One month later
Christian climbed into the backseat of the SUV beside me, the cane clutched tightly in his grip. He handed it over the moment the door closed and Lex pulled away from the driveway. Christian accepted the towel I handed him, wiping his blood-stained hands on it and glaring at the red caked underneath his fingernails. ‘Any survivors?’ I asked, not bothering to take my eyes off the weapon in my hands.
By the time I finished with Origen, he’d be lucky if I hadn’t shoved it so far up his ass it came out his mouth.
‘Everyone who was in the house is taken care of,’ he said. There wasn’t a hint of remorse for killing the men he’d been forced to work alongside in his time watching over Thalia, but he also didn’t dare disobey my orders in the slightest.
I’d known Thalia suffered at her father’s hands, but I’d never known the extent he’d gone to correcting her ‘unsatisfactory’ behavior. The whiteness of her scars made me believe that she’d had them long before I’d planted Christian.
That was the only reason he still breathed, because I couldn’t expect him to protect her from something that had happened before his arrival. That responsibility fell on my shoulders alone.
Having him retrieve the cane had been a risk. If anyone in the Karras Estate had managed to contact someone, my plans would’ve gone out the window quickly. But I couldn’t explain the need for the cane, beyond the need to get Thalia the revenge she so desperately deserved.
And that cane would be a part of it.
‘The church?’ Lex asked from the front.
‘Yes. Is everyone ready and waiting?’ I asked, holding his gaze in the rearview mirror.
‘All are in position,’ Rafael said, turning to look back at me. ‘You ready for this? For her to know who you are?’
‘The next time she comes on my cock, it will be my name on her lips. What do you think?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Rafael chuckled, that deep, twisted laugh that made men quiver in fear.
I had no doubt he was occupied by thoughts of the girl he’d left in Chicago. Watching and waiting for her to be old enough to claim.
We pulled onto the street where the church waited. ‘Has it started?’
‘Just about to get to the ‘I do’s,’ Rafael said, glancing down at his phone and the updates he received regularly from our contact inside. Not all of the five families had been pleased by the turn of events twelve years ago that had led us here.
I nodded as the SUV pulled up directly in front of the church, watching as my men poured out of the vehicles lining the street and emerged from alleys.
By the time we were done, the church would be bathed in the blood of everyone Thalia knew.
And she would be my wife.
