Page 4 of Empire of Carnage
It only made the blood pour down faster.
“Fuck!” I cursed loudly and she cackled, the sound antagonizing Celia as she struggled against her restraints even harder.
“Honestly, this is a gift. Think how hot you’re going to look when this is healed.” She giggled. “Oops, you’re probably not going to get to see it by the time we’re done with you.”
Blood ran down my face and my vision reddened. It dripped into my eyes, my mouth, down my chest, and didn’t stop. She raised her arm to slice again and Celia shrieked, but Guillermo held her back.
“Corazón, they need time to heal, or they’ll bleed out. They need time to learn their lessons, comprendes?” he asked her, earning a bitter look from the youngest Flores sister before pulling her back and standing in front of me. “Ay primo, this could have been so easy. You were my best soldier. I still have hope for you though. Maybe once all of this is done, you’ll come back to me. Once you’ve learned the real meaning of family.”
“I’ll let you teach him your lessons amor, but he’s not yours anymore. Los Muertos is mine, and so is Santito here.” She bared her teeth at him, confirming who was in charge.
But was it her, or was it his dick, following the tightest cunt it could find?
“Get the brand,” she told him, a growl escaping from his chest that she ignored.
Guillermo disappeared into one of the back rooms behind a closed door. The clanking of metal tools falling on the ground only making Carolina more and more irritated. He came back into my line of vision, the brand almost as big as my face scorching red hot at the end of the rod. The five-petal flower glowing bright as it taunted me, promising me the pain of eternal damnation.
“No! Stop!” Celia begged and screamed repeatedly.
I bit my tongue to keep the scream from forcing its way out, tasting the liquid metal pooling in my mouth while the smell of my charred skin invaded my nostrils. I couldn’t fight my body, and the warm stream of piss dripped down my legs as I convulsed from the pain of the brand blistering away at my skin.
The burning ache over my heart throbbed violently, the overwhelming nausea from the smell of my burnt flesh fought against the need to close my eyes and fade into the darkness.
“Now everyone will know who owns you.” Carolina smiled with satisfaction as she pulled the brand back, revealing where it now burned into where my Los Muertos tattoos once was.
This said everything it needed to.
Los Muertos was part of the Flores Cártel now. Everything my primo had ever wanted. He wanted to rule it, and he found himself at the mercy of a woman. She didn’t know it, but he’d never kneel for her.
They’d never work.
“I guess I don’t have to take you to the bathroom now,” my primo laughed.
Celia let out an unhinged cackle, the sound of her cold laughter shocking me to my core.
“Cállate! Did you already lose your mind?” Carolina spat the words out.
“The problem is you keep trying to take the things that are mine, in typical little sister fashion. But that isn’t your brand hermanita, it’s mine. And you just proved to the entire world that he belongs to me by puttingmysymbol on his flesh.”
She wasn’t wrong. Because Iwouldkneel forher.
He sent his heavy fist into my stomach, stealing all the air out of my lungs with the sharp hit and forcing blood out of my mouth. I lifted my neck, tilting my chin back to try to keep the blood from obstructing my visions while I tried to look into my primo’s face. I breathed noisily through flared nostrils, my anger consuming me in a way I never thought it was possible to feel.
He narrowed his eyes and painted a sinister smile on his face, like he truly believed everything he was doing was for the good of our family. He turned on his heels and walked away, leading Carolina out of the basement with one hand on the small of her back. He knew nothing about family.
We were so fucking far from it.
My family consisted of two dead gringos and a dark haired beauty with half a Black Dahlia wound cut into her face now.
And I’d make sure we were all avenged before this was done.
“We’ll kill ‘em together, eh morena?” I asked her, ignoring the agonizing pain in my mouth while tasting the blood making its way through my cheek and grazing over my tongue.
I forced myself to stay conscious by shifting my focus from the burn on my chest to the cuts on my face, each time the pain became too much to bear I tuned one out and surrendered to the other.
Her chin lifted up slowly before her eyes fluttered open to look at me.
The blood streaked down her face. The stream of red dripping much slower now from the cut on her cheek. She wore a lethal expression. There was nothing but the promise of death in her gaze, and she made her intentions known with just one look.
