Chapter 78

* Lyon *

I watched in something approaching horror at the scene that played out before my eyes. I could be watching a movie; it was so surreal. Lions eating people isn’t something you see every day outside of a TV screen. When they were done, they just stopped as if being controlled and laid on the deck.

It was only then that I noticed the collars around their necks that were now blinking red. Someone was obviously controlling something. A figure covered in black from head to toe appeared and steered the boat further out to sea, and then the screen went dark.

“See, Uncle Hank, I told you, it’s like playing chess.” Her voice came through the speakers reminding me that she was there. I’ve been playing chess for years, and not once did I ever see anything like that.

“Lucretia Borgia, where did you get maneaters from?”

“I never poisoned any… um. I had help….”

“Hold it, who did you poison?”

“I never said I did.” It’s getting harder to navigate around her without crushing her spirit or curtailing her in any way, but the frigging girl is a bigger pain in the ass than her mother.

“Fine, we’ll get back to that. Right now, I need an explanation for what I just saw. How did you do all that? Who helped you?” And how dafuq did you come up with the idea? Not that I was going to ask her that last question because I’m not sure I want to know.

“Oh, well, they were expecting a night of debauchery.”

“Mengele, how do you know what that word means?”

“Really?”

“Shut up, Mancini; not talking to you.” My eye started to twitch as she went into her explanation of the word, and I held up my hand to stop her because I was pretty sure, even though we were on audio, that she could see me.

I was proven right when she stopped talking midsentence. “Forget it; just tell me about tonight.”

“It’s like I said. They were expecting a party. They usually meet on the yacht when they have new victims. One of their games is to hold kids in cages and hunt them on the boat for fun. This time instead of the new shipment of kids they were expecting, well….”

“Mengele, how do you know what they do on that boat?”

“I read it on their computers and phones. Duh.” Is it even worth it at this point to argue this shit with her? She’s too young; at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself ever since I recognized what she was. I’m holding on by the skin of my teeth to keep her young and ignorant of the darker things in life, but assholes like Mancini keep muddying the waters.

She’s not their kid, so what the fuck do they care that she’s got the mind of a serial killer? Her matter-of-fact tone gave me at least a little bit of hope that she hadn’t lost all her innocence, but it was still a hard pill to swallow that my little girl would never be free of the kind of mind that makes her get involved in shit that was way beyond her years.

“Who made the delivery? And where the hell did you get a naval airplane?”

“Oh, Aunty Roxy asked Uncle Mike to find one.”

“And the lions, where did they come from?”

“Uh, ask Uncle Gabriel. I just told him what I wanted, but he didn’t say where he got them.”

“Who came up with the idea?”

“We all did.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Lily, Nia, and I. We thought it would be fun to use their own game against them. Did you see Daddy? How excited were they? They were all dressed up too. I guess it’s as good for a funeral as a party.”

“Mengele. Didn’t you say we shouldn’t end anyone?” Maybe she meant I should stop so she could take over because her body count is about to surpass mine, it looks like.

“I didn’t end anything, Daddy; I wasn’t even there.” I glared at Mancini, who snickered at her response and wondered where I went wrong.

“Where the hell is your mother?”

“Daddy, do you know what time it is here? She’s asleep.”

“And why aren’t you?”

“I’ve got stuff. We can’t spend all of our time on this; there’re other things that need doing, like New York.”

“I told you I’ll take care of it when I get back.” Wait a minute, am I working for her now? This is all Mancini’s doing. “You still haven’t told me who was on the plane.” The person was too little to be one of the guys, and I was almost afraid to guess who it could be.

There was a sudden outburst of static coming over the line, and she claimed we were breaking up. I guess she forgot that neither she nor I were on a boat in the middle of the ocean. “Mengele.”

“Gotta go, Daddy, we’re breaking up.” And then she was gone.

“What dafuq is going on, Mancini? And don’t give me no shit.”

“I’m in the dark as much as you are. I just told them to give her what she needed; the rest is all her and the littles.” That twitch in my eye was working overtime.

“What else is she up to?”

“As I said, I don’t know. But I trust her.”

“You trust her. She just fed a bunch of people to man-eating lions. She’s fucking ten years old; what’s she going to do when she’s fifteen? And who dafuq did she poison? If you shrug at me one more time, Mancini swears to fuck. I’ll end you. And get that smirk off your face. Don’t forget you’ve got a kid too. I’ll remember to return the favor.”

“I can’t wait.” This fuck!

***

* Mary *

I paced around my kitchen, biting my manicured nails down to the quick and feeling trapped again. I never prepared for this eventuality, never imagined that things would come to this. As if taking all my money was not enough, this MengeLiNi person was now going after my only source of income.

I’d been watching the train wreck that was Janie and Ryder’s life unfold on the internet for the last hour or so and wishing and hoping that my family’s name didn’t come into the conversation, but it was even worse. Somehow, the things that Twit had said in front of the cameras came up, and it all went downhill from there.

Somehow, they’d learned that the church was just a front for my other endeavors, something no one else should’ve known since I’d gone to great lengths to hide the fact. There was nothing written anywhere that would lead anyone to that reality, and yet, who I thought was a little girl, had found it out.

My kids, whom I’d tried my best to shield for my own purposes, were exposed—the lives they led at my behest, the truth about where their money really came from, all of it. I’d had to turn off my phone when the kids and my business associates started calling because my head wasn’t in the right space to deal with them right now.

The girls were already losing followers online, and their businesses were taking a hit. I expected things to be much worse by morning, and this MengeLiNi person was still going. All my years of subterfuge, the backdoor deals I’d made to get my family into the spotlight, were all being revealed, and the public was eating it up.

I was expecting to hear a knock on the door any minute and to be taken out in cuffs. My phone buzzed in my hand, scaring me half to death. I could’ve sworn I turned the thing off half an hour ago. I opened the message and wasn’t sure what I was looking at for the first few seconds.

It was a video of some sort, on a boat, it looked like. “Wait a minute, isn’t that…. I recognized some of the faces as they came into view. “What is this?” The video went fuzzy before it cleared up again, and I was greeted by a scene of horror.

My mouth opened in a silent scream as I watched the first lion rip the throat out of one of my clients with its teeth. My body went cold, and I had to use the bathroom in the worst way, but I couldn’t move.

What’s going on? I couldn’t think above the screams that came through the screen. Then I started to question why this was sent to me. It was an obvious threat, wasn’t it? The people I’d just watched being eaten alive were all people I dealt with.

They were all there, well, most of them anyway. The men and women I’ve been procuring kids for to feed their proclivities over the years. It was all over, but how? Who? I was more afraid than ever before, especially when it hit home that the video was sent as some kind of warning.

I was alone in the house after sending everyone else away, and for that reason, I couldn’t stay here. I ran upstairs and grabbed the emergency bag from the closet. It was best to be gone before the reporters showed up to stake out the place or whoever this was to show up here, and I met a fate worse than the one I just witnessed.

I barely got the key in the door to lock it from the outside when I heard a strange noise in the air. It sounded like something in the wind, and then there was pain, so much pain….

***

* Scott *

I sat in the dark, staring out at the waves and wondering where I’d taken a wrong turn and why I hadn’t turned back before it came to this. Was it back in college when I decided that being rich was more important than anything else? That I was willing to go to any lengths to get the things I wanted?

I didn’t grow up poor, far from it, but it was never enough. I wanted more. Was it my fault that I was so driven? Of course, I didn’t start out wanting a life of crime; I had a lot of ideals back then. But it had been so easy to slip into the shadier side of things, and besides, it paid better.

I always knew I wanted to do something with music, though I was never musically inclined. I knew that the entertainment industry was the way to go though, but little did I know that it would set me on the path that would lead me here. I’d envisioned nights spent having lavish and elaborate parties the way they were portrayed in old black-and-white movies.

I wanted to be here more than anything because when it came to entertainment, Hollywood was the obvious hub. But where had it started? Was it the first backhanded deal I’d made that had robbed my client of millions? Maybe.

It had been so easy and had gone unnoticed, so the next one had been even easier to pull off. I should’ve stopped there. Talking young fools out of their money had been like taking candy from a toddler. All they wanted was the fame, and the few dollars I sent their way had always been more than enough to keep them from realizing that they were worth even more.

Life was good. I was a millionaire before I knew it and on the fast track to the life of luxury and excess, I’d always dreamed of. But all it had taken was one wrong step at one of those elaborate parties, and my life was no longer my own.

I should’ve pulled out then, taken the hit to my image. I’m sure I’m not the first or the last person in my position to like my bedmates a bit younger. The way things are now, no one would even bat an eye at something like that.

But back then, it could’ve meant the end of everything that I had worked for. So, when Mary pitched her business idea to me after threatening to expose the truth, I’d gone along grudgingly. I should’ve known when her underage daughter came onto me all those years ago that it was a setup, but the lure was too powerful to refuse. And to think, I wouldn’t touch any one of them now with a ten-foot pole.

I’d balked at the idea back then, even though I was backed into a corner. Trafficking human flesh was a far cry from the drugs I’d been dealing in to keep my clients on the hook over the years. But then it had become like a drug. The money, the connections to some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.

I had the world at my fingertips; I was untouchable. The people who backed me were like a shield, and I had the added benefit of knowing things about them that they would never want the world to know. It was a friendship forged in the dark that had paid off very well.

But now it was all coming to an end, and all because of one stupid girl. I’ll never know, I guess, why Mary had such a hard-on for that Elena bitch. So what she’d turned her down, so what she’d been one of the only ones to escape the life Mary had planned for her?

She’d procured others for the sheik over the years, and he’d all but forgotten his fascination with Elena. But Mary could never let it go. I had no idea, though, that her obsession would bring us all to ruin. I went along with her idea of marrying off Ryder to that idiot because she was easier to control, and we needed him. He still had a few good years left in him, after all, and the money would’ve kept rolling in.

The drugs could only do so much, though, to keep him under my control, and his suicidal attempts over the years were becoming a problem. Elena was the only person who had been able to bring him back from the brink. She’d cleaned him up before the world even knew that he had a problem way back when and for years, the two of them had been the perfect teen couple.

Everyone loved and adored how wholesome they were, and his fame only garnered me more money in more ways than one. But then he started talking crazy. They wanted to take a break, to go off and have a normal life with kids and the picket fence, the whole nine yards. That would’ve caused me millions. I couldn’t have that, so it didn’t matter the reason for Mary wanting to split them up; I was on board by then as well.

Matt had come up with the idea. His association with that fourth-rate actor had alerted him to the fact that the man’s daughter had a sick obsession with Ryder, and from there, it was easy to get the two of them together. I’d orchestrated most of that with Mary’s help until the end result, which led us to now.

I took a deep swallow of my scotch and looked at the glass, wondering why I felt more intoxicated than I should. No sooner had I had the thought than my hand went numb, and my head rolled back on my neck listlessly. It became hard to breathe, and I knew that I was dying. I could feel it in the sudden heaviness of my limbs and the pressure on my chest, as if something heavy was there.

The glass shattering on the marble floor was the last sound I heard before I drew my last breath.