Page 219 of Tangled in Knots

“Do you need that one’s tongue?” Caelin asks, smirking.

“No, thank you,” I say primly, brow raised as he walks over and yanks Marc’s head back, grabbing his tongue. It’s removed a moment later, and Cassia flinches as it hits the ground wetly.

“Watch your step,” Caelin grunts as I walk around Marc with a nod.

“Aunt Cassia,” I say sweetly, watching as the alpha behind her wraps his leg around hers, so she can’t kick at me. “Did you kill my mother?”

It’s been eating at me for weeks, trying to remember things from my childhood. My father worshiped the ground she walked on, even if my parents didn’t always agree on things. I can vaguely remember them arguing when I was younger.

“So what if I did?” Cassia says with a sniff. “I always hated her, you know. She and I got into an argument the night she died. Clara was pregnant, and wanted to tell your father immediately. I was being a bitch as usual, teasing her about how all she was good for was a broodmare. End of story, your mother backhanded me, and as she was trying to edge past me to speak to your father, I shoved her down the stairs. I’ve never heard Jeremiah scream the way he did that night when she fell. Clara broke her neck, your father kicked me out and didn’t press charges.”

“He somehow cut you off, didn’t he?” I breathe. When she doesn’t say anything, I slash her chest with the knife, smirkingas she screams. The pain comes later as the blood begins to drip, since it’s so sharp.

“Don’t kill her too soon,” a man with ice blond hair says. “Take my gun if you need to hit her to soften her up.”

Holding out my left hand for it, I nod. “Thank you,” I say as he glances at my hand before handing it over. “I can shoot her just as well with this hand, it’ll just make me think twice before I do.”

“Savage,” he says with a smirk.

“I think that’s an understatement, Jas, and I’m here for it. Do your thing, girlie,” the alpha holding Cassia grunts. I slowly realize his name is Tommy and I focus back on my aunt.

Digging the barrel of the gun into the cut, I repeat myself as Cassia cries out. “Dear Aunt, I asked you a question. Did Dad cut you off?”

“Yes!” she screams. “He made me tell him about how she was pregnant, and that’s when he yelled at you to go to your room, as he was picking your mother up into his arms. You probably don’t remember walking past him as you did as you’d been told. Jeremiah took everything from me, since I had no real inheritance. I lied when he was kidnapped by Rock’s boys, I said you’d be spared if he signed everything to me.”

“I had a feeling,” I mutter.

“You have nothing, Cassia,” Caelin says with a dark chuckle. “The money was all pushed into Adira’s name.”

“I always wanted another family member, but not like this,” I say to her. “You took everything from me, then hooked up with the worst fucking person.”

“The bitch had to stay relevant,” Rock says as Tommy pushes Cassia forward, so I can reach her face. Being short has its disadvantages.

She has eyes that are the same color as my father, though hers are so much crueler than I remember my father’s to be. Thedays and months that pass by cause the edges of my memories to blur, and one day I won’t be able to pull it up in my mind at all.

That reminds me…

I have alphas to punish, information to pull, and I’m done with this bitch. Digging the knife deep into her eye, I scream in rage. I fucking hate her for everything she took from me. Her pettiness, greed, and jealousy ruined so many parts of my life.

But I won’t allow it to take it all.

The other packs watch as I do the same to her other eye and then begin using the butt of the gun to hit her over and over until I’m sure she’s dead. Breathing hard, I raise my gun and shoot Draco in the head, though I make sure that the alpha holding him can move to the side in time.

No one wants to wear brains if they don’t have to.

“Nice shot,” the alpha grunts, dropping the piece of shit alpha to the ground.

My gaze moves to where Marc is still on the ground whimpering, and leave him there to walk toward Rock.

“Fancy shooting, little whore,” he snores. “How does it feel knowing that my sons are likely dead?”

Without speaking to him, I point the gun at his boot and shoot him. It’s a credit to the bullet that it blows a nice big hole in his foot.

“I like this gun,” I say, glancing at it.

“Keep it,” Jas says, watching me with approval in his eyes. “Welcome to the families, Adira. I doubt anyone will say that you aren’t able to handle your place with the senior members. They need you to shake shit up.”

The men surrounding me agree in various forms of ‘ayes’ and ‘fuck yeahs.’ I didn’t mean to make this into some kind of audition, but if it will help me from having to continually prove myself, then so be it.

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