Vincent (Made Men, #2)(92)

Vincent swung the sock full of change across his face, and then he began to beat him with it. The sound of tiny pieces of metal hitting hard flesh satisfied him as he heard Lake’s mother cry.

Pam forced her face in the opposite direction, unable to look at the brutality of what he was doing. “Please, he made me do it! I would never hurt my baby!”

Stopping the beating, Vincent left John as he started coughing up blood to focus on her mother, grabbing her face and squeezing her jaw.

“Did he beat you to lure her here? I don’t see any fucking bruises. Every fucking time she came over here, you pretended you didn’t know what he and Ashley were doing to her, but you fucking knew. You put on a fucking show for her every time, calling her ‘honey’ and ‘baby’, buying her shit. It was all just to keep her mouth shut and get her to continue coming every weekend, because if she didn’t, then I bet he didn’t let you spend any of his money.”

Pam shook her head. “No, that’s not—”

His hand closed over her throat. “Tell me the fucking truth, bitch.”

“Okay!” she choked out. “He liked watching her clean and cry! He’s my husband; I’m supposed to keep him happy. If I keep him happy, he returns the favor. That’s how it works!”

He stared at her, hearing the sickest thing he had ever heard in his life. Rearing the sock back, he hit her hard and fast on the side of her head multiple times, giving her a semi-quick death. The bitch had given him Lake, but he desperately needed to kill one of the two if he wanted to make the other one suffer longer. He was close to fucking offing both of them with their fucking mouths, but he needed to draw the death of the other one out.

Turning to John and giving him a few more hits in the ribs, he then shoved the sock full of coins in his mouth.

“Motherfucker, while you sit here and die, I want you to think about how you will never be able to call Lake another name, how you will never be able to tell her what to do, how you will never watch another tear go down her face. It killed you to think about how you never got to break her down after all these years, didn’t it? You knew you never owned her, and then, when she left and didn’t come back, you realized you were never going to be able to finish what you had tried so hard to fucking do for years.”

Vincent grabbed one of the gasoline tanks off the table and started hosing him down. “Lake is mine, motherfucker. She was never yours, and she will never be yours.”

Setting down the tank, he looked at Nero and Amo. “Hose down the rest of the house while I get Lake and Maria.”

Nero and Amo nodded before they picked up the tanks and started to get to work.

Vincent went up the stairs, still feeling no remorse. The two had completely lost it since the last time he had been there. Those ‘people’ were no longer people. That was why he didn’t deal with them as people.

She’s a fucking retard like her father and a fucking whore.

He ran a calming hand through his hair, telling himself it wouldn’t be much longer.

That’s why you’re gonna burn, motherfucker.

*

Lake let Vincent lead her downstairs and out of the house after she had promised to keep her eyes shut. You would think it would be hard not to look, but it was rather easy from the deafening silence and the smell of gasoline. Once the chill, summer night air hit her face, she felt like she could breathe again.

Neither one of them said anything or looked at each other until he put her in the backseat of the car, telling her he would be right back.

By the time she began to smell it, the car doors were opened with Amo and Vincent jumping in, the burning smell entering with them. As the car started down the long driveway, she stared into the rearview mirror at the smoke and the flames, which grew with every inch down the road.

Seeing her house of tortures burned to the ground was something that was hard not to look at. She figured burning what took place that night in that house was for the best. At least when she turned on the news, read the front paper, or heard gossip in the city, she would never know how they had done it.

That was why it was easy for her not to look. I don’t ever want to know how they died.





Chapter Fifty-Eight

Touch Me and There Will Be No Running Until I Am Done With You



Lake walked down the hallway behind Vincent. The whole way back home, they hadn’t said a word to each other. Vincent didn’t once come close to touching her or even looking at her. She found herself aching to be touched, aching to be looked at the more and more she stared at him, but she knew she shouldn’t. Not after what he did.

When he opened the door, she followed right behind him then closed it behind her. Vincent walked to the couch, sitting down and placing his hands on his thighs, silently sitting and staring at nothing.

She stood still by the door, watching him take his place. The dark Vincent sitting there like that looked frightening, yet she wasn’t scared of him like she usually was. There was no fear in her anymore when it concerned Vincent. There is no reason to be. He had changed his whole life around for her, taken endless care of her, saved her over and over, and lastly, he had given her chance after chance.

Lake knew she shouldn’t have walked out that door without telling him. If I had, today would have gone a lot different.

Lake walked until she stood by the stairs without moving her eyes off him. When he still didn’t move, she continued to walk into the living room. She stood in front of him then went to her knees so she could face him at eye level. Looking into his eyes, it was as if he looked straight past her, like she wasn’t even there.