Page 115 of Salvation

“And you call yourself a mother?” the leader sneered at me.

“I do. And a damned good one at that,” I smirked. “I also call myself a fierce fucking protector. And just in case you think I’m at all exaggerating, I suggest you look up my history. Search Rachel Brooks. It’s all on there. I took down the leader of a notorious grooming gang when I was seventeen. And I’ve only got worse since then. But it also gave me some fantastic fucking contacts to help make all my threats come true. I trust we’ve come to an understanding?”

One by one, the parents nodded at me.

“Good,” I turned around to face Bee. “If you need me, you go and sit in the school office and don’t leave until I turn up. If not, have a brilliant day. And remember what we taught you—something sharp right here,” I pointed at my side. “Between the ribs. It’ll soon put an end to the bullshit.”

I bent down and kissed the top of her head before turning her in the direction of school, watching as she walked through the gates before heading to my car.

“Mrs King!” I heard a voice behind me. “Mrs King, please stop. We need to talk about this! We can’t accept this type of behaviour! Mrs King!”

“Oh, fuck off!” I called over my shoulder, raising my middle finger at her without pausing my steps. My eyes met with a child, and I shot her a small wink, making her giggle. “I’m Bee’s mum,” I grinned as I walked past her, knowing full well that I had just increased her popularity. Her bullies might be scared of her, but the other children who had seen me swearing at teachers would think I was a “cool” mum. Children were amazed by the strangest fucking things.

And yes, I knew what I had just done was wrong. I knew I shouldn’t be threatening children. I knew I shouldn’t be scaring them so much they cried. But I also knew I didn’t fucking care.

I would never be a conventional parent, and that was a-okay with me. I would never tolerate my child bullying anyone else, so I wasn’t going to tolerate her being bullied either.

And I was just the right amount of psycho to be okay with children being scared of me. So long as Bee came out of these doors every day with a smile on her face, no one had anything to worry about.

Chapter 50

Dante

Rachel promised she had things under control with the bullies at school. There was a minor meeting this morning, and some threats were thrown around, but Rachel had us convinced that she would get it sorted. And, if she couldn’t, we were free to exact revenge Devil’s style.

It did little to placate the rest of the men who were already sharpening their knives. Tools had given a very powerful, emotive speech about slicing the parents' faces off, wearing them as masks, and scaring the children whilst they were asleep. Even I could recognise that as maybe being a step too far. Rachel had patted him on the cheek and told him it was nice to know we had options, but she was taking charge for now.

So whilst she was busy with school, I decided to deal with the other headache in my life.

After checking that her dad was busy at the police station, I got on my bike and rode over to Vicky’s house. Her door was unlocked, as it always was—the woman had no fucking idea about safety—so I let myself in and headed to her bedroom to wait for her.

It didn’t take long for me to hear her voice, and so I quietly pulled the door shut and listened.

“Yeah, I’m going to see him later on today… I know,” she said with a laugh. “I know! … I dunno. When it stops being fun, I suppose.”

Her little pauses let me know she was on the phone. Which meant she was alone. Just like I wanted.

“She didn’t say a word to me… Nah, honestly, not a word. In fact, she was all but begging to be friends with me… Oh, believe me. If I wanted him back, it wouldn’t be too difficult. But that’s not my goal here.”

I chuckled to myself as I imagined Rachel begging her for anything. The woman was deluded if she imagined that’s how their interaction had gone.

“I’m just going to play with him for a while. And then when he’s back in love with me, I’m going to rip his heart out and stomp all over it, just like he did to me.”

She walked towards the wardrobe that I was hiding inside and ripped open one of the doors. She didn’t look inside as she flung her hand in to search for something. I took that as my opportunity to seize her wrist and yank her towards me.

She screamed, and I clamped my hand down on her mouth to silence her, shaking my head in a silent warning to shut up.

When she nodded, I released my hand and took a step out of the wardrobe, forcing her to walk backwards.

“What? Yeah, I’m okay…. No, don’t be silly. It was just a spider. You know what I’m like with spiders! Look, let me call you back soon, I just need to finish up here… Yeah. Love you too. Bye.”

As she disconnected the call, I jutted my chin to the side, letting her know I wanted her to throw it. She did it, narrowing her eyes as she did so.

“What are you doing here, Dante?” She breathed. “Aren’t you a little too old to be hiding in women’s wardrobes?”

“When the woman in question is a conniving, scheming, little cunt like you, I think the means justify the gains. Tell me, Vicky, just how is it you were planning on ripping my heart out and stomping all over it?” I grinned as her eyes widened. “That’s right, sweetheart. I heard everything.”

“You don’t scare me,” she hissed, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her bravado.

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