Page 40 of Empire of Carnage
She took a breath to prepare herself, but she was trembling at just the proximity. It wasn’t right. I picked her up and brought her to my chest before sitting us both down onto the chair in her bedroom, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my chest.
She shook silently while I ran my fingers through her hair.
“I’m not broken!” she cried out like she was trying to prove it to herself.
“I never said you were.”
“Then why does it feel like I am?” A pitiful noise left the depths of her chest as she poured her soul out into salty droplets over me.
“Because whether or not you want to admit it, he took something from you that you wouldn’t have given freely. Regardless of your reason for doing it. Regardless of the fact that it might have been your decision to do it at all.”
“It’s okay to not be okay, Celia. Perfection isn’t expected of you at all times.”
“He expected it,” she said, a bit of nervousness peeking out from behind the curtain.
She meant her father, I wasn’t stupid.
“He’s dead now,” I reminded her.
A few moments passed before she nodded.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me and blinking the droplets of tears from her eyelashes.
“I love you, sunshine.” I caressed her face.
“It helps when you remind me.” She smiled and it stretched up into the scar across her cheek.
I felt so much anger when I looked at it, but I was learning to not blame myself for the things I couldn’t prevent. Wallowing in guilt over pain that was dealt to her wasn’t fair of me. All she was asking of me was to love her, that I could do.
“I’ll keep doing it at every chance I get.”
18
Ronan
Dezmond Archer Junior would die tonight. Preferably with my bare hands, but if I had to use a weapon, I’d consider that a solid kill too. There was no way around it, the fates had pulled his cards and they’d announced his end. My brothers had called it, and I had agreed.
There was a part of me that still felt the aching pain of killing someone I considered my own family. Maybe I owed him the decency of a fair fight because of our shared history. Because he was once my brother too. But the stupid fucker’s ambition was the very reason we had to bury some of our best men this year.
There was no going back anymore.
The Crows were done but vengeance went further than just a name. We were reaping because he had sowed.
We’d hounded Susana enough to get a few names from her. We paid off some girls she knew to help us get some intel, so we could figure out exactly where we could find Dezmond tonight. It wasn’t hard. Just like she said, the fucker was there at Vosk, sitting in a VIP booth with some paid escorts pretending to enjoy his company while drinking some top shelf alcohol that was likely being put on Sokolov’s tab.
“Hey sweetheart, go ask your friends to clear the booth out.” I slipped some cash into the hand of a nearby girl and nodded over to Dezmond’s booth.
She squeezed into the booth and whispered into the closest girl’s ear. A game of telephone passed around and soon every girl was looking at each other with wide eyes and scurrying from the table.
Dezmond was too drunk to notice.
Santos shuffled into the booth next to him and Fletcher came in from the other side. I squeezed in, sitting across from the bastard who dared break bread with me while he was plotting to take me down. I pulled my gun out and placed the Glock directly in front of me, the barrel pointed his way but the piece itself was still laying on its side on the table.
He could have reached for it.
I wasn’t afraid of him.
“S-shit,” he stuttered out, his eyes blinking in an uncoordinated way that let me know he was shitcanned.
