“What took you so long?” Silas asks, annoyed. I frown, surprised to find both Xavier and Silas waiting for me inside the warehouse.
“What?” Xavier says. “You worked us both to the bone only to leave us out of the resolution? Absolutely not. This is about to be the highlight of my day.”
Silas hums in agreement as he leads me into the open space, a thrill running down my spine when I notice Hannah tied against a chair in the corner. She looks like a filthy fucking mess, her long hair matted and her makeup smudged.
“I see you didn’t bother gagging her,” I murmur.
Xavier shrugs. “There’s no one here to hear her scream. It seemed fun to let her wear herself out needlessly.”
I shake my head in fake admonishment, when truthfully, I’d have done the same thing. Hannah looks up sharply when I grab an empty chair and slowly drag it toward her, the sound echoing off the walls eerily in the large empty warehouse.
I smirk as I read the emotions flashing through her eyes — fear first, then recognition, and finally confusion. Yeah, no one ever sees it coming. They all think Sierra is the craziest Windsor sibling, while Zane is the most dangerous. Everyone always fails to realize that I’m a perfect blend of both. My sweet fiancée has no idea how right she was when she told me she suspects I’m insane.
“Hello, Hannah,” I tell her, my tone polite as I place my chair right opposite hers. I sit down, and Xavier and Silas stand behind me. “I do apologize for the delay in getting to you.” I glance at my watch, as though I’m mere minutes late for a meeting. “I kept you waiting for six days. How very rude of me.”
She just stares at me, as though she’s trying to get a read on the situation. I could tell, for a moment, she genuinely thought I’d come to save her. Silly girl.
I hold my hand out, and Silas hands me my favorite scalpel. Hannah flinches then, genuine fear flashing through her eyes. She whimpers, and I smile.
“Do you want to guess why you’re here?” I ask, my tone pleasant as I place the scalpel at the tip of my finger and spin it around. I stare at it for a moment, keeping it perfectly balanced. A slight tremor would result in deep cuts, and for a single moment, I’m tempted to loosen my iron control just so I can find out if it’ll hurt.
“Dion,” Hannah says, her tone careful, as though she’s speaking to an uncaged predator. “Please, I haven’t hurt anyone, you know I haven’t. I just… I just…”
I tear my gaze away from the metal spinning atop my finger and sigh. “You just… knowingly took what wasn’t yours and continued to inflict emotional wounds on the one person that least deserved it. For years, you watched your own sister suffer while you manipulated my brother, taking advantage of his morals and his love for our family. Even once Raven married Ares because you refused to walk down that aisle, you continued to mess with them. Did you really think you wouldn’t pay for it?”
Her eyes fill with tears, and I sigh. How irritating. I frown, suddenly realizing that I’ve never cared for tears, yet seeing tears in Faye’s eyes nearly destroyed me. Interesting.
“Ares gave me the Windsor Kiss of Death,” she tells me, her eyes flashing with anger. “I paid for what I did. He destroyed my acting career — and not just that. I can’t work in the industry at all anymore. Within a matter of months, I’ve become a nobody. He took the one thing I cared about most. Isn’t that enough?”
I grab the scalpel and hold it tightly in an effort to rein in my anger. “Considering we caught you at a luxury private resort, I’m going to say no. It’s not enough, Hannah. You can’t just mess with my family and expect to get away with it. I won’t stop until I see you looking the way Raven did each time she saw her designs burned in the streets, each time someone called her a home wrecker when all she ever did was the right thing. I want you to look like your heart is being torn out of your chest while it’s still beating, and you’re trying your hardest to breathe through it.”
I lean forward and rest the tip of the scalpel against her cheek. She freezes, and I grin as a bead of blood gathers at the tip of the blade. “You have no idea how tempted I am to carve up that pretty face of yours so Raven will never have to see you again,” I murmur. “Ares may have ended your career, but that isn’t good enough for me. Here’s the thing, Hannah. Ares has values and morals that I don’t share. He’s righteous and works within a framework that can be considered socially acceptable. I don’t. I’ll do what my siblings can’t or won’t, and I’ll do it without an ounce of shame or regret.”
“Y-you won’t get away with this,” she says, trembling. Her eyes flit through the room, as though she’s looking for an escape that she knows she won’t find.
“No one is coming for you,” I murmur. “That producer that was funding your lavish lifestyle? The one you’d been seeing for years behind Ares’s back?” Her eyes widen in disbelief, and I chuckle. “Yeah, he sends his regards.”
“W-what?” she stammers.
I tilt my head and look her over. “You still don’t fully realize what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you? You don’t realize that it wasn’t just Ares and Raven you wronged. It was all of us. You fuck with one of us, you’ll feel all our wrath. Ares you survived, but the combination of the rest of us will make you wish you hadn’t.”
I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “Did you know your little producer really wanted to be a father? Imagine his surprise when I showed him your medical records.” I tut mockingly as her eyes widen. “Aborting a baby he wanted so desperately… Even I would’ve let you live out the rest of your life in peace merely for the sake of your unborn child. I guess that’s why Ares went so easy on you, because the child you carried would’ve still been Raven’s niece or nephew.”
I sigh as I spin the scalpel around again, my mind whirling. “I couldn’t risk your little lover changing his mind about you, though. I had to immobilize him. He had no real power, no connections to protect him, just piles of money that he threw around to craft the illusion of influence. All it took was one call to my sister-in-law, Valentina. You remember her, don’t you?”
She looks away in defeat, and I smirk. Breaking her spirit is half the fun. “COO of Windsor Finance and The Windsor Bank? She didn’t even ask any questions — she just got it done. Three days, and he’d tragically become bankrupt because he’d invested in all the wrong companies against her advice. Turns out he’d allegedly heard rumors from his friends about an exciting new investment. Funny, that. I wonder where all of those rumors came from.”
I glance at Silas and Xavier. “What shall we do with her?” I murmur, offering Silas my scalpel. “You wanna have a go while I mull it over? I know you were pissed about what she did to Raven.”
He seems to think it over before shaking his head. “No, I can’t get my clothes dirty. My wife picked this outfit for me this morning, and if I come home with blood on me, I’ll have to explain why. I love her, but I don’t trust that she won’t go to Raven straight away to gloat about what we’ve done, and I know you don’t want Rave to know.”
Xavier groans. “So just change?” he mutters.
Silas chuckles. “If I come home wearing a different outfit, you might as well put that scalpel to my throat yourself. My little psycho will definitely demand an explanation if I do something as stupid as that.”
I raise a brow and glance at Xavier. “Do you have a vial of that stuff I like?” I murmur.
He nods and reaches for his inside pocket, taking a small bottle out. He hands it to me, and I stare at it for a moment. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I tell Hannah. “You can either drink the poison in this bottle and end things now.” She begins to cry, and I grit my teeth. I really do fucking hate it when they cry. “But I’m not entirely heartless, so I’ll give you an easy reprieve on account of your ties to my sister-in-law. I’m highly concerned that she’d blame herself for anything that I might do to you, so I’m reluctant to do permanent damage. I don’t give a fuck about you, but I absolutely cannot risk hurting Raven any further.”
I glance back at Xavier, and his expression falls. “No,” he says. “Whatever you—”
I grin and cut him off. “The Kingstons are looking for a new maid,” I lie. “Work for them for five years, serving every one of those people you thought you were better than.” She doesn’t need to ask me why five years — she knows how many years of happiness she stole away from Raven.
“We’ll put you in a pretty maid costume, and you can serve drinks and dinner at every big event that everyone you know will be present at. I’ll have you clear their plates and take their coats, and we’ll even pay you a little salary. No more luxury escapes, no more pretending you simply retired. I’m going to ensure you get the attention you always wanted.”
Hannah looks horrified, and I catch her steal a glance at the poison in my hands. Seriously? She’d rather end her life than work a service job for a few years? I guess the humiliation is too much for her, but then again, that’s why I chose this as punishment. I doubt she even realizes that I’m letting her get off incredibly easy. I’m giving her a chance. If she keeps her head down and suffers through the excessive humiliation I’m about to make her endure, I’ll let her go in five years. If not… then I suppose an incredibly unfortunate tragic accident awaits her, perhaps one that severely injures her but doesn’t quite kill her. I’ll just make her wish she was dead while taking away any means of ending her life.
“I… I’ll do it,” she says, her tone defeated. “I’ll work for the Kingstons.”
There’s a slight glimmer of hope in her eyes, as though she thinks she can escape her fate. That hope will only make her fall more painful. “It’s so cute,” I whisper, “that you think you had a choice.”
