Page 45 of Vicious Savage

The house is now eerily quiet. Where is Scarface? I have to check on him. On everyone else. What even happened here today? I turn and see Attila stalking down the hallway, a gun in either hand lowered to his side. His head is lowered, but he’s watching us from beneath angry, hooded eyes, like a bull about to charge. Attila is disheveled, his hair falling over one eye, a beautiful malicious mess coming back from war. There is a thin film of sweat coating his naked torso. There is blood smeared in several places on his body, and I know this isn’t his blood, but the thought that it could be makes me lose my breath. He flicks his eyes toward me, as though to make sure I’m okay, before he looks down at Gamboa drowning in his own blood.

“I should kill you here,” Attila says. “But that would be way too easy. Instead, I’m going to string you up and drain you of all your blood until you’re no longer alive. And I’m going to take great pleasure in doing it. If only because you touched her.”

45

ATTILA

Istring him up. Just like I promised. From a beam in the roof of the back patio. I string him upside down by his feet, until I’m satisfied I have him right where I want him to be and fury settles deep in the pit of my stomach.

No one holds me back. No one tells me not to. Everyone knows when I get this way, it’s better to let me have my way. Everyone except Luna. She tries to argue with me, telling me not to stain my hands with his blood. Little pup; she doesn’t understand how stained my hands already are. Even after seeing me put a bullet in her father’s head, she still doesn’t know me at all.

I order her outside. I want her to see just the sort of man I am. Exactly what I’m capable of. She needs to get smart and wise to the world. She’s on her own know, drowning in a sea of evil and bedlam.

“I would advise against it,” Dante says from his place on the sofa, his voice bored. The room is littered with bodies and glass and remnants of the chaos from the night’s battle, but it’s like he’s sitting on a bed of roses. That’s the thing about men in this life. After a while, things like this no longer affect us, and we thrive off the energy and adrenaline of the danger we face. This is us; it’s the way we are. But Luna is different. She’s not immune to the sensitivities of our world, even though it’s a world she was born into.

I throw Dante a glance; he holds his hands out as though to say, “I warned you” before I

I force her out onto the patio, my dark eyes holding hers as I command her to watch. I tear his shirt open, the sound of his buttons hitting the ground the only sound amongst the otherwise relative quiet of the day. I drag my knife down his back, drawing blood as I scar him. To his credit, the man barely gasps.

Luna turns her face away as the first blow lands and I prod and poke at Nestor. She bites her lip so viciously that she draws blood.

“Look at him,” I order. She doesn’t turn her face back. My voice is a dull roar when I once again demand that she look at him. Fury surges through me as she continues to look away. I move to stand before her, forcing her face back to Nestor.

I grab his hair and pull his head back so she sees his face. She’s terrified of watching, but there’s not a trace of remorse in me as my hands pull at his strands. He has to pay for what he did here today. He has to be punished for ever even having the thought of laying a finger on her. And there must be retribution, because I’m sure that Luna is not the only girl he ever tried to defile with his perverted ways. His intentions were bad, but mine are so much worse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cesar come to stand in the doorway as he watches us. He cocks his hip against the doorframe and folds his arms against his chest, looking on in interest. When he realizes what I’m making Luna do, he admonishes me gently by saying my name, a soft warning. Telling me with his tone that there’s only so far I can push her. I do my best to ignore him and turn back to Nestor.

“Look at him!” I yell, guiding her attention back to the man that so easily could have destroyed her life. “This is the man that tried to buy you. He would have forced you to marry him. He would havetouchedyou!” My voice reaches across the patio and carries on the breeze out to the ocean, my anger more violent than the sea. “He would have raped you, degraded you. And you want to show himmercy?”

“Stop,” she pleads, her voice hiccupping as tears pour down her face.

“You would forgive himall that, even knowing what sort of a monster he is? If it’s not you, Luna, it’s another girl. This iswhat he does!”

“Stop!”She screams, covering her ears with her hands.

Cesar echoes her sentiment, then steps forward and steers Luna away by the elbow. She’s had enough.

“He’ll stay strung up here until you understand what sort of a creature he is. And then, until he takes his last breath,” I call after her as she and Cesar walk across the lawn to the edge of the cliff. I give Nestor a look of disgust, before I shake my head and turn to walk back into the house.

I need a stiff drink to work out the knots in my shoulder and the tension thrumming through my body. I no longer know what I’m doing. In a past life, I would have put a bullet in his head and been done with Nestor. Now it’s like I have something to prove. To myself. To Luna. To everyone who whispers the name ‘Attila’ in the halls and the alleyways and the places in-between.

Attila the Hunter.

They don’t call me Attila the Hunter for nothing.

I earnt the moniker that’s put fear in every man that crosses my path. Every single man except Nestor Gamboa. He’s the exception. Even knowing that she’s in my care, he dared to touch her. He dared to take her from me. That’s an offence punishable by death. And I aim to collect on his retribution.

Caleph and Dante are standing in the living room when I step inside and go straight for the liquor cabinet. The place looks well and truly trashed, riddled with bullets and overturned furniture.

Both men stop talking and turn to watch me as I wrap my hand around the decanter. I’m pouring the liquid into a glass when the shot rings out. One shot. A deafening echo that rings through the house like an explosion. But it came from outside. From the patio.

Luna.

My mind swirls, my hand shakes, and I knock over the bottle in my haste to run outside.

46

LUNA

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