Page 237 of Rage

“Isn’t he a friend of yours? And where is he?” she asks me while I’m looking for Amar. We go to the basement of the hotel,and we are standing in front of Amar’s personal quarters. I turn toward Sara, and I grab both of her hands, and I kiss them.

“He is right through here, and no he is not a friend. He is just someone who I thought could keep his mouth shut,” I say truthfully.

“My dad probably promised him a seat at the table. Wait a minute.” She looks at the door and then back at me. “This looks like a set-up.”

“Your dad is probably on the other side of this door. They knew we would come here. He wants you to go back to your old life.”

“That is never going to happen, I want to leave that life behind.”

“Sara, you can’t. You can only leave our life behind if you give up your throne.”

“And I will. But I will also need to kill my dad.”

“Why the fuck would you need to do that?”

“When the heir to the throne wants to leave the Savage Serpents, they need to kill the current king or queen. It’s a stupid old rule.”

“Can you kill your dad?”

“He never meant anything to me. I just thought I needed to tolerate him due to the fact I deserved the throne. But now I don’t want it.”

“Well, what do you want?” I ask her gleefully. She smirks at me.

“We will talk about that later. Are you ready?” I nod at her, time to bring my murderous lady home.

Chapter Nine

Sara

Iopen the door to Amar’s quarters, and the first thing that hits me is the smell. It smells clean. But I’ll change the scent when I smear their blood all over the walls while their intestines are oozing out. Like a watchdog, Adam follows behind me. When I step into the room, I stand still. Amar and my dad, Denis, are sitting on the couches.

“Well, this looks nice, I guess,” I tell them. I step closer to them, and my heart is pounding. I am going to murder my father. I take a seat across from them. Adam stands behind the couch, with his assault rifle in his hand. I look around the room and it’s bland. The walls are grey, there aren’t any carpets, and there is one black desk behind the couch where those two assholes are sitting. The room feels cold and distant, and yet, I feel like these walls could talk. The room is way too clean, the smell of bleach invading my nostrils.

“You knew we were coming here. How?” I don’t have time for small talk. My father looks at me with his black eyes, while Amar is nursing a glass of scotch. Denis is a silver fox at fifty-five

years old. Appearance is everything apparently, so my dad works out every day. He is keeping up his physique, and the only way you can tell he's older is due tohis pepper-colored hair.My dad crosses his legs with a smile is on his face. With a very meticulous smile, I return the favor.

“Well, head Serpent, why did you run away?” my dad asks me.

“You were going to give away my throne to Haris,” I answer him.

“Sara, no. Yes, you were going to act as the new queen to the Savage Serpents, but Haris was going to be the real brains behind the operation.”

“Haris couldn’t tell a knife from a gun even if I held it before him. He was stupid beyond recognition.”

“He wasn’t the smartest of the bunch, but his family trained him to fight.”

“Only with his fists. He was cruel and physically abusive, Denis.” My dad laughs as if he can’t believe what I’m saying is a problem. He is the embodiment of why women chose the bear over the man.

“Sweet child, marriage isn’t based on love. Besides, I could never let you run everything on your own. Even if you are the smartest Serpent.” Now we are getting somewhere. I always suspected Denis to be a raging misogynist, but this is absurd. I am the most skilled fighter in our organization, the smartest one, and the most manipulative one. You don’t want to close a deal? Watch me change your mind.

“Denis, cut to the fucking chase. You didn’t want me to run the Savage Serpents entirely on my own for one reason,” I tell him while remaining completely emotionless. While I am portraying myself as calm, I am anything but. The rage is building up inside of me. I position myself a little bit more steadily. I uncross my legs and let my feet hit the floor. My underarms are now leaning on my upper thighs.

“You are a woman, Sara. I could never let a woman do everything; women can’t do that. I would rather eat a dick thansee a woman at the helm of my organization.” There it is ladies and gentlemen. I scoff and I start laughing like a maniac. Once I calmed down, I can see Amar has set his drink down. He is like a child who is watching a fight between his parents. Useless.

“Denis, you were afraid because I could do your job better. And I did, didn’t I?” I ask him. He is gritting his teeth.Get mad, asshole.

“All of the clients of the Savage Serpents have told you business has been extremely good. More hits, or should I say, better-planned hits that don’t result in cleaning up?” If steam could come out of someone’s ears, it would have been out of my dad’s. While my dad was completely in charge the last couple of years, clients started dropping him. It was all due to the incoordination and sloppy work of the assassins we had back then. Their screw-ups forced us to clean up for free. We lost a lot of money from it. That’s when my dad had me come in to take over some tasks, and once I did, business was good again.

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