I press my nose against Lucia’s hair and inhale her sweet scent until it grounds me. Tuning out the sound of Ed’s sniveling in the background, I listen to her ragged breathing instead. I feel the anger in her and I wish that I could let her smash his face to pieces right now, but I need some more answers first. And there are things I need to say to him that I’d rather she didn’t hear.
“Why don’t you step outside for a few minutes, Luce?” I suggest. “Get some fresh air.”
She looks up, her face pale as she blinks at me. “Okay,” she whispers.
“Good girl,” I kiss the top of her head and watch as she walks out of the door, leaving Ed and I alone.
I give him all of my attention now. “If you want this to be over, I’m gonna need answers and fast, Ed. No more fucking about. What did you do with the videos?”
“I sent them to Foster.”
“How?”
“E-m-mail.”
“And the originals?”
“On my cell phone. In an encrypted cloud folder.”
I pick up his cell phone. “Password?”
“One – one — zero – three – nine – six.”
I type the numbers in and unlock his phone. “And the encrypted folder?”
“It’s the picture of the cat,” he says. “It’s supposed to look inconspicuous.”
I tap on the screen and it asks for a thumbprint. “Gonna need that print, Ed.”
He nods his head, no doubt expecting me to lift the phone to his thumb. Instead, I take my knife from the table, reach up and slice off his thumb before he even knows what’s happening. A second later he’s shrieking in agony again.
“You are the noisiest fucker I’ve ever had the pleasure of torturing. You know that?” I say as I press his thumb onto the phone and the folder opens. There are a number of videos in there.
“Who are in the rest of these?” I ask.
“Me and Shannon,” he sobs.
“She know you took em?”
“No,” he shakes his head.
“You really are a disgusting pile of dog-shit, Ed.”
I put the phone and his bleeding thumb onto the workbench.
“Are there any other copies of those videos of my wife?”
“No. I swear,” he whimpers, blinking as blood from his hand pours down onto his face.
Now that I have what I need, I can finally let some of this rage inside me out. I grab hold of his hair and pull hard, twisting his head so I can look into his eyes. “Did you enjoy watching me fuck my wife, Ed? Did you enjoy watching her come?”
“No,” he wails.
I jerk his head back. “Why not? She’s fucking beautiful. Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
“No, y-yes,” he snivels, unsure of the correct answer, because there isn’t one.
“So you did enjoy watching her?” I punch him in balls and he vomits on himself.
“Did you like seeing her getting her pussy eaten out, Ed? Did you wish it was you?” I punch him in the stomach now and the force sends him flying so that he loses his footing and spins on the hook. “Did you jerk off while you watched her?” I spin him back around until he’s facing me.
“N-no,” he whispers, his eyes pleading with me now that he knows his crying has no affect.
“You saw my wife coming, Ed,” I snarl. I grab hold of his head, pressing my thumbs into the corners of his eyes and pushing inside.
“Argh!” he screams again as the pressure pushes his eyeballs from their sockets. But I’m not done. I want his eyeballs rolling on the fucking floor.
I dig harder, pushing and pulling until his eyes are in my hands instead of in his head.
Ed’s face drops forward. His body trembles and shudders as he goes into shock from having his eyes gouged out. My blood pounds in my ears and my heart still races but damn that felt good. Between Ed’s busted nose and missing eyes, his face is a mess of blood and tissue. I could finish this right now, but I still need to let my girl have her chance to work out some of the shame and anger he’s caused her.
I’m about to walk outside and get her when she walks back through the door. “I heard screaming. Did you get what you needed?”
“Yeah, baby,” I say, letting Ed’s eyeballs drop to the floor.
The soft thud makes her look down and she watches them roll a few feet before she looks back up at me.
“He looked at you,” I offer in explanation for what I’ve done. But seems she didn’t need any. She crosses the floor and wraps her arms around my neck. “I love you,” she whispers.
“Love you too, angel.”
We stay like that for a few seconds before the sound of Ed jerking his arms in his chains distracts us. He’s making a last ditch attempt to free himself. Like he’d get anywhere with no eyes and Lucia and me right here. But it’s human nature to rail against death, even when it’s inevitable.
I reach down and pick up the shears. “You want to?”
She blinks at me. “He looks kind of pathetic hanging there like that.”
“So end his suffering then, baby.”
She nods her head and takes the shears, stepping close to him and swinging the shears like a baseball bat. “This is for helping your friend blackmail my father,” she snarls as she hits him in the chest. “This is for filming us.” He takes a blow to the dick with the metal blade that is so hard it splits him open. He screams and shakes as his dick hangs by a thick thread of sinew and skin.
I wince instinctively.
“This is for trying to come between Jax and me.” She hits him on the kneecap, shattering the bone.
She sucks in a breath. Tears are running down her face, but she needed to let all of this out. “And this is for Bethany Cooper and that sweet little dog.”
The final blow is to his head. It splits it wide open and cracks his skull. Ed falls silent. His body twitches and spasms a few times and then he’s still. The chain creaking above his head is the only sound that can he heard.
Lucia drops the shears to the floor with a loud clatter. She lifts her hand to her face and then she stars to sob. Deep, soul cleansing sobs. I pick her up and carry her to my work bench, sitting her on top of it and wrapping her legs around my waist as I pull her close.
“It’s okay, baby,” I whisper.
She buries her face in my neck and I stroke her hair as her hot tears fall onto my skin.
