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“They got you eating caviar and Crème Brulee, but you’ve never had fairground food? Man, I got to take you someday—to Coney Island. We’ll eat Nathan’s hotdogs and funnel cake and ride the Wonder Wheel with the view of the whole park and out onto the ocean. The beach gets packed, everybody blasts their music, and they sell cold beer and mango flowers right on the beach!”
“What’s a mango flower?”
“It’s a Mexican treat. They slice the mango to look like a flower, and cover it in salt, hot sauce, and lime juice.”
“And that’s good?”
“Are you serious? It’s the best. You gotta try it. I cannot wait to take you! You’re gonna love it.”
Today there won’t be any rides or any funnel cake. Just sweet retribution.
I stalk across the boardwalk after jumping a chain link fence that wouldn’t keep out a persistent dog. Some of the old boards are sun warped and jutting up with nails protruding. Maybe I’ll use one of those to tear some mother fucker’s flesh from his bones. I’m prepared for the murder and mayhem of many, but my gut tells me there’s only one person behind this disappearance. The person who’s made Kat suffer her entire life. The only person crazy and stupid enough to try to cross me. Henry Shaw.
I jump from the boardwalk down to the cold sand below. A murmur rises from the drunks who’ve taken shelter under here from the wind and cold. I turn and put a finger to my lips, my eyes narrowing at them.
“Seen a guy come this way? With a girl? Probably against her will.”
One of the guys rises from his sleeping bag and stumbles forward revealing a jack o’ lantern smile. His shaggy beard, mustache and twinkling eyes make him look like a gnome under the bridge.
“Went that way.” He points south toward Brighton Beach.
“Good looking out,” I tell him. I remove a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet. “I’ll give you another if you ain’t lying.”
“That way,” he insists, pointing in the same direction.
I hand him another hundred. “I’m gonna go kill him,” I tell the man and smile.
He grabs the money and rushes back to his spot under the boardwalk.
I charge into the night, head into the wind, taking the long beach diagonally. My hand rests on the grip of the gun in my pocket, and I can feel the weight of the knife I have in a calf holster on my leg.
Not a whisper of fear lives in my system. I’m a killing machine, and this is long overdue. Henry Shaw is about to meet his reckoning.
Chapter 22
Heath
The blood gushing from Henry’s putrid face has my adrenaline rushing through my veins. I should have killed him five years ago. Spending my life in jail would have been better than knowing the horrors Kat has gone through at his hand. His screams of pain vibrate down the beach as I jab my knife in his abdomen and stick my finger in the wound. All I want to do is make him suffer for hours under intense torture.
“Heath, stop,” Kat’s voice diminishes to a faint echo under the blood lust my brain is demanding.
I push her voice aside, not wanting anything to distract me from the bloody mess lying before me. I know I should stop. At this point, there’s no fun in beating a broken man on the cusp of death, but this wasn’t just any man. Henry was supposed to be our brother, but instead, he was our tormentor. I don’t want to give him any mercy. He deserves to be conscious as I cut up his body piece by piece and show him each and every part.
I found them just in time. He was straddling her, naked. She was screaming. He was trying to force himself on her. The memory makes me clench my teeth to the point of pain, and I wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until his eyes roll back in his head.
There’s a tug at my arm. “Heath, please.”
I turn on her, knife in hand. “WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO STOP? He deserves it. Why do you want to protect him?”
Tears stream down her face. “I don’t give a damn about him. I’m trying to protect you. This rage in you, Heath. If you don’t get a grip on it, it’s going to destroy you.”
“I am destroyed, Kat. I was destroyed five years ago. This is who I am now, baby. A killer. A criminal. I’m the man who makes anyone who touches what’s mine pay the ultimate price.”
Not that anyone will ever find Henry’s body. He’s a degenerate drunk who wasted every scent left to his ungrateful ass. This moment would never have come if Henry’s wrath was only directed at me. I would have taken all the abuse and hatred gladly and left him to live out his miserable life, but the moment he hurt my Kat was the moment he guaranteed his own end. I want him to feel every slice of pain I endured.
