Page 12 of Empire of Carnage
“Where is she? Where is Carolina?” I yelled, stepping over his fucked-up remainder of a dick and he yelled out again, making me wonder why his men had yet to descend on his behalf.
It almost seemed like his brain was hashing out the same thought, and I watched a look of worry spread across his face as the sound of machine guns went off upstairs. Santos’ eyes met mine and he tightened the chain against Guillermo’s neck.
Either our salvation was upstairs, or it was someone who wanted Guillermo dead just as much, and there was a good chance we’d die in the process too.
“Hold him still,” I told Santos, crawling over to the table and grabbing the same rusty pliers he used on Santos nearly a week ago.
I shoved my chain into his mouth, to force it open while he flailed and thrashed. He was bigger than Santos and I combined, but the damage we’d already done to him was enough to give us the advantage. I sat on his chest and forced the pliers in and with all the effort in my body, I heaved upward until a tooth came loose from his mouth.
Blood pooled in his mouth and he choked on it, but I just reached back in and pulled another canine out, this time with a bit more ease now that I had an idea of what I was doing. I was low on energy though, and it was almost enough to make me lightheaded.
“I think I’ll make a necklace,” I told Santos, throwing him the teeth. “Finish him.” I stood up and grabbed a seven-inch knife off the table of tools. Then it got quiet upstairs. I eyed Santos, but he didn’t hesitate. He ripped through his cousin’s throat with the knife, not stopping as he serrated past his vocal cords and then through his spine. Blood covered his face, his chest, his lap and it took me a while to realize that the feral scream wasn’t coming from our victim but from Santos’ mouth instead. I stood there, unmoving as I watched until finally, he sliced through the last bit of flesh that kept his primo’s head attached to his body before holding it up like a trophy. Blood flooded down fast. There was a lot more than you’d expect for something as small as a head.
Santos’ chest heaved up and down with heavy, labored breaths before he dropped the head to the ground. I pushed away Guillermo’s corpse with my foot and climbed onto Santos’ lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. He buried his face into my neck and broke down into a hearty, woeful sob. We rocked back and forth, holding each other for comfort for what felt like a moment frozen in time.
Then the basement door swung open and light spilled down the stairs. My heart rose up to the top of my throat, or maybe it was bile I was holding back from flashes of Guillermo’s head getting ripped off before my very eyes.
It took everything to breathe through the nausea, but my nerves only skyrocketed at the sound of heavy boots slowly stepping down the basement stairs. Santos pulled me behind him, kicking his cousin’s corpse even further away as if he could hide it from whatever enemy would be coming down for us.
“Sunshine?”
My heart nearly exploded.
I must have been hungrier than I thought because I was hallucinating a dead man’s voice. Santos looked up too and then, there he was, coming down the stairs, blood splattered onto his face and his clothes.
“Mateo?” I blurted out, tears flowing down my face as my heart made sense of what was happening before my brain could.
He took large strides to get to me, cradling my face in his hands and disregarding all the fresh blood covering me. He pressed his forehead to mine, and I let out a banshee cry as I allowed myself to feel the nameless kind of emotion that came with knowing that someone would always be there to rescue you.
I was a miserable bitch, and I did not deserve this kind of loyalty.
“I thought you were dead,” I finally blurted through hysterical sobs.
“It would take a lot more than that to rip me away from you, beautiful,” he said, pulling back to take a look at my face.
He brushed my hair behind my ear, shaking his head in disapproval, as he ran his gaze over my features, his thumb traced over the scar on my cheek softly. And then his eyes shifted to Santos picking up his primo’s head off the ground, and he let out a long exhale. He looked better now that some of his wounds were starting to heal, but the brand on his chest was still a bright scorched up mark. He had so many poorly stitched cuts he looked like a Mexican version of Frankenstein’s monster.
“Shit, brother, you look fucked up. Let’s get you both out of here.” He heaved Santos up, propping himself under his shoulder on one side and I followed suit on the other.
Mateo frowned like he didn’t need my help but before he could utter a word of disapproval, the basement steps squeaked, and a shadow lingered at the top of the stairs.
“Thank fucking fuck,” Santos said and I turned my gaze to the doorway to find Ronan standing there, jaw sharp and flexed with worry as he stared down at the three of us.
My knees gave out at the sight of him. I dropped to my hands and knees and scrambled up the stairs on all fours before I found myself at his feet. Collapsed and crying, my entire chest ripped open, heart bleeding in offering at his altar.
“You came for me,” I barely whispered as he swooped me into his heavy embrace.
“Every time flower, every time.”
I shook violently in his hold, his arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tight in his embrace. For a few seconds I forgot where I was, because I was home. Ronan groaned, it sounded like agony, and I looked up to finally see how pale and drained of life he was. Looking back, Mateo didn’t look much better, and Santos was worse off than both of them.
“Los Muertos?” I asked, wiping the tears off my face.
“You got your big brother to thank for that,” Mateo grunted while he and Santos used each other for support to make their way up the stairs.
I frowned, shaking my head and looking at Ronan.
“I don’t understand.”
