it was my turn to break one final time. I soaked his chest and he let me, stroking my hair like he’d done a million times before.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way for you,” he said more to himself than me.
I couldn’t reply.
I cried for all the friends I had lost and all the ones I knew had yet to follow. For the man who broke my heart and the brother that stomped on it. For that baby who never got to take his first breath and the little girl who suffered in that video—my parents, aunt, and Blue. For the Venom mourning losses of their own.
Lastly, I cried for myself and that naïve girl I had been. She would never be coming back.
Embracing who I knew I was but never fully accepted meant shedding my old skin and proudly wearing the new one.
In this place death could be an act of kindness, a necessary weapon. It was a small way to protect everyone I had left.
Walking in my father’s footsteps with a man I adored by my side didn’t seem too bad of an outcome, but finding the will to keep going when everything got to be too much was something I would have to practice every day if I didn’t want my demons to turn on me.
EPILOGUE
We had two hours before we were to attend some mandatory family meeting.
Maliki now deemed fam by assertive mother and father, he and Zane had to be there too.
At the rate we were going we’d be done long before then with enough time to shower instead of using the germicide wipes sitting on the work bench.
Another scream tore through the air as Maliki inserted the heated bat into Gwen’s pussy.
It was so burnt and swollen at this point that it reminded me of a giant pillow-y taco, only discolored and rank.
Watching him work was one of the most entertaining things I had seen in a while. He was so into it. Now bringing his old Stiletto up to her tit, cleanly slicing off her nipple. She howled in agony, trashing in the chains that secured her from the ceiling.
There was old and new blood all over her naked body. The smell in the room had gotten too strong for me when she pissed herself, so I’d turned on the few small fans situated about.
No one knew where this shed was aside from Addy and Zane, and Luce. Everyone else assumed Butcher was missing. It was Luce who had them brought here and swore the acolytes to silence.
