Page 96 of A Monster Is Coming

Niamh walked toward me, ran her hands up my chest, and stepped in close. “Then go.”

I didn’t want to go, but I vowed when I was given the chance, I was going to take care of Finn Byrne. I banded an arm around her waist, pulled her in close, and slammed my lips down on hers. I was coming back to her.

Leaving our penthouse suite, I made my way downstairs to the underground parking lot, and in that moment, I suddenly realized the moment I killed Finn Byrne, Niamh got to make a choice—one that meant she stayed with me, or the other choice, where she left me and got her freedom.

****

Ivan

Everything had fallen into place, just as I knew it would. Ending the call, I turned toward Finn Byrne who was tied to a chair. He’d attempted to run. He tried to get hold of his last contact, only to have the man screaming and begging for mercy. This was courtesy of The Beast. I’d gotten him to do that final kill.

It had all been leading up to this very moment with Peter’s birthday. This was my gift to him.

“What the fuck do you want with me?” Finn asked. “I’ve done nothing to you.”

“That’s not entirely accurate. Butcher, are you ready?”

I had set up this warehouse to have the maximum effect and as the light came on, he would see Finn Jr. Every now and then, The Butcher had been paying Finn Jr., a visit, finding out all the things that little prick had been up to. It would seem Finn Jr., was just like his dad, only worse. Where Finn Byrne manipulated, lied, cheated, and stole, Junior simply took and took and took. He’d left a trail of broken men and women. Junior didn’t mind raping both men and women. In fact, he got a kick out of the men being held down while he overpowered them. Same with the women, and then he’d taunt them. The cops wouldn’t arrest him because of who Daddy Dearest was.

I’d taken care of that as well.

There were quite a few of Junior’s victims that hadn’t been able to handle what was happening. They had taken their own lives. The remaining ones, well, they had left, running, hiding, doing whatever they could not to be seen.

Then, of course, there were the ones that tried to fight, and those had ended up dead.

The Butcher didn’t particularly like Junior. She’d been wanting to kill him for quite some time, and when I told her my plan, she was all for it.

Junior had been stripped down, and was now completely naked. It looked like he’d already pissed and shit himself.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Finn asked. “You leave my son alone.”

“Wish I could, but you see, he hunted in my territory, and there must be a price for that. Also, he has to die today,” I said.

“Leave him alone. Let him go. He’s just a young kid, and he made mistakes.”

The Butcher held out her knife, and I just knew what she was going for first, and yes, we didn’t hear the sounds. I’d gotten the room soundproofed so all Finn could do was see his son struggling. He tried to fight the binds that held him to the chair, but nothing was going to let him go.

For effect, The Butcher pried open Junior’s mouth and shoved his cock inside it. She really did love her work.

Now, I turned toward Finn Byrne. I’d been waiting for this moment for a long time. He shook in his chair, and I looked at the man who had taken everything from me, and the bastard didn’t even know what it was.

“You know, I lied to your daughter,” I said.

This caught Finn’s attention. I waited, allowing his gaze to drift to the torture of his son.

“I told her my wife had died of cancer.” This caught Finn’s attention. No one knew Ivan Volkov was a married man. I had been happily married as well. Even now, Finn thought he was going to be able to escape, but that wasn’t going to happen. None of them were. “But that is not entirely true. You see, my wife was diagnosed with cancer, but we had caught it early, and she was on the way back from the hospital. She’d already called me with the news that the doctor had confirmed she was cancer-free. She’d have to go through all the unnecessary checks.”

“What the fuck does this have to do with me? I didn’t cause fucking cancer.”

“You’re right. You didn’t, but what you did have control of was a bullet.” I pulled out my cell phone, and I had kept the information all these years, and I played the tape. My wife, Kaitlyn, had stopped at a gas station. She had a craving for chocolate candy, and as she’d gotten out of her car, Finn Byrne and Junior drove up, and they opened fire.

It turned out they had an issue with a rising crime lord in the local area that went by O’Neil. Finn wasn’t happy with a takeover bid, and the fact O’Neil had some kind of shipment of girls. That day, they had killed O’Neil, and in doing so, they had hit the gas station where my wife had been innocently getting a candy bar.

“You see that woman right there, she’s my wife. When Niamh’s mother was at the hospital getting her stomach pumped, I was there losing mine, who had just beat fucking cancer.” I reached out and grabbed the man’s throat. I tightened my grip, watching him choke, struggling to breathe, and he couldn’t fight it. All he could do was take what I was forcing him to take.

He was close to passing out, and I let him go. Getting to my feet, I pocketed my cell phone, and then I moved toward The Butcher’s tools that she had left for me to play with.

“Now, I am a man of my word, and I promised Peter he could end you, and seeing as I’ve been playing with you for the past few months, it is only fair, but I’ve got to make sure you can’t talk.” I held up a pair of what looked like medieval pliers. “Perfect.”

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