Page 46 of Havoc

Now that was funny, and I wished I had been able to witness it. Sonora, usually so full of poise and purpose, flailing about like a fledgling duck trying to walk on grass as she fell down the stairs and hit the ground.

Ooooooh, I was getting chills just thinking about it.

I looked around the room, the disgusting basement where I never came down, mainly because I was warned not to by the woman sitting in front of me.

The woman who betrayed me.

On the far wall I saw a shelf with a few dusty items on them. One of which was a cane, made of bamboo and incredibly strong. Now, this is what I’m talking about. During one of my torture sessions with York, he’d used a cane on the bottom of my feet, and it had hurt more than a lot of the other punishments because you used your feet to walk, so the pain would last for days and days.

I moved back over to her, and circled her as if she were my prey, just like Ebony had once done to me. She twitched nervously as I stayed silent.

“You can torture me all you like, it won’t change the fact I have more resources than you. They will hunt you down for what you do to me.”

“But how will they know?” I whispered in her ear. She jerked away from me. I twirled bits of her hair around the nape of her neck and watched as she tried to shoo me away by shaking her head. “You think I haven’t got resources myself?”

“They’ll hang you for what you did to my Deacon.”

“Deacon was a waste of space, and you know it,” I spat at her. “No one liked him.”

“Wilder will speak up.”

“Wilder is having his arse flayed open by many, many nightly visitors at Frostgate. He’s in no condition to help you.”

“You think Lennon will stay with you,” she spat at me, scared. “He’ll see the monster you are and he’ll run. You’ll be all alone, little girl.”

I knelt in front of her, balancing the cane on her thighs, so she knew just how hard it felt. “If he hasn’t run by now, he won’t, which means your threats are empty just like your life. See, I used to think it was you who left Gideon, but now I see it, now I see he wanted more and that makes you just a little bit crazy for attention.”

“He was a slut, and so was your dumb mother.”

“Well, that’s true, I can’t rebut that,” I replied with a smile. “And after all you did for him? He tosses you aside for a younger, prettier and more promiscuous version?”

“You know nothing of what I did for him. I condemned my own son for him, but even with that, I got my revenge, she smiled maliciously. “I made him think Chance knew everything, made him question his own sanity, so he had to trust me, and from that position, I was back.”

I could see the cracks starting to form, but it also made me understand a scribbling in my father’s journal that hadn’t made sense until just now.

Gideon had known, or at least he’d begun to suspect someone from within was against him. He’d written it in his journals; the walls were crumbling around him long before I came back.

He was no saint, I still hated him, but I could see he was under attack as well, and from someone, he thought he could trust.

Sonora had weaknesses too; she had a brokenness about her I could relate to, a brokenness that reminded me of my own mother.

“I know what he asked of Naomi, so I can only assume you also gave up everything for him, didn’t you? A chance to run the crime family after your father, ruin your body with two sons for him but no, that’s not enough is it? You weren’t the one he wanted in the beginning.”

She looked at me with terror in her eyes. She knew I knew she wasn’t the one he wanted, and it was only because she got pregnant that he stayed with her.

“I didn’t love Gideon at first,” she spat. “Did you know that? He came for me after I left him. He came back forme.”

“He came back becauseshedidn’t love him, dummy. No, Delia loved Dunstan and that killed him, especially after she hid their kid from him. His first born, and the one he loved more.”

She tried to get free of the chair to attack me, which made me laugh because the cable ties were really tight from what I could see. Blood dripped down her hands and onto the floor behind her.

“But yes, I did know you didn’t really love him, not back then, not really until he left you for Naomi. Funnily enough, I know who you did lust after, and it killed you inside when he turned you away.”

“Bitch.”

“You think I wouldn’t notice the family resemblance? Wilder looks just like Deacon. You’re his mother and Tom is his father. See when he died, at the hands of Lennon, he gave us files on everyone. Including Wilder and you. Funny thing is, he kept a closer eye on both of you and it wasn’t until I pieced it together that I understood. He loved you, and you didn’t love him.”

“You’re stalling,” she said with a grin. “You don’t want to hurt me. You think of me as a mummy.”

---