Page 73 of Brutal Queen

I’m approached from behind and I don’t have to turn around to know who stands at my back. Whose arms wrap around me. Whose hands wrap around mine on the gun.

“Just say the word and we’ll end him right now,” Enzo whispers, his breath skittering across the shell of my ear as the warmth of him engulfs me.

I can’t hide the way my body responds to his or the smile that spreads across my features. It broadens into a grin when I see the look of absolute hatred that consumes Max the second Enzo touches me. Choosing violence, I make sure to lean into Enzo’s touch and pull his arm around my waist.

“Now, where would be the fun in that?” I mock, patting his forearm before calling two men over and instructing them to lift Max to his feet.

I don’t need to summon them. Nico, Benny, and Sinclair appear beside me and stand, ready to take my command.

Looking around, I spot what I want. “String that up from the gantry,” I say, pointing at a long set of chains in the corner of the loading bay. That’s all it takes for Sinclair and Nico to jump into action and dig through until they find a length that will work and set off for the stairs.

I reach for Benny and cup his face between my hands. “How are you feeling?”

“Well enough to stay for the rest of the show. I swear if you make me leave before I have the pleasure of watching the life leave his eyes, you and I are going to have words, Don Bianchi.”

I run my hand down the front of his chest and don’t miss the way his muscles tense as I approach the wound on his side. I raise an eyebrow but concede to his wishes. Lacing my fingers between his, I guide him back a few steps with me, and he looks a little confused until I call out to Enzo. “He’s all yours,mio re.Just leave enough for us to string up when you’re done with him.”

I take great satisfaction when Max’s face contorts with hatred as I call Enzo ‘my king’. It hits Max full in the chest, landing as hard as any punch I could throw would. As I walk back to stand with the rest of my people they part, making room for me, throwing the now familiar differential head bob my way before casting their eyes back to the centre of the room. I glance around the procession of faces, slightly awed by the oppressive atmosphere their silence casts and humbled by their unwavering support.

The longer I look around, the more a feeling of dread settles in the pit of my stomach because there’s someone missing.

“Dom, where’s Stefano?” I shout across to him. There’s a frenzy of movement as heads turn, only no one has an answer. Dom launches into action and nominates three of his subordinates to take teams on a search of the building.

“Last time I spoke to him, he was with a team headed to the roof up the far stairwell,” I call after them as they set off at pace to find him. My heart is thumping like a bass drum, pounding against my ribcage. I swear to Christ that man better be alive or I’ll follow him down to hell just to drag his ass back up here.

There’s a loud clanking noise above me and I glance up to see Nico and Sinclair unfurling the long length of heavy chain over the side of the gantry. They wave one of the men over to hold the end before threading the other through and lowering it down. The metallic clanks ricochet around the cavernous warehouse, rounding off like bullets, but no one flinches. They’re too focussed on the scene in front of them.

Enzo hasn’t moved a muscle, and Max is caught in his emotionless stare. “I’ve missed you, Enzo. You may have been a poor substitute formy wife,but you certainly held out better than those drunken whores. They couldn’t tolerate the cattle prod as well as you could. How do you feel knowing that thefreedom I granted you cost so many young women their lives?” Max wheezes out.

Despite his cracking voice, it doesn’t make his tone any less malignant. When Max mentioned the cattle prod, I caught the subtle clench in Enzo's jaw and my breath hitched. While it’s not something he used on me often, I remember the bite of the prongs vividly. It was one of the ways he loved to try and pull me back to reality, using the shocks to disrupt my concentration. While Max loved inflicting pain on me in that near comatose state, he preferred to ‘fuck me with some life behind my eyes’ as he so eloquently put it.

I shake off the shiver that rolls along my spine and plant my feet firmly, throwing my shoulders back and refusing to be haunted by visions of my past, and I smile when I see Enzo’s posture mirroring mine. Standing tall and towering over this pathetic example of a human being, he has the audacity to smirk at Max, which only ignites Max’s temper further.

“Do they know what I did to you? How you suffered? Did you tell her the pleasure I took in torturing you? All in her name.” Max’s voice pitches and strains the louder he tries to shout, like rough sandpaper scraping down wood.

In direct contrast, Enzo’s voice remains smooth and calm, like warm whiskey pouring over ice. “I don’t need to tell her what you did to me, in the same way she doesn’t need to tell me what you did to her. I know that woman inside out and backwards. In a strange way, you’ve given me one of the greatest gifts, because now I understand what makes her the strongest leader the Bianchi family will ever have. She is indestructible.” He pauses to crouch over Max’s broken body. “And you are a footnote on her legacy.”

“You’re just my discarded toy, and she’s my greatest creation,” Max roars with the last vestiges of energy he has and drops his head back against the concrete.

“She’s who she is in spite of you, not because of you,” Enzo says as he bends to pull a long serrated hunting knife from a holster strapped to his thigh. The blade glints under the harsh fluorescent lights as Zo lazily tosses it between his palms.

“She’ll never be yours,” Max says, his voice little more than a low menacing growl.

Leaning down close, Enzo’s voice quietens and with inarguable conviction says, “She’s not mine. She’s ours.”

For a moment I think he means I’m Sin, Nico, Benny, and his, but he slowly points the knife around to every one bearing witness to Max’s execution. Each person bows their head in allegiance as the tip of the knife passes them.

Max’s face becomes a thunderous mask of hatred, but before he throws out a retort, Enzo reaches forward and wraps his hand around Max’s neck in a vice-like grip, yanking him off the ground. He snarls the next part, and I swear I can see his eyes shine with the burning hatred I know he feels.

“I don’t need her to be mine. I’m hers. In all ways, for all things. I’m her protector and her salvation.” Enzo lifts the knife in front of Max’s face before lowering it to his abdomen and using it to flip his suit blazer. Max flinches when the knife slices open his shirt in one fluid motion, snorting out a ragged breath through his nose in defiance as Enzo smiles back at him. “And her executioner.”

The blade glides into Max’s torso, seemingly with no resistance. Max has barely any fight left in him and when Enzo lets go of his grip on his neck, he collapses to the floor with a string of howls and moans.

Enzo turns his back and stalks over to me, his shoulders relaxed like a weight has been lifted. Taking his place at my side, there’s nothing left to do but finish Max off. Looking up at the gantry, the chains are fully secured and Sinclair and Nico are on the way down to us.

There’s a loud bang to my left as Dom and his men burst through the stairwell door with a rather battered-looking Stefano being supported under each arm by two members of his team. He looks groggy but otherwise fine.

“Sorry boss, I split my team and went after some stragglers. One of the fuckers got the jump on me.” As he talks, he shakes off the people holding him up. “I’m fine, just a crack over the head.”

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