Page 53 of The Devil's Chaos

Kai wrapped his arm around Gerald’s throat, forcing his head to tip back. With his other hand, he wrenched open his mouth. I ripped the wine glasses out of Gerald’s beefy hands and poured the first into his throat. At first, he tried to refuse to swallow, but I pinched his nostrils closed, knowing he would have to breathe eventually or else choke to death. Within seconds, he swallowed the liquid and started coughing.

“I think he wants more,” Kai grinned as he watched me.

I poured the rest of the glass into his mouth, and we played the ‘I’m not going to swallow’ game yet again. Of course, the need for oxygen always trumps stubbornness. After the first glass, he started crying and trying to wriggle out of our grasp.

“Pl—please no more,” he begged, tears coming from his eyes.

“Then tell me what is in the wine,” I demanded, digging my fingers into his face.

“Strychnine,” he mumbled.

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you,” I said. I did hear him, but I needed him to repeat what he said because there was no way I heard what I thought I heard.

“Strychnine,” he sneered.

Gerald laughed as I stepped back, trying to wrap my mind around this information. He was planning on poisoning me, and I was utterly naïve to think it wouldn’t happen at some point. I had been living on borrowed time my whole life. I was filled with this rage, rage that needed an outlet. I stared at the empty wine glass in my hand and then at the full one, and a decision was made.

“Open your mouth,” I demanded, hot tears stinging the back of my eyes. I refused to let them fall in front of a piece of shit like him.

He refused, but Kai forced his head back and pinched his nose for me. I dumped the wine from the other glass into his mouth, watching the red liquid pool. I counted the secondshe tried to hold his breath: one…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…ten… eleven…twelve…thirteen…fourteen…fifteen.

He swallowed, and it wasn’t until the last of the liquid cleared his throat that I nodded for Kai to let his head go.

“Why?” I asked, my tone flat and emotionless.

“Why? Why do you think, you stupid slut?” he spit at me, and it landed on my cheek.

Kai slammed his fist into the side of Gerald’s face, and in two seconds, I had no doubt Gerald would be dead unless I intervened.

I put my hand on Kai’s shoulder, and he stopped. He stood silently beside me, waiting for my command. Gerald was hunched over, spitting blood and teeth onto the carpet.

“I don’t understand,” I began. “No one would murder the daughter of Abel Benson unless they were really fucking stupid. And I know you look like you have the IQ of a fucking potato, but even you couldn’t be stupid enough to try and murder me, right?”

Gerald laughed maniacally. I almost thought he might suffocate from laughing so hard and not taking a breath. Kai watched me like he was trying to figure out my plan, but I kept my face unreadable. One thing I learned from all my years of growing up and not being allowed to have an opinion or speak when not spoken to is this: rich men love to hear themselves talk, to boast about their intelligence and how they are the smartest man in every room with their plotting and scheming.

So, I waited. I waited for his laughs to lessen and for him to catch his breath. I waited until he sat back up and met my gaze. Even then, I waited. And like clockwork…

“You think you’re untouchable because you’re a Benson whore? No one is untouchable, little girl.”

“Yeah, there’s no way you were the brains behind this operation. Go ahead and kill him, Kai,” I scoffed and turned to walk away.

“I chose Strychnine because it is the most painful of all the poisons and is virtually untraceable in autopsies,” he yelled behind me.

I turned and shook my head so Kai could give me a moment and let Gerald keep speaking.

“Did someone pay you?”

“No, you fucking axe wound. You humiliated me in front of Winston Grey and my friends. They haven’t stopped bringing up how you acted since that night. I wanted to watch you choke on your blood while a violent seizure consumed your body. I wanted to be the last thing you saw before you stopped breathing. I wanted to fuck you in each of your holes while you laid there, knowing your death was coming, and watch you die the same way you lived, like fucking whore.”

“You were planning on murdering me because I fought back when you raped me? Because I humiliated you? I was going to let you die by the poison you planned to give me. But…I’ve realized that I am not a girl that requires peace. I much prefer chaos,” I grabbed the knife from Kai’s outstretched hand and plunged it into Gerald’s chest. The flesh made a squelching sound, and Gerald’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. I remember, as a child, Serge, my father’s right hand man and enforcer, taught me different places to stab a man and kill him if the need ever arose to do so. But I wanted him to die painfully, so I drove the knife into his lung, and then I yanked it back out. Hot blood splattered across my face and poured out of his wound like an overflowing dam. “If the poison doesn’t kill you, this will. Except your death won’t be quick. It will hurt. And the last thing you’ll see before you die, drowning in your blood, will be me…” Istood up, making eye contact with Kai, and like the devil he was, he could see right through my tainted soul.

Maybe it was adrenaline.

Maybe it was death.

Or perhaps it was the blood coating my hands and face.

Whatever it was, my pussy was dripping wet, and the only person who could understand was Kai. The metallic scent of death filled the air, mingling with the intoxicating aroma of power and vengeance.

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