Page 97 of Thorns of Lust
Rage boiled in the pit of my stomach. The baby was innocent. This fucked up arrangement of their parents shouldn’t be for the baby to pay.
My eyes roamed the room until they landed on my old man’s gun. The same gun that executed my mother. I reached for it, gripping its handle. I’d learned to shoot by seven, my training starting shortly after my mama’s death.
“Get off her, Papa.”
He whipped around to look at me, his eyes unfocused. He was drunk as a motherfucker. Alcohol and whores were his coping mechanism since mama died.
“You want to fuck her too?”
His pants were unbuttoned, his dick swinging around like a limp hot dog.
I didn’t think; I just reacted, pulling the trigger without an ounce of hesitancy.
Bang.
The bullet hit him in the heart, the small red dot swelling by the second. He slammed back onto the bed, on top of Pixie. His hands came to his chest, over the wound, as he struggled to breathe.
I stepped toward him, my disgust growing with each step. This was what he had been doing since killing Mama. Raping women, young and old, willing and unwilling, whores and virgins. It didn’t matter which one Pixie was. She fought against him, but he refused to back off.
Papa’s eyes bulged out of his head with each second that death neared. He was my flesh and blood, but it didn’t absolve him of his sins. His fear fed into my racing blood, but I felt no remorse as I watched the life drain from his eyes.
Ironic really.
Both of my parents were executed with the same gun.
By a family member.
It didn’t bode well for our future. Fucked up family dynamics. It didn’t matter though as long as my sister and Tatiana survived it all.
Everyone around the Konstantin family ended up dead. Isla had the best odds of surviving, keeping her mother’s last name.
Isla was innocent. Gentle. Kind.
Unlike the rest of us. We breathed and cycled the violence. Over and over again.
I smelled the roses before I even heard her heels clicking against the marble floors. Reason warned me to put some distance between the blonde angel and myself. I didn’t heed it. It’d be like lassoing the current and wind, a losing battle.
We were like gasoline and fire, bound to create a raging inferno. Together we could burn this world to ash.
Did it stop me?
Fuck, no. Let the world burn, as long as I had her with me. I had given her up once. Never again although I knew it wouldn’t end well.
The world will burn when she learns the truth, my conscience whispered. Tatiana wasn't the forgive and forget type. She was the queen that would get even and smile while she watched the villain bleed.
And still I was unable to keep away. With the chip somewhere out there and the danger coming after her, I had to wed her and quickly. With my last name attached to her, she’d be under the protection of the Thorns of Omertà too.
The door swung open and Tatiana walked in, swaying her hips like she was intent on seducing me. Moot point. All she had to do was look at me and mission accomplished.
“What was that bullshit about ‘wait for me’ and then I don’t even hear from you again,” she greeted me, her tone bored but daggers flashed in her eyes.
“Miss Nikolaev, how nice to see you,” I greeted her. My eyes traveled over her Valentino, or was it Chanel, black dress. She really had to give up on all that black. She looked great in it but the significance of mourning was getting goddamn old. The only man she should be thinking of was me.
“Jackass,” she muttered.
“Do you own any other color besides black?” I questioned her, ignoring her insults. I’d seen her in pink and preferred her in happy colors.
She rolled her eyes as she was about to sit across from my desk, but I tsked, clicking my tongue, stopping her. I patted a spot in front of me.
