Page 113 of Their Dark Rose

“Why do you even care?” she snarls, shedding the mask of the poor, miserable aunt who just happened to pass by. “She didn’t love you. Never did. You were an accident, and most days she treated you like one.”

She’s right. And I don’t care. I stopped caring when I grew up and found out about everything. I don’t need her. I need the men surrounding me, and I have them.

But none of this is Mallie’s business. I also need closure. And she won’t get away before giving me what I’m owed.

“Finn, hand me your knife, please.”

“Your wish is the stuff I’ll jack off to later.” The plastic handle lands in my outstretched hand.

He curls his fingers around mine, securing the pocketknife in place.

“My hand will fuck your cock anytime you ask, baby,” I tell him while remaining fixated on Mallie’s face. “Even in my sleep.”

Mallie gags at my response to Finn.

Fuck her judgmental ass.

I raise the blade to her eye. Lowering and lowering and lowering it…

“Leave her alone!” Thorn screams in horror.

His scream is silenced when he’s punched by either Finn or Falk. I have no idea which one of them did it. The one thing I know is I hear a loud crunching sound that satisfies me to no end.

Not like anyone would hear him. Mason walked by every occupied room of the motel and paid off the guests in the adjacent rooms to get lost right before he went to the manager and paid him to keep them vacant.

With enough money, most people would agree to do just about anything.

That’s how we’re all by ourselves in a motel in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Boston, as I discovered.

Free to do anything and everything to my captors. Mallie and Thorn can scream until their lungs bleed, and no one will come here to save them. Not a single person.

“Fine, I killed her.” Mallie rears her head back away from me as much as possible.

I won’t pluck her eye out just yet. The show Mason, Falk, and Finn told me about in the bathroom—Mallie wasn’t wrong, the smell in there was an abomination—is one she needs to watch with both eyes.

Our revenge won’t be nearly as complete without her witnessing this.

“Good.”

Relief washes over her face.

Yeah, bitch, about that…

Lowering the blade to her cheek, I press it until the first drop of blood spurts out.

“Why did you do that?” she squeals. “I told you the truth!”

Behind me, the legs on Thorn’s chair rattle. He’s probably trying to escape. Trying and failing, because he’s silenced real fast.

“Don’t you get it, yet?” Mason stands, moving to the back of the chair Mallie’s sitting on. “Briar will do whatever the hell she wants to do to you. We should’ve done it years ago, but we didn’t have proof. Plus…”

He covers my hand in his, dragging it and consequently the knife down Mallie’s chin and jaw.

I gaze up at one of my handsome men, reveling in this unique version of love he has for me.

“…it wouldn’t have been as fun without Briar being a part of this.”

My lips stretch on my face. The familiar bats flutter in my belly.

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