Children of Vice (Children of Vice #1)(84)

“Stepsisters,” she reminded her, ripping her hand away and then looking at the revolver to read the inscription. “Che sarà, sarà. My husband says it means what will be, will be.”

She spun the barrel once before she stepped on her shoulder, holding her down.

“IVY!”

She fired.

People jumped, gasped, turned away. Startled, one man even puked, but it was in vain.

“Apparently this is willed to be,” Cillian stated when no bullet fired.

Ivy smirked and so did I.

“My mother meant what I will be, shall be. That at all times the choice is mine. If you live it is our will,” I said, reaching for her bag, and her heels, before rising to my feet. “If you die…it is our will.”

Ivy fired once more, this time the bullet hitting her in the spine. Kneeling, I placed the heels in front of her. She took her bag and said to all of them, “Now I’m done. We won’t take up any more time.”

She stood at my side, and I looked at him.

“How much longer do you think I’ll let you stand in that spot, Cillian? How much longer will I let you believe everyone here thinks the Callahans should leave Boston? When will I show you just how many people have turned against you? How much longer will I let this city destroy itself?” I asked before glancing down at my watch. “How about until dawn?”

“Any man who believes a word you say is a fool. You really think you’re God, don’t you?” He huffed, chuckling, though I could see the concern in his eyes. And the fact that I could see it meant he was nowhere as strong as he thought he was. But that was again my doing…I allowed his confidence to grow.

“Simon,” I called out to the teenager who sat at the picnic table, who wouldn’t move before. He rose to his feet.

“Yes, sir,” he asked, now much more respectfully.

Cillian looked at him obviously.

“How’s your grandfather?” I asked, though I hardly cared.

“Good, sir, thank you for your help.”

“You little disloyal bastard—” Elroy charged at him, but the boys around him all stood up, pulling out brass knuckles, a knife, one even a gun.

“Plot twist.” Ivy smiled at Cillian.

“Rory?” We heard her voice. Shay, Ivy’s stepmother, walked forward, people parting for her, in her hands two bags of groceries. Her eyes were large as she stared at the woman in the grass, in shock. “RORY!”

She screamed, dropping the bags and rushing toward her daughter. “Rory!” Her hands shook as she touched her. “Call for help,” she said softly at first until no one moved. “SOMEONE CALL FOR HELP.”

“Call, but will they come?” Ivy asked her.

It was then that she saw the blood on Ivy. She tried to lunge forward, but Cillian grabbed onto her, pulling her back, and so all she could do was scream.

“Your crazy bitch! What have you done? WHAT DID YOU DO? I’ll—” She started to cough, collapsing. “I’ll kill you for this.”

“If you don’t die from the water first. I hope you didn’t fill those with the water from your houses…” Ivy said to her, and she froze. All of their eyes looked over at the pitchers of water out for people. The man getting himself a cup dropped it and stepped back.

“We did bring our own food for a reason,” she added.

Everyone who held cups in their hands dropped them.

“What can I do from a prison cell eight hundred miles away? You asked me that, remember? And I told you to watch your front,” Ivy said to Cillian as one man began to cough gently at first but much more violently, grabbing onto the people around to stand up straight. “This. I could do all of this.”

A Belladonna indeed.

“For these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me,” I said, picking up the bag of bagels Shay had dropped out of the grocery bag. “I may not be God, but that does not mean I can’t take lessons from his playbook, now, does it?”

After all, if anyone knew how to seek retribution it was the Lord. “Dawn, Cillian. That is how long I’ll wait for your apology. For you to remember you were nothing but a puppet king who forgot he was on strings.”





TWENTY-FIVE


“Find what you love and let it kill you.”

~ Charles Bukowski





AN HOUR UNTIL DAWN




IVY


Fury.

Wrath.

Rage.

Death.

Ethan, at this very moment, was all of those things, personified in silence, as we, and everyone else within the neighborhood and beyond, stood outside, watching as the Boston PD and the FBI raided my former childhood home alongside that of Cillian and Elroy. The whole place looked like the ending to a Christopher Nolan action movie. Helicopters hovered in the air as their spotlights beamed down on the street below, camera crews and reporters recording from off to the side, cops putting up yellow tape, dogs sniffing around the houses…and like the movies, no crime scene was complete without a body. There were a few in the street, people who’d supported Cillian who’d chosen to go firing at the police. Some were young, probably teenagers, teenagers who so badly wanted to have a purpose and be rich. Most of them were older, around Cillian’s age…all of them following him…straight to the grave. Who’d killed him, no one was saying, not with the feds all over the place, at least.