Page 49 of Havoc

The vault key.

I came to my old bedroom, the one I couldn’t bear to go into again. Moving inside, I looked around at the closet, dresses that I would never wear again, jewellery I’d been given for my silence on certain matters, and a huge teddy bear. It was misshapen, and that’s why I’d loved it so much. Everything in here was so different from what I remembered like maybe it had been a dream. I opened my bedside table drawer and pulled out the tiny glass vial.

This was where I’d started making poisons. I’d gotten the idea from a historical novel I’d read in school about Lucrezia Borgia. I’d been enamoured with her, feeling as if I could do what she did by helping father with what he needed to be done.

Instead, I was pushed aside.

Brutalised and broken.

A little note was tucked into the side of the drawer. I lifted it and read the three words that had changed everything for me.

You’re enough, kid.

It had been from Chance after a particularly hard talking to from my father which led to Chance taking a ruthless beating for me.My saviour.

Ten Years Ago

I stood in the office, my eyes on my father as he looked over the stash of vials I’d been hiding in my room. This time I could have sworn I’d hidden them well enough that no one would find them.

“What is this?” he finally asked me, his tone unreadable.

“Poison.”

“All of it? Why do you need beakers? What kind of science experiment do you conduct in that room?” he asked, his tone a little more vicious.

“I mix them…to make more potent poisons and for different effects.”

He sat back in his chair, taking me in. “Why?”

“Well…because you have enemies…and I thought I could help you with it.”

“You think you can be part of this business?” he asked, a smirk on his face. “Go back to your makeup and jewels.”

His dismissal hurt. I’d worked so hard to know about these poisons, I worked hard to get intel on other people in his business who wanted to hurt him, and he didn’t care. He just thought of me as a mere woman like he did to all girls.

“I can poison your enemies,” I told him with intent. “They’ll never even know.”

His smirk disappeared and his eyes turned cold as he looked at me and sat forward again. “Poison is a weak man’s death. You want to kill someone and make it worth it, shoot the fucker, stab him or strangle him. Poison is too slow.”

“Not if you do it right,” I replied quickly. “I know how to make death scary, how to draw it out, and how to make them wish they were never born.”

“Have you done it yet?” he asked me.

“Well…not yet.”

“Then you don’t know, you read your books and you think you know. Presley, go back to your room and forget about this poison shit.”

“I can show you,” I said. “I’m willing to do that for you.”

He stood up and moved to where I stood. Taking me by the shoulders, he forced me to look up at him. “Forget helping me. You will be married off to someone eventually, and you can worry about looking after your husband’s needs. Your brothers can help me. Now run along.”

Dismissal. Again.

“I know it works,” I said, hoping he would try and listen this time. “It’s been used on someone and they died horrifically.”

He leant against his desk, his arms crossed over his chest, and a horrible look on his face. One I’d never seen before.

“How?”

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