His Pretty Little Burden: Chapter 26

FUCK!

My fist hits the laptop screen. Broken pixels explode in a kaleidoscope of colours around the shattered glass as it flies backwards off the desk, cracking in half, the monitor and the keyboard separating. I flip the desk, sending everything to the ground. Small dots of blood from my fist spray with my jarring movements. I don’t feel pain. Don’t feel anything. Everything is submerged deep in a volcano of fury.

My mind roars.

Drawing my weapon, I point it at the glass panel opposite me and unload round after round after round, releasing all fifteen bullets into the air, needing the noise of exploding glass and gunfire to deafen the rage burning my brain to damn volatile psychosis.

It isn’t enough.

It’ll never be enough. I should have shut the goddamn thing down before I saw it all, before I saw them all take turns while she tried to crawl for safety, but I couldn’t leave her alone in that room with them for a second time and closing the laptop to savour my rage was an act I would never abide.

I hurl the gun through the panel, breaking off the glass stalactites clinging to the top of the silver frame. My muscles twitch, every mass tight, as my heart pumps molten blood through my veins, frying the ends and my compassion along with it.

Creeping across my vision and into my mind, darkness finds a fixed place within me. A sneer curls my lips as I walk from the office to meet the ashen faces of the soon-to-be-dead boys tied to their chairs, I immediately lock eyes with Jake.

The fucker who stole my deer’s virginity.

Who ripped through her and made her bleed.

Standing very still, I watch him and Landon scream, panic, their mouths hollowing and moving, pleading probably, but I can’t hear a thing within the den of violent fury in my mind. The butcher has taken parts of the carcass and left the room. Vinny is still a shadow blanketing the boys.

Bronson slowly straightens from his chair, tense and wary, staring at me like I’m the damn rapture personified. For a moment, my little brother, the one who will slice a man’s face off and have a tea party with my niece all in the space of an hour, appears wary of what I might do.

He deadpans. ‘What did they do to that sweet girl?’

I don’t respond. It wasn’t a question.

Glaring at the boys, useless sacks of shit, a chilling calm greets me, as is the way with processes like this. ‘Is that the only copy?’

Vinny answers. ‘There are two copies, Boss.’

‘I didn’t ask you,’ I say, staring at the boys.

‘Two! Two,’ Landon says straight away.

‘Destroy them both. She never sees them,’ I say to Bronson. ‘Hand me the pliers,’ I demand of Vinny, thinking about how this fucker tied to the chair licked her and groaned around her flavours, how he appreciated her taste before another man could. One who might have deserved her, as doubtful as that premise might be.

Gritting my teeth, I circle the boys slowly as Vinny hands me a pair of saw-like pliers, and Bronson gags Jake for the duration before heading towards the office to destroy the SD cards. They will never breathe life into her rape again.

I stare at Jake. He will get his turn soon enough—after watching, hearing, knowing what is to come. What I’ll be taking from him piece by piece.

The boy’s wide white eyes follow my every move, glued to me like a tether—like prey watching a predator waiting for the moment it lunges for their jugular.

“You’re… you’re not going to kill us?” Landon says, his voice is knotted with breathless hysteria. “That isn’t… that doesn’t really happen here.’

The hooves and calls of cattle passing by the abattoir wall cause him to jerk in place, pursuing the sound. “Have you ever been to an abattoir before?” I ask. “My family owns five across the greater Western Australia region. It was the first business my old Don bought when he came here from Sicily. We like our meat. Sicilians, that is… Do you know who Fawn is?”

“I didn’t know…” Fierce sobs break from Landon’s trembling lips as he shakes his head over and over. “We didn’t know.”

“She is the daughter of a boss in the District, Cosa Nostra.” I stop circling him. Stop behind him. “You raped the daughter of a very dangerous man.”

He yelps as I squat behind him, flinching away from me, even though I’ve barely breathed on him. When I cut the cable ties at his wrists, he freezes. Whimpers. Doesn’t even try to escape. Pity. I would’ve loved hunting him down like the animal he is.

Making my way over to a chair, I pull the light metal seat to him until our closeness is intimate. I sit down, my knees a meagre inch from his, his stench seeping from his slick skin like waves of tangible adrenaline and endorphins.

His hands are no longer fastened behind his back, but he hasn’t moved them.

I stare impassively into his petrified brown irises. Then glance over at Jake, panting around his gag. “I’m going to tell you a secret, boys. Fawn’s father betrayed me. My father. My family. When I find him, I’m going to order his execution. As is my right, and mine only.” I tsk. “But he is still a made-man, and in my world, that stands for something.” I set the pliers down on my knee so I can retrieve the cigar tin from inside my jacket pocket. When I light the cigar, drawing in the silken smoke, his alarmed gaze drops to my knee. To the sharp pliers. “It has to stand for something,” I say around the sweet clouds.

“More than that though,” I continue. “You touched my property. You did not have permission. And you made her cry, bleed, and put a baby in her young womb.”

‘It’s not mine!’ Landon cries. ‘I’m not. I can’t be.’

I still. My eyes flick to Jake, basking in his terror, before going back to Landon. ‘And how would you know that?’

‘I couldn’t finish. Not with them watching. I didn’t want them to know—I didn’t want them to know, so I just pretended to come.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Oh. God. Don’t kill me!’

‘God is on my side, boy. And you have tasted her, felt her inside, and that is damn unacceptable.” I look at his eyes—misted in shock, glued to the tool on my knee. “Take the pliers.” His gaze darts around the empty processing room, landing on Jake, then Vinny, and finally Bronson. Bronson grins, a dimple poking into the side of his menacing smile. I soften my eyes on the boy, the intent inside orderly, disturbing, punishment. ‘Take the pliers, Landon.”

As he swallows, his throat rolling, he brings his shoulders forward, wincing through the atrophy. The bowed limbs, tight and sluggish, would ache. The sliced flesh at his wrists would sting.

With a shaky hand, red raw from fighting against the plastic tie, he takes the pliers from my knee. Drawing them quickly to him, he clutches them like a crucifix to his chest.

His savour.

Not likely.

I lean back in my chair, sucking on the cigar. “Now use the pliers.” With each syllable, his panting becomes harsher, his lax form shaking under the extreme panic thrashing through his body. “Take your cock out.” Guttural whimpers vibrate up his throat. “Remove it.” His head drops forward, tears streaming down his face, filling his mouth. “And I might let you live.”

While he sobs hysterically into his lap, Vinny rounds him, appearing over his shoulder. Reaching around his throat, he applies the sharp edge of a knife to his sweat misted flesh. Light runs along the clean metallic surface as Vinny presses the silver blade to Landon’s rolling throat.

The boy freezes in horror. Slowly, he lifts his chin to recoil from the invasion. “No. No. No. No,” he pleads while the knife lightly grates his throat over the vibrations his words cause. “Wait. No. I’ll do it.” He fumbles with his zipper, not looking down—no, he is locked on my eyes as I blow another heavy white cloud, hazing the air surrounding us. The knife drags an inch across his throat. Crimson blankets in rivulets from the warning incision. “No!” He grabs hold of his cock, howls in agony, preparing to do it, but his fist shakes violently around the pliers. He doesn’t move.

He closes his eyes, sobbing, defeated.

‘Are you sorry for what you have done?’ I ask. ‘Are you sorry for hurting her? You won’t be raping anyone again, will you? Tell me you’re sorry, my boy. Tell me how sorry you are.’

‘God,’ he bellows, opening his eyes—red, raw saucers in a bloodless face. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll never even look at a girl again. I’ll never—’

I throw my cigar to the ground. ‘Good boy.’ I smile, and nod at his fatty flaccid shaft. ‘Now show me how sorry you are. Prove you’ll never do it again. Show me you deserve this, and it’ll all be okay,’ I say smoothly. His eyes become vacant, lost in the trauma. ‘It’s okay. You can do this, my boy. If you do it fast it won’t hurt as much. We’ll fix you up and send you on your way and you’ll get through this.’

I watch.

Vinny waits.

One snip.

Landon drops the pliers and gargles on his pain. I reach down and retrieve them, grab a hold of his cock, and snip into it. Clipping the final fleshly thread, I watch the fatty column slaps the floor. Landon passes out. I nod at Vinny, absent of even a slip of remorse. Vinny drags the knife along Landon’s throat. Blood sprays through the webbing of veins as his carotid arteries are severed.

Then there is quiet.

I glance over at young Jake—his head rolls with nausea—and then back at Landon—his neck flaps open. But all I can see is a little deer, terrified and confused, as she stares at blood and cum dripping down between her pretty white thighs.

‘So, Jake,’ I say, turning to smile at him. ‘Are you sorry for what you have done?’