Page 56 of To Claim A King
The damn tears hovering on my eyelids escaped, leaking a trail down my cheeks as I willed her pain to come into me instead. I’d never felt so fucking helpless, but I wouldn’t break down and beg for his pathetic excuse of mercy. The three of us had made an unspoken pact as the torture began: no begging, no pleading, no bartering.
My father’s grin rivaled the Devil's as he closed his eyes to absorb her shrieks. When he opened them, they shone brighter, fueling the rage bubbling up within my chest. He took two steps back to stand next to Carmen’s smirking form, and the two of them stared back at their handiwork with triumph.
Three damaged people, buried with baggage and laden with their own sins. We were marked for death in here. The only option was to die bravely.
Lauchlan was surprisingly resourceful, but there was nothing to say he wasn’t already dead. The “hope” sitting on my knuckles was an illusion, one I no longer carried on my skin or in my heart. The last memory I would carry of him to my unmarked grave was of me stalking off in the night in a sorry attempt to run away from my demons. No kiss goodbye, no telling him what he actually meant to me. A missed opportunity in a light-year-long line of missed opportunities.
“It is hard to see those we love in pain,” Antonio said sagely, like he had a fucking heart suddenly. “Sometimes, the greatest mercy is taking the pain from them. Can you do this,traidor?” He forced a solemn expression onto his face, because he’d never mourned a moment in his life. “I will take away your pain if you will take away theirs.”
He nodded toward the beautiful woman, her body bleeding dry, and the man next to me, who was as miserable as I was. “Kill them, and I will accept you back. It is a simple trade of lives. Continue to resist, and I will kill them as painfully as possible, with you as the last to die.”
His last words were the dangling carrot he thought he could tempt me with. “I’ve invested so much in you, Kellan. Your future. You are my prodigal son, and I will forgive your sins only once. But I will forgive them.”
I stared down at this man who called himself my father. He was my prison ward, my dictator, and today, my executioner. A liar, a jailer, a shitty mentor and a terrible guide. Never a father. The moment I bent to his will, I’d be on his leash forever—just as I had been these last thirty-eight years. The cord was severed. The line was dead. I was no longer a Carlos son.
“He is your only son.” Hillary found her voice, cracked and raw from holding in her screams. “I killed your idiottwins before your lackey shoved a needle into me. The Carlos line is almost extinct, Antonio,” she taunted, a picture of battered strength and resilience even in the face of death. “Kill him, and your entire empire crumbles to the ground.”
Savage rage flashed across Antonio’s face in rivulets, but it was likely more at her audacity instead of genuine pain for the lives of his sons. Maybe he didn’t believe her, or maybe he didn’t care. I still didn’t fully understand this man’s obsession with power, other than it overruled every other emotion.
She was trying to save my life. I’d been trying to protect her for years—hadprotected her for years—and I finally realized the lengths she was willing to go to protect me. Even if it meant losing her own.
When I’d left Hillary with Lauchlan and Aaron, I’d intended to kill this man—not so they’d welcome me back, but so they’d actually find safety, and I, even alone, would have freedom from this life. When he’d ordered me to take over the human trafficking side of his business all those months ago, I knew in my gut how this all would end. Him or me.
It would tear strips off my soul, but I’d kill them if they asked me to. And then I’d take the knife myself and end the rest of this torrid legacy for good. If Lauchlan came through, they’d have an extra three bodies to deal with, but it would end Antonio’s empire, and we could die knowing our deaths had a purpose other than being this psychopath’s source of entertainment.
My legacy wouldn’t be killing the people I loved to save my own skin. That generational curse ended with me.
I found my voice amid the bullshit I was swimming in. “I’ll kill them when they ask me to. You’re likely better off just killing me.”
Hard eyes appraised me like I was a piece of butcher’s meat on a hook rather than the man he raised and moldedin his image. They narrowed into pinpricks of madness before he forced his mouth into a placating smile.
“Very well. It isel muerto’sturn.” Antonio’s declaration and Carmen’s beaming smile brought every hair on my neck to attention. “Perhaps you can use some of the tricks you learned at the club? Show us how well you know him.”
No. No.No. This woman had played double agent in Aaron’s club for months, at the direction of my father. She used her body to manipulate him, her weapons to mangle him, and now… In his final moments, she’d use what she’d learned about him sexually to strip away the last shreds of his dignity.
Horror set every nerve in my body on fire as I watched her brandish a new, bloodless knife and cut the suit pants off Aaron’s body. He barely twitched as she removed his clothing, but his throat bobbed hard as each piece of cloth hit the ground. When he was naked from the waist down, he closed his eyes and hung his head, accepting what was to come.
I should have killed him rather than subjected him to this. I should have—
“Forgive me,Mi Reina,” he mumbled under his breath, the only words to penetrate the dead air around us. My Killer’s breath hitched as Carmen stroked the skin of Aaron’s calves before sliding them along the lines of his thighs, caressing the jagged scar she’d left from her knife the last time she’d held Aaron under duress. She stuck out her tongue and dragged it across the severed skin before moving her hands to cup his balls.
His eyes remained closed, and he forced shallow breaths through his nose as he gritted his teeth with each tug of her hand, his body responding directly to her assault. “Forgive me,Mi Reina,” myGuapobegged. A single droplet of pain leaked from his tight eyelids, followed by several more with each stroke of her fists. “Forgive me,compañero.”
A deep, feminine, guttural sob came from Hillary’s chest beside me. It took every ounce of energy I had left not to wrestle with the cuffs around my wrists, to escape and choke the life out of my father, to snap Carmen’s dainty neck, and to comfort my lovers one last time.
It wasn’t possible. I was too large of a man to try any sort of acrobatics with these cuffs. At best, any attempt would snap both of my wrists, leaving me useless to do anything at all. I would die with this as the last image in my brain, but I refused to let Antonio take everything else along with it. Our lives might end tonight, but he wouldn’t destroy me.
“I love you, Killer.” My voice was raspy and raw, and so were the words. Antonio couldn’t remove the only good in my life, even now. I’d spent my life a lonely, miserable fuck, and if this was to be my end, I could say I had three people who knew who I really was, and had chosen me anyway. “I love you,Guapo.”
Hillary stifled her sobs, choking on mucus as the tears flowed freely down her chin. “I love you, Viking.” She stuttered on a hiccup. “I love you,Cabellero Oscuro.” To the open air, she whispered, “I love you, Lucky O’Donnell.”
Aaron’s eyes opened with our declarations. I could only see one clearly from my position, but it brimmed with emotion, the last crack in the stoicism he was famous for.
“As I love you,Mi ReinaandMi Rey. It is an honor to die with you.”
Carmen squeezed the now limp cock in her fist and stood, the threatening sneer vicious with hate. “There is no honor in death,” she spat, dropping her fist and moving away from Aaron’s hanging form. “Only weakness. You disgust me,culicagado.”
Before any of us could respond with replies on deaf ears, an ear-piercing alarm sounded from above our heads, the abrupt shrill tone enough to numb my senses. Antoniopulled out the phone in his pocket to check its screen and cursed.
