Page 147 of Betrayed in the Dark
“You’re the one who told me to go through with this whole thing!” Alastor shouts. “You told me that if I married Madeleine, then you would make me CEO of the fucking company!”
“But I didn’t know—”
“You knew, old man!” Alastor’s face reddens, his neck veins bulging. “You knew everything. In fact, you wanted to have Eli killed after the wedding!”
I arch a brow. “That’s news to me.”
Adolfo visibly swallows. “We weren’t going to follow through with it. It was merely an idea.”
“An idea that has guaranteed your death,” Leo tells him, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Can’t we come to an arrangement?” Adolfo asks, looking frantically among us.
“The arrangement is,” I start. “You two will die. And I will live out the rest of my life with Madeleine in peace, knowing you will never be able to hurt her again.”
“But we can—”
“Put the tape back on their mouths,” I tell Alex and Mauro, who do just that. “I’ve heard enough.”
Walking behind Alastor, I rip his shirt right down the middle, exposing his bare back. “When I was taken, they used to burn my back for fun. They would rub an alcohol wipe across my skin and then light a match and drop it. My screams would echo against the walls. It was the kind of pain that no one should ever experience. But they didn’t just do it once.” I shake my head, my mind reliving those memories. “They would put the fire out and wait and then do it over again. It was a vicious cycle that never ended.” I step toward the back of Adolfo and rip his shirt down the middle, too. “I was maybe only seconds away from dying when I was finally freed.”
Mauro comes to my side with a bottle of Macallan in his hands, unscrewing the cap. I step back to look at the two sons of bitches hanging from their chains. They won’t last long with what we’re about to do to them.
But I’ll enjoy every second of it.
For Madeleine.
For our unborn child.
For my comrades.
I will get our revenge.
“So, now, that’s exactly what we’re going to do to the two of you,” I state matter-of-factly.
The two of them begin wriggling against the chains, futilely fighting to free themselves as Mauro douses their backs in thewhiskey. Fear reeks in the air around them as they mumble pleas against the tape.
“Sorry, we don’t have wipes to use, so the fire will probably be a little unmanageable,” I tell them as Leo and I both light a match. “Say hi to the devil for me.” I toss my match against Alastor’s back and watch as flames engulf him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Leo do the same to Adolfo.
The two of them scream out in agony against the tape as the smell of burning flesh fills the room. Alex stands by with a fire extinguisher in his hands, ready for us to repeat the process over and over again until, eventually, they take their last dying breaths.
And it brings me comfort to know that the villains of my wife’s story will no longer walk this Earth.
Chapter thirty-three
Madeleine
ONE MONTH LATER
Everything feels right in the world.
It’s as if I can breathe for the first time in over a year. To prove it to myself, I take a deep breath, inhaling the scents of all the delicious food before me.
Eli’s arm drapes across the back of my chair, and he presses a kiss to my shoulder, right over the scar from my bullet wound.
Scarlett sits beside me, with Leo on her other side. The two of them are wrapped up in each other, appearing just as in love with one another as they were years ago.
My mom is at one end of the table, smiling with a gleam in her eye as she looks around at everyone.
