Chapter 29

How is this possible?

How the ever-loving fuck is this possible?

Those thoughts play on repeat in my head as the guard once more checks the magic-dampening handcuffs securing me to the table. Pathetic. As if something as insignificant as metal cuffs could restrain me if I really wanted to escape.

I don’t. At least, not without my angel by my side.

But how the fuck could this happen?

I have no doubt that new fuck, Logan, is somehow involved. I’d gut him if I wasn’t…

If I wasn’t over the moon with fucking happiness. The feeling is foreign to me, invasive almost, and I have the irresistible urge to scratch at my skin where an itch has taken up residence. Of course I fucking can’t, considering the fact I’m chained like a common prisoner, but the need is there. Driving me. Pushing me.

Just like the need I have to claim Angel.

My mate.

Just the thought of her conjures up a memory from a few weeks earlier, before the dead pool and hit list. Before I discovered the truth about her.

She’s sitting in the porcelain tub in the bathroom, her perky breasts on display, even with the water rippling around her. I used almost every favor I’m owed to procure this bathtub for Nina, and even then, I had to carry the water from the shower to the bath by hand, unbeknownst to my beloved.

Still, it’s worth it to see that smile on her face, the one capable of making angels weep and demons renounce hell.

The water sloshes over the basin of the tub as she turns her blind gaze to me. My breath catches at her expression, a heady combination of lust and wanton need. Love. Affection. All of the things she shouldn’t be feeling for a man as sick and depraved as me.

“Don’t look at me like that, Angel,” I say huskily, my eyes scouring every bare inch of her perfect body. When she shifts in the tub, the peaked points of her nipples brush the rim, and I have the irresistible urge to take one after the other in my mouth and suck on them until she screams for me. There’s no sound more beautiful than my name leaving her plush lips.

“And why can’t I look at you, my beloved?” she asks with a breathless giggle, her cheeks taking on a rosy quality. I’m not sure if it’s from the heat of the water or her own arousal. If I touch her right now, would her pussy be slick with need? Would her nipples pebble beneath my hands as she gasps out my name? “You’re my fiancé, are you not?” She still says that word with a giddy sort of wonderment, as if she can’t truly believe that she’s engaged to all of us. Honestly, I can’t believe it either.

The knowledge that fate put this tiny slip of a girl in my path to love and cherish me…

To be my wife…

It’s almost too much.

“Because…” For a brief, brief moment, I allow all of the self-loathing I feel to enter my voice, making my words nearly unintelligible with bitterness. “You trust and love me, but I’m the true monster of this prison, Angel. That’ll never change.”

And someone like me will only tarnish someone as pure and as innocent as you. As perfect as you.

That thought plagues me constantly, along with the feeling that I’ll never be good enough. That I’ll never deserve her. That I’ll break her, just as I break everything I ever touch. It’s quite unnerving, having gone from never experiencing any emotion to feeling that strong one daily.

“Tell me this…” She moves closer to me until she’s practically leaning over the edge of the tub. Her black hair hangs in wet, enticing streaks down her porcelain skin, obscuring her rosy nipples from view. Her next words stop me short, pulling my gaze away from where I’ve been ogling her breasts. “Would you hurt me?” I blink at her wordlessly, but she continues. “Would you ever hurt me, Dam?”

I know my eyes flare with a fierce, possessive fire as I shake my head vehemently. “Never.” And again, louder, hoping to drill this point home, “Never, Angel. You’re the one person in this entire godforsaken world that I’ll never hurt.”

But I’m breaking that promise to her. Every damn day I keep my secret, every fucking day I keep her secret, I’m hurting her. She may not realize it yet, but she will the second I tell her the truth.

Fuck, I’m going to have to tell her and the others, and soon, before they bite my fucking head off. Before I lose the precarious trust she placed in me forever.

But for now, I’ll do what I always do—protect my family from anyone who seeks to do them harm. Just thinking about the attack on Nina and Bronson a few days earlier causes my heart to palpitate, and I know I need to dig out and destroy the root of the problem first and foremost.

As if my thoughts summoned him, the door to the visitation room opens, and Narian himself strolls in, cocky as can be. He’s gotten older since I’ve been locked up, though he’s always been up there in years. His hair is thinner, a few strands just barely covering the bald spot on the top of his head, and his face is lined with wrinkles. Still, he’s as toned as I remember him being, all muscle and bulk, and his eyes glimmer with malicious mirth.

“Damien, my boy! I was surprised to get your call.” He speaks jovially, spreading his arms out on either side of him as if he wishes to hug me. As if we’re best friends instead of cold-blooded assassins. As if he hadn’t destroyed my childhood for his own sick pleasures and depravities.

I don’t answer, simply watching him with narrowed eyes.

Unperturbed, he moves to sit in the chair across from me and folds his arms over his chest. Unlike when I was younger, his eyes don’t roam over my body as if he’s mentally undressing me. I no longer fit his tastes.

Sick, disgusting, perverted asshole.

“I heard that another one of my children have joined you,” he continues on, merriment evident in his sparkling eyes. “Logan. How is he?” For the first time, I detect a hint of lust in his gaze, and his tongue snakes out to lick his upper lip. I don’t even like the cupid, but I feel livid on his behalf.

If I love Nina with every ounce of darkness within me, I hate Narian just as much.

“And I heard that you’re still seeing that one girl…” He trails off, tilting his head to the side curiously. Reading me. Gauging my reaction. And fuck, if there’s one thing he could possibly do to get a rise out of me, it’s mentioning Nina’s name. I don’t want her anywhere near this sick fuck, even if it’s just her name leaving his mouth.

But I’ve been trained by the best, by the asshole himself, so I simply give him an indolent look, like he’s not even worth my fucking time.

My nonchalance works. If there’s one thing Narian hates most in the world, it’s not getting the reaction he so desperately desires. He wants me to beg him, plead with him, get on my fucking knees if I were able.

“How’s the little bitch doing?” Narian’s lips twist cruelly. “Is her pussy still keeping you occupied? Rumor has it that it’s made from solid gold. Is that true?”

Again, I give him no response. Not even a fucking eye twitch.

I’m that good…especially considering the fact I want to break free of these magic-dampening cuffs and rip him apart, piece by piece. Maybe I’ll skin him first, just to hear his screams. Maybe I’ll bathe in his blood like the sadistic fuck he molded me into.

Either way, this man is going to die by my hand.

“I hope you don’t mind if I test out her pussy,” Narian continues, flashing me a dark smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s still too pissed at me for not reacting the way he wanted me to. “Push her down on a bed. Spread those creamy thighs… Yum. I’m getting hard just thinking about it. Is it weird staring into her eyes when you fuck her? I mean, those are pretty fucking ugly eyes. I probably wouldn’t want to look at them.”

I turn towards the camera in the far corner of the room, where I’m sure some sweaty pig is watching this entire interaction, utterly unaware that he has two of the most deranged killers in one room, and lift a hand, signaling I’m ready to leave.

And Narian fucking snaps.

“It’ll be a good thing when that girl is dead,” he bites out, his body trembling with rage. “She’s making you soft, my son. Weak. She’s a disgrace. You should’ve just killed her yourself and got it over with. Fuck,” he laughs harshly, the noise instantly grating on my nerves, “maybe that’s your plan. Maybe you wish to collect the money from Lionel, is that it? Are you using the dumb, blind bitch for the money?”

I keep my face impassive, blank, but my mind is spinning.

Lionel.

The fucking dickhead Lionel Green was the one who put out the hit on Nina.

Fuck!

He can claim all he wants that it’s because she was behind the deaths of two of his fellow councilmembers—though technically, Nina only killed Alyssa—but I know the truth.

Lionel is practically obsessed with the twins. He’ll kill for them. Hell, he’ll even kill them if he can’t have them. I know from my sources that he was one of the patrons who purchased them the most when they were prisoners of Boris at the depraved sex club.

And now, he’s going after our girl.

My girl.

And our?—

That train of thought shuts down fast.

I can’t wait to stick my hand in Lionel’s chest, pull out his heart, and then use his internal organs as a noose. It’s completely possible. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again for my angel. Maybe I’ll blood eagle this disgusting fucker. The possibilities are limitless when you have an imagination like mine. An imagination that’s full of blood and guts, shadows and monsters, knives and guns.

Or maybe…

Maybe I’ll ask the twins what they want to do with their tormentor.

One thing is certain.

Lionel fucking Green is going to die soon.

But not before Narian does.

Now that I have the information I need, I finally turn to face Narian completely, the man still ranting and raving away without a care in the world. A slow, malevolent smile curls up my lips, and his words falter for just a moment. He knows that smile—it’s the one I always wear when I’m playing death.

That hesitation is all I need. Before he can scream, before he can even get off of his chair, I spit at him.

And the poisonous dart I’ve tucked under my tongue hits him square in the neck.

I have the pleasure of watching his eyes widen in horror as his gaze flickers from me to the dart sticking out of his skin and then back to me. The fucker doesn’t even have enough strength to rip the damn thing out.

His entire body convulses as the poison works its magic, and he falls off the chair, his head careening against the side of the table and leaving behind a bloody imprint. White foam erupts from his mouth as he shakes and shakes and shakes, his skin turning an ashen color and his eyes and ears leaking blood.

I watch it all with the same detachment I do everything. It doesn’t matter to me that this is the guy who, for lack of better term, raised me. Taught me everything I know. He’s nothing but my enemy, using his assassins to go after me and my loved ones.

No more.

The guards run inside, and I feel a jolt of electricity course through my body as I’m tasered. But fuck, a little dose of electricity is worth it to see the life finally bleed out of Narian’s eyes. I don’t know how many times I imagined this exact moment. A hundred? A thousand? A million? An odd thrill shoots up my spine as a slow, languid grin curls up my lips.

As more and more guards crowd the room, screaming and yelling into their walkie talkies, I hang on to a sliver of consciousness, refusing to let the darkness claim me.

I’m tased again by one of those asshole guards. And again. And again.

My last coherent thought is, I need to tell Nina the truth,before shadows consume my vision.