AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t know what you think you know, Serpent, but you need to leave right now. This is a private family event and business will be discussed another time.” Holt’s tactful approach puts a tinge of a smile on my face.
Interesting. Are we trying to diffuse the tension and avoid the crash and burn of his whole plan with pleasantries?
“Who said anything about business? I enjoy a good event, a good party, and I would very much like to bear witness to the fall of the O’Rourke family. Or the attempt at that anyway.” I swipe my gaze over the people sitting in the pew to my right, pausing a little longer on Cillian, the man to whom apparently I owe a debt now.
“What are you talking about? The O’Rourke’s will never fall!”
“Holt, care to explain your cunning plan to your business partner? Or shall I do it for you… starting with him?” I grab Boseman by the hair and lift the lump of meat enough so he can look in the direction of the family.
“You need to get out of here, right now, Serpent!” Holt seethes. “Take them out! Now!” He waves at three of his men, ordering them in our direction, and they comply.
One by one, they rush around the pews, down the aisle, toward us.
And one by one, they fall to the ground on the distinctive silencer pop of Carter’s gun, and the screams and gasps of the other two women present.
I cock my head at the man holdingmywoman by the arm. “You must have more than that up your sleeve… right? Or was all your security based solely on Boseman’s people? Your daddy really left you high and dry, didn’t he?” I can’t help but laugh. “In hindsight, mine wasn’t much better. I do regret not stomping on the back of his head when I made him bite that curb before I chased him out of town.”
His eyes twitch, he wants to look away, but I have this strange gift that’s part of why people fear me so. I can hold them here, dangerously enthralled in my gaze, until I know their bones shake with fear, until what I have to say is etched in them.
“You’re going to go to jail! All of you! I’m calling the police, right now!” O’Rourke’s wife shouts, fear and desperation in her voice.
I ignore the woman and continue, pent-up frustration for the man making me speak faster and faster. “In our last conversation, you slipped, threw a breadcrumb at us, and I love breadcrumbs. I use them, put them in my little dish, gather extra bits to go with it, and make something delicious. Like finding out why you know who Boseman is to me; not justhowyou found out, butwhy.Making that comparison to your own father in our discussion made me wonder, are you closer to Boseman than you made it out to be? Was all your bullshit about taking months to track him down, just that… bullshit? Turns out it was. You tried to play The Sanctum, play me. And, motherfucker, you thought we wouldn’t find out he’s been your partner for a while?! Overconfidence has to be supported by some intelligent actions, by brains, and here you are, thinking you can slap some shiny, new gloves on, walk into the ring, and think you can box?!”
“Jesus, how do you even make this stuff up? You have an overactive imagination.” Holt laughs, a proper belly laugh, and I can see for myself a glimpse into her relationship with him. Gaslighting should be this man’s nickname.
“Am I imagining what is happening at this moment in this church? Am I imagining your empty bank accounts that only see action when Boseman transfers money into them from one of his shady ones? The debt collectors threatening to break your bones? Or the containers of people we opened in the docks? Or the warehouses and houses you filled with them? Since I’m not imagining all of that… I don’t believe I’m imagining you bringing Boseman back into town.”
“But then again… we did gain something out of this. Didn’t we, brother?” I look at Madds, who’s a step behind me to my left. I can see the suggestive smirk in his eyes.
We certainly did.
I turn and my gaze falls straight on my prize, the one I would do this all over again for. I would fucking invent a deal, invent a crime, invent a fucking war, if it would mean that I could end up in a situation where she would come to me for a covenant that brings us back together all over again.
“Oh yes. Too bad we gained this cunning motherfucker’s return along with it. Desperate idiot. You see, O’Rourke, Mr Holt over there killed his father because he didn’t like how he handled business anymore, didn’t like the control or the fact that he wasn’t as involved as he believed he should be. And when he was gone, he discovered that his daddy not only left them penniless, but in a mountain of questionable debt.”
I can slowly see some wheels turning in his eyes. He doesn’t try to speak over me anymore, and even his wife is slightly stopped in her tracks with the phone in her hand as they try to make sense of it all.
“Holt is your fifty-fifty business partner in name only… Your financial partner, in your lovely drug, ammunition, and child trafficking business, is him.” I lift Boseman by the head a little higher, enjoying the hiss of pain.
“You better tell me right now if that’s true, boy!” O’Rourke snaps the phone out of his wife’s hand and turns to Holt. She barely notices, her wide eyes fixed on me, like it hurt to hear aloud exactly what her husband does now.
“He’s trying to fuck up our plans! It’s not true! You know very well who Boseman is, my own business partner, which makes him our associate. Everything else has nothing to do with you!” Holt is shaking slightly as he tries to control his anger. Or his madness. They both peek through, though.
“Is he really?! Because he seems to know an awful lot about our business, and the way you’re sweating right now doesn’t give me much fucking confidence!” O’Rourke grips the back of the pew in front of him, the wood creaking under his hands.
Holt rolls his eyes, and sighs loudly, a finality in the way that air leaves his mouth.
“Useless sack of shit! You were supposed to kill him!” He cracks, a crazed look developing in his eyes, and his growing rage is directed at the man kneeling in front of me. “All you wanted all this time was to destroy The Serpent. You put our whole operation in danger because of your obsession with him! And now that you finally had the green light and the perfect opportunity… you fucked up!”
“Because the boy he last saw when he was sixteen is not the man he found in my house today. As I am sure you know by now, Mr O’Rourke, Lester Boseman is my darling father, but since him and my mother were never married, she was free to give me her family name, of which, as you can imagine, I’m very thankful for. You both have a lot in common.” I look down at Boseman, pulling him back by the hair, until he can look into my eyes. “Only I’m done with you now.”
I grab his head with both hands, as his eyes widen with terror, and in one swift, violent move, I twist so hard and far, that the man goes completely limp in my hands on a blood curdling crack that echoes through the church. He falls to the floor with a loud thump.
Finally…
An eerie, calm silence descends in my mind. Like a door I closed on a chaos I could never truly escape.
I’m definitely not the boy I used to be, because that boy knew what had to be done, but he just didn’t have it in him to do it. I did, and damn if it doesn’t feel good seeing his fucking lifeless body sprawled at my feet.
