Page 50 of Retaliation

“He had it coming!” Anger boiled in his eyes, his nostrils flaring, and it took everything she had not to flinch.

“You were his best friend!” she countered. “You two were practically like brothers since you were five.”

Reaper ran a hand over his face, composing himself as he plastered a sinister smirk on his lips.

“And yet Cain killed Abel. Shit happens.”

“You’d better leave,” she warned, looking back to the bar in search of Scorpion—needing him as a backup if things went to shit.

“Oh, don’t worry about your date,” Poison’s head snapped to him, watching his lazy smile as he picked at something on his sleeve. “I asked the bartender to keep him occupied for a moment.”

“What the fuck do you want, Rogan?”

Every ounce of fight, of fear, of every emotion left her body, leaving nothing but numbness and the voices screaming.

“I wanted to find out if you got my little present?” He shrugged.

“What present?” And Poison had a feeling she didn’t want to know.

“That monster who dared to touch you!” he growled, grabbing her chin, his thumb rubbing with a painful force over the cut on her lip.

Poison slapped his hand away and tried to get away from him as far as the couch allowed—careful not to cause a scene.

“What did you do?” Her voice broke.

“I protected your honor,” he growled. “I wouldn’t have had to do it if the Silver Serpents did what they were supposed to do!”

Her mind shattered.

No. Not her mind.

It was glass shattering. Poison looked up to see horror on Scorpion’s face—glass scattered at his feet covered in alcohol.

“You’re…” He shook his head, confusion mixing with shock in his eyes. “You belong to the Silver Serpents?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Reaper answered, rising to his feet. With a satisfied grin, he buttoned his jacket and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “She doesn’t just belong to them. She’s their leader.”

She watched in horror as Scorpion’s eyes went cold—shock and confusion replaced by an anger that shook her to her core.

Scorpion turned on his heel and ran for the door, and before she could think, she set chase after him, calling his name. But he didn’t look back or slow down. He just burst through the doors and bolted for his bike, roaring it to life, and sped into the night. Poison stood on the curb, watching his tail light disappear around the corner, and had no fucking idea what had just happened.

A low chuckle behind her made her turn to find Reaper watching her with that sickening smile on his lips.

“What the fuck did you do?” she demanded as she stormed toward him, pushing him back with palms to his chest.

Reaper put his hands in the air, smiling like a madman.

“Oh, Beautiful, I didn’t do anything.” She wanted to rip the smug smile off his face.

“Then what the fuck just happened?” she asked as if he’d have the answer, and to her horror, he did.

Smiling, Reaper crossed his arms, tapping a finger to his chin. “Oh, let me think,” The urge to rip him apart doubled. “You remember your little temper tantrum from about four years ago?”

As his words hung in the air like a poisonous cloud, she felt a chill creep through her veins. Memories she had long buried surged to the forefront of her mind, clawing their way back into her consciousness like relentless demons.

She knew exactly what he was referring to—a time when her obsession with avenging her brother’s murder consumed her like a raging inferno. It was a time marked by bloodshed and brutality, a descent into darkness from which she had feared she might never emerge.

Thoughts of Reaper had consumed every waking moment. She had hunted him relentlessly, her thirst for vengeance driving her to unspeakable acts of violence. Torture, murder—she had done it all in her quest to find him, to make him pay for his sins.

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