Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(51)

“He stole from me.”

“Stole what?”

“Everything,” she whispers, “but mostly my innocence. He took away everything good in my world, he stole it from me, everything I loved, and he tried so hard to snuff out every bit of light in my life, to make sure I never felt the sunshine again, and he did it, he said, for my own good, like that was what it meant to love somebody.”

She turns to me, her expression passive, as those words run through my mind. For my own good. Yeah, I’ve heard that before.

“That’s what makes him so cruel,” she continues. “I used to read all these fairy tales, and I just think about how f*cked up it is to realize that heroes are make-believe but monsters are real. That’s the world we live in. There’s no knight in shining armor out there. It’s just me, trapped in a world filled with fire-breathing dragons, and that man is determined to burn me to a crisp.”

“I knew a man like that once.”

“What happened?”

I drop my feet to the floor and stand up, studying her for a moment before saying, “My face happened.”

I stroll over to the wall of bookshelves along the back of the room, mostly bare except a few scraggly books and some lock boxes. I pull out a set of keys from my pocket, wordlessly unlocking a small metal box, and grab the black silencer from inside. Pulling my gun from my waistband, I turn around.

Scarlet is leaning back against the table, her hands shoved in her hoodie pocket again. Her gaze trails me, on guard, as I screw the silencer onto the Colt M1911.

I check the gun, making sure it’s loaded. “So you like fairy tales, huh? You ever hear the story of The Juniper Tree?”

“No.”

“Stepmother doesn’t like her stepson, because he’s set to inherit the family fortune, so she beheads him and feeds him to his father before burying his bones beneath a juniper tree.”

She stares at me. “And then what?”

“That’s it.”

“That can’t be it.”

“Sometimes the stories are horrific, Scarlet. Just because you haven’t found some bullshit Prince Charming doesn’t mean fairy tales aren’t real. They’re just not always pretty pictures.”

I walk out of the library, making my way to the living room. Seven lingers in the doorway, keeping an eye on our guest like I knew he would. The others lurk inside the room, laughing, joking. Ricky sits dead center of the couch, drinking straight from a bottle, hazy smoke surrounding him.

Clearing my throat, I step into the room, drawing his attention. His smile quickly fades, something sparking in his eyes when he sees the gun in my hand.

BANG.

I don’t give him the chance to acknowledge what’s happening, don’t give him time to plead for his life, to try to shovel some bullshit, thinking I’m going to buy it.

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

Back to back, I unload the bullets into him, suppressed but still loud enough for the noise to echo, merging with the sharp sound of his gurgling scream. Bullets hit his chest, his stomach, and the couch beside him, nearly hitting one of my men before the final one slams the f*cker right in the head.

BANG.

Blood splatters the white wall around the couch. Ricky slumps over onto Three, his body still twitching, heart no longer pumping. Three shoves him off, cursing, as he stands up, flailing his hands like a hysterical little bitch, his reaction making the others laugh.

They laugh.

Bunch of sick f*cks, finding it funny that their friend is splattered with brain matter.

I shake my head, shoving the gun at Seven, who takes it without question. White smoke surrounds us from the lube I use in the tube of the suppressor.

I know there’s one hell of a sex joke in there somewhere, just begging to be made, but I don’t have time for it right now, because the air’s so thick the damn smoke detector starts screeching in the hallway, as if I’m not drawing enough attention.

“Clean the gun,” I tell Seven before waving toward the mess on the couch. “The rest of you, do something about this before Three shits his pants.”

They laugh some more as Three grumbles under his breath, trying to pull himself together. He’s the whitest white boy around, with shaggy blond hair and light green eyes, freckles on his button nose, his cheeks all rosy, like he’s always blushing. He’s a cross between a California surfer and little Bobby Brady with the personality of John Wayne Gacy… you know, a murderous clown.

“Lorenzo? Everything okay?”

My brother’s voice rings out from upstairs. I turn, stepping back out into the hallway to respond, and come face-to-face with Scarlet. She stands there, eyes kind of wide as they regard me, a look in them that I recognize… a look that tells me she watched what I just did. It’s not fear, no. I’ve seen her scared. I watched her cower behind a bar in terror, remember? This is more so surprise, like maybe she didn’t think I had it in me, like maybe she hadn’t been taking me seriously until now.

Like she didn’t realize I lived up to my reputation.

“It’s fine,” I yell, waving toward the blaring smoke detector, fanning the haze away. “Stay upstairs.”

“Planned on it,” he yells back. “Just, can you keep it down? I have to work in the morning, bro.”

The blaring silences as I laugh to myself.