Page 91 of We Will Rise

Crew tugs her against him and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Better watch your mouth, Little Menace. Just because we can’t punish you now, doesn’t mean we won’t ever be able to punish you again.”

She smirks as she looks up at him. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Daddy Crew.”

I chuckle and follow them out of the room. She’s so fucking perfect for us, I can barely believe she’s all ours.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

KAOS

I’m the first through the door, and as soon as I lock eyes on my father hanging from the ceiling, his face bruised and bleeding, there’s a sick thrill that moves through my body.

There was a part of me that worried I would be conflicted when the time finally came, but I’m anything but. I want this over. I want the threats to my family gone. And I want to forget that I ever even had a father, because it’s clear to me that he forgot he ever had a son.

The others file in behind me, but all linger by the door. We discussed what would happen when the time came, and they gave me free rein to run the show, but now that I’m here, I kind of just want it to be over with already.

Once he’s gone, we can move on with our lives, we can start the life we want without him trying to tear us apart from the sidelines.

As cliché as it may sound, once his heart stops beating, our future can finally begin.

“Son,” Caleb chokes as his eyes that are so like my own flick behind me and then back to me again. “Let me down. We can talk about this.” He tugs at the chains around his wrists, but the pipe he’s hanging from doesn’t have any give.

“The time for talking has well and truly passed, Caleb,” I rumble as I move toward Kovu’s table of toys. I had all these plans to make it hurt, to make him feel every ounce of pain he’s caused us since the day he faked his own death, but now it just seems like a waste of my time.

“I can give you money. Just don’t kill me,” he pleads, and a feminine laugh drags my attention to where Camilla is curled under Crew’s arm by the door.

“Sorry, I’m just thinking about the fact you think that after all you’ve done, after you almost killed Crew and me just a few days ago, that money is going to fix everything.”

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Caleb growls, his teeth bared, and instinctively I step between him and Camilla. Rationally, I know he can’t touch her, that he’s chained to the ceiling and can never hurt her again, but my protective instincts have been running rampant since we brought her home from the hospital, and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.

“She’s right, Caleb.” Bishop steps forward while Kovu moves toward the table of torture devices he’s amassed over the years. His fingers move over the knives, and I can’t help but smirk. I hope he never changes, because there’s something about my unhinged best friend that will always bring a smile to my face. “You know we have more money than we could ever possibly need, so what makes you think we need yours that came from trades we don’t condone?”

“There’s no such thing as too much money.”

Camilla snickers, and I flick my eyes over my shoulder to find her face pressed to Crew’s chest to mask the sound.

Rage flickers in Caleb’s gaze as he glares past me at where he knows Camilla is. “I should have killed her when I had the chance,” he mutters.

I chuckle as Kovu selects two knives from the table and hands one to me. “If I’m remembering correctly, you tried. Multiple times.”

Caleb watches Kovu as he moves closer until the two of us are standing shoulder to shoulder in front of him. I truly thought I wanted to be the one to kill him, to torture him, and to make him feel the anguish we’ve felt, but now that I’m here, it doesn’t seem quite so important. Not when we could be in Camilla’s room with her cuddled up between us, or watching some old gangster movie that she can’t tear her eyes off, or just being us. Before she came into our lives, none of us could cope with doing nothing, but now I see the value in it. I see the appeal in slowing down.

I glance over my shoulder at Crew who gives me a small nod, but I should know by now he trusts my judgment more than my father ever did.

“Let’s make this quick,” I say to Kovu, and he smirks.

“I was hoping you were going to say that.”

I do a double take at my best friend, the man who gets more joy out of blood than he does almost anything else in the world.

He slices through Caleb’s shirt, uncovering his bare chest to us. He always judged the rest of us for our tattoos, but he’ll be going to the grave covered in marks the same way we will, his just won’t be quite so artistic.

I make the first cut with one continuous slice of the knife down the center of his torso. It’s not deep enough to kill him, but by the way he tries to swallow his scream, I can tell it hurts like hell.

But it’s not enough.

Kovu brings his knife to Caleb’s wrist and glides the blade down the length of his arm, taking extra care to miss the veins. We may want this over quick, but him bleeding out would take away all the fun.

“You don’t have to do this!” Caleb pleads, his soulless eyes flickering with panic.

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