His Queen: Chapter 18

The gunshot cracking through the air sounds fucking beautiful. It’s music to my goddamn ears, soothing the fury that’s infecting me. I take a deep breath, inhaling in the scent of fear. There’s no guilt, only pleasure in the violence. It’s in my blood, and with her gone, there’s nothing to stop it from taking over every ounce of my humanity. In fact, I fucking welcome it.

The lifeless body of a man who got acquainted with a bullet sinks to the ground. Poor bastard got shot simply because I saw his ugly motherfucking face-first. It could have been any of these assholes scrambling throughout the club. But it was—I glance down at the tag on his shirt—Gerhard. Gerhard? What kind of name is Gerhard? That’s probably why fate put him in front of my gun’s barrel first, because of his stupid fucking name.

There’s movement on my left, a glint of steel catching my eyes. I stretch my arms out wide beside me, a gun in each hand, and I close my eyes, squeezing both triggers without hesitation, releasing the bullets of carnage.

“Nicoli!” Alexius yells behind me, and I spot the fucker at the top of the stairs, aiming his gun straight at me. By the time my barrel points in his direction, a gush of blood explodes through his white shirt, and he tumbles over the rail, falling, his head crushed in the center of the dance floor.

I glance over my shoulder, my twin brother’s aim still at the top of the stairs.

I give him a nod to show my appreciation, and he tightens his grip on the weapon in his hands in response.

Caelian and Isaia have two guys on their knees and guns pressed against the backs of their heads.

Caelian looks up at me, his hair in disarray, tiny drops of blood trickling down from his nose, and I’m not sure whether he got hit by a flying bullet or nose smashed into someone’s skull.

A man screams, and I glare in that direction, witnessing Maximo jab his knife in the bastard’s stomach, hacking the blade up toward his lungs, blood gushing everywhere. It’s a fucking bloodbath, but it’s beautiful, my black heart soaking up the chaos. Our other men are scattered throughout, holding fuckers at gunpoint or sending their dead bodies to the ground. This is what happens when you take my Hummingbird from me. A fucking massacre.

I step onto the dance floor, kicking at the dead body as I take the center spot, my heart rushing with adrenaline that feeds the monster prowling in the depths of my soul.

I clear my throat, rage bubbling over. “Where. The fuck. Is she?”

My scream reverberates through the club, ricocheting off the walls. It’s midday. The club is closed but still manned by the fuckers who work for Ferrero, of which there are only a few left breathing.

“I’m going to ask this one more time,” I say, rubbing the muzzle of my gun against my temple. “Where is my goddamn wife?”

Their silence is deafening against the crash of my screams.

“We don’t know,” comes a shaky voice from behind me. Maximo has the bastard pinned face-first onto the floor, his boot planted on the man’s back. “We don’t know where she is.”

I narrow my eyes, stalking closer to him. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Nunzio doesn’t tell us anything. We’re just the guys who take care of his club.”

“You mean the guys who make sure drugs are handed out like candy in this place.”

The fucker doesn’t respond, which means I have no use for him anymore.

I aim.

I squeeze the trigger.

The fucker dies.

Maximo steps away from the lifeless body, his face smeared with blood. A sudden scuffle sounds from behind the bar, glasses falling and shattering.

Maximo sprints in that direction, leaping over the blue-lit bar counter. “Motherfucker, look who we have here.”

He jerks the fucker upright, and I swear the asshole looks familiar.

“It’s the florist,” Maximo says, clearing up the mystery. “He was trying to crawl his way out of here. Coward.” He spits in the asshole’s face before slamming him onto the counter, wiping it clear of all the glasses and ashtrays with the man’s face, bottles of alcohol exploding as they land on the floor.

I’m there in a nanosecond, and I grab him behind the neck, jerking him backward before crashing his face against the mirrored pillar at the end of the bar.

Mirror pieces crack and explode, his blood clinging to the sharp edges. “Where is she?” I growl.

“I don’t kno—”

“Wrong answer.” I hit his motherfucking face against the pillar again, only this time the flesh of his forehead tears as it hooks on the sharp-edged cracked mirror.

He howls in pain. “I don’t kno—”

His head gets smashed again, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth.

“You took her out of that hotel?” I twist the fucker’s hair until his neck is pulled in an awkward, painful angle.

“I don’t know where they took her. Jesus.”

“Jesus can’t help you, motherfucker.”

I crash his head one last time before letting him drop to the ground, my foot burying into his gut so hard he coughs out blood.

“Tell me where she is, and I’ll kill you quickly,” I spit out, crushing his ribs beneath my boot.

“I… I don’t know, man. My job was to lead her to the back. I have no idea where they took her after they pulled her into that van.”

“Where is he planning on having this hunting game of his?”

“What? What hunting game?”

“You telling me you have no idea that your boss hosts these fucked-up primal parties where sickos like him hunt girls like animals?”

“No.” He shakes his head, but I’m not sure if it’s on purpose or if he’s just pissing himself with fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t believe him,” Maximo says.

“Neither do I.”

“Listen. Listen to me,” the fucker pleads. “I don’t know where he took her, but maybe she knows.”

I narrow my eyes. “She who?”

“Your old girl, man. The one who left.”

“Vera?” I frown.

“Yeah. She’s upstairs.” He points to the VIP lounge we all were in the night I sent Felix to his grave. “She’s up there, as high as a fucking kite, man.”

“Which explains why she hasn’t come out crying and screaming yet,” Maximo remarks. “I’ll go get her.”

Alexius steps in next to me, staring at the fucker beneath my boot. “You think we’ll get anything else out of him?”

“I don’t.”

“Then he’s of no use to us anymore.” He straightens his arm and aims his gun, the bastard on the floor crying and begging, his face a fucking horror show with blood, snot, and tears.

I stop Alexius before he gets to pull the trigger. “This fucker is mine.”

“No, please,” he pleads as I grab a bottle of whiskey off the rack, flipping the lid and taking a long swig, swallowing twice before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. It stings, but it doesn’t appease.

I grab a second bottle and hurl both of them, one by one, at the fucker’s already messed-up face. The glass shatters, the alcohol soaking him. He moans, and his bloodied eyes twitch, his head rolling from side to side. “Please.”

“You don’t get to beg. All you get is a one-way ticket to the bowels of hell, motherfucker.” I kick him in the face hard enough that the blow crumbles his cheekbones. “You took my wife from me. You took her. And it’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll let you walk away alive.”

I pull out my Espada, and with a clean, even swoop of my arm, I jab it straight through his cheek. He screams, but the blade lodged in his mouth muffles it.

The knife slides back as I pull it out, leaving a big, gaping hole in the man’s face. The grotesque sight feeds my rage, the way his blood creeps across the floor, seeping through the grout between the tiles.

Just as his eyes start rolling back, his cries dying down, I lean and whisper in his ear, “This is for my Hummingbird,” before slowly, gradually forcing the blade through his eye socket. Little by little, inch by inch, un-fucking-hurried, I slide the knife into his head like a big, giant blob of butter.

He spasms, jerks, life draining from his body. And as he dies, my fury grows.

“Nicoli,” Alexius calls, gesturing toward the stairs, Maximo dragging Vera’s ass down it.

I ease my blade from the bastard’s eye, wiping it clean against my two-thousand-dollar pants.

Even from where I’m standing, I can see she looks like shit. Black mascara stains around her eyes, her lipstick smeared past her lips. I would have felt sorry for her if she didn’t betray us by choosing Nunzio’s empty promises over the life we offered.

Maximo drops her in front of my feet, and she’s on her knees—pathetic and high.

“What did he promise you?” I ask her, not even sure she’s in a state to answer.

She smiles, and it’s fucking creepy with her loopy eyes rolling around in her head. “Freedom.”

I scoff. “Yeah, you look free right now, Vera. Real fucking free.”

“I’m going to be his leading lady,” she continues, enunciating every word rolling from her mouth. “I’m going to run the fucking show.”

I grab her chin and tip her face upward. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but the only thing you’re running is your life straight into the fucking gutter.”

“You think you’re better than me?” she challenges, her expression almost liquid from the drugs in her veins. “You think your new wife is better than me?”

“I never said that, Vera.”

“But you stopped fucking me the moment you put a ring on that bitch’s finger.”

The tip of my knife’s blade is underneath her chin in a split fucking second. “Call her that again, and I’ll end your life,” I warn. “Do you remember where our father dragged your ass out of? You remember the hell you were in, stuck in a cage, sitting in your own piss and shit?”

Her throat bobs as she swallows.

“You were fucking starving, Vera. It took weeks to get you to eat solid foods. You were left to rot in the dark whenever that fat fucker of a prince had enough of you. You remember that?” I sneer. “How it took months of physical therapy to get your back straight from being hunched and cooped in that cage. You could barely straighten your goddamn legs.”

A tear slips down the side of her face.

“My family took care of you. You’ve never suffered another day in your life after we rescued you from that hell. No man has ever touched you without your consent again.” I tilt my head to the side, disappointment swelling in my chest. “And you repay us by bringing this fucker’s merchandise to our club, giving it to the other girls, and killing Yulie in the process.”

Her bottom lip quivers, but her jaw clenches as she tries to bite back her tears. “Yulie was a bitch, acting like the place belonged to her because she was the popular new girl,” Vera spits out with disgust. “She was the new whore on the block, and everyone wanted a piece of her.” She pins her glare on mine. “I’m glad that bitch is dead.”

I apply pressure, gritting my teeth, the blade’s tip nicking her skin. “I should warn you that I have zero mercy left in me. My wife is gone, and I will slit your throat if it means I get one step closer to her.”

Vera’s mouth curls up at the edges. “He took your wife.”

“Do you know where she is?” Hope swirls in my gut. “You better fucking tell me if you know, Vera.”

She scoffs. “Baby, even if I knew where she was, I would never tell you.”

“Don’t say that.” My control is a tight tether, but as much as rage controls me now, I don’t want it to snap—not with her. “Don’t force my hand.”

“I loved you,” she whispered, and her gaze travels to Alexius. “I loved both of you.”

“Tell me,” I demand in a menacing growl.

“But you threw me away like I was yesterday’s trash!” Her eyes turn violently bright. “All because of the whores you call wives!”

I blink fucking once, and Alexius is behind her, pulling her head back, and I watch as he slices her throat with one clean cut. Blood oozes from her neck, gushing down her front and staining her white blouse. There’s complete silence around us, the only sound that of her gargling as she chokes on her own blood—her eyes wide, distorted as death takes her.

Alexius lets go, and she drops to the floor with a thud. His expression is stern but pained, and for a single breath, my rage makes way for a moment of compassion toward my brother because, fuck, that couldn’t have been easy.

“You okay?”

He’s just staring at Vera’s lifeless body, the thick crimson blood gathering around her, then tosses his knife to the ground, steeling his shoulders. “No one calls our girls whores.”