Page 46 of Vicious Queen (Princes of Devil's Creek 2)

And my family needed me.

Bastian parked in front of the abandoned apartment complex our family owned and stared up at the building. “I’m only okay with this because it will protect Alex.” He snapped his head to me, his jaw set hard. “It’s a means to an end.”

I nodded.

“I’m not spending all night here.” He turned off the engine and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Marcello has to leave for a few hours to work with Alpha Command.” He pushed open the car door, his eyes on me. “We can’t leave Alex with the guards.”

Luca was waiting for us in the apartment. Beforehand, he met with the Mafia families who dragged the men back to Beacon Bay for us.

“We trained the guards to protect her,” I pointed out. “That’s why we pay them so well.”

He shoved a hand through his dark brown hair and sighed. “Just make it quick. Okay? I’m fucking tired and want to pass out when we get home. And I want to do that with Alex naked and riding my dick.”

Just the thought of her on top of my brother, those big tits bouncing in his face, made my cock twitch. I loved watching her with my brothers. It was such a fucking turn-on to see her gain pleasure from other men. Each of them gave her something different, something the other couldn’t. That was the reason our arrangement worked so well.

“Yeah, whatever.” I opened the door, one foot out of the car. “This won’t take long.”

We hopped out of Bastian’s Porsche and headed into the building. No one had lived here in years. It was on the lower class side of Beacon Bay, where gangs like The Serpents ran crews. There was a lot of crime in this part of the town, which made our criminal activities seem less prevalent.

The four of us chose this place because it was close to home, easy for us to access in an emergency. We hadn’t intended to use the safe house to torture and kill people. But it served its purpose.

As I walked up the stairs beside Bastian, I breathed in the scent of bleach that lingered in the air. The entire place smelled sterile, clean. If these walls could talk, you would hear the screams of hundreds of men. Their ghosts probably lingered within these halls, trapped here for all of eternity.

I smiled at the thought.

I didn’t kill good people. No, I chose men who deserved to die. Men who raped women, hurt children, killed people, and did very bad things that earned them a special place in Hell. And I was more than happy to send them on their merry way.

We ascended the stairs in silence. Bastian’s demeanor shifted every time we walked into this building. He couldn’t comprehend why I had to do this. Why the need to kill surged through my veins, the nagging voice in my mind telling me to scratch the itch.

Even as children, I felt this bond with Bastian, and he with me. I’d never felt that with another person, not until we became Salvatores. My brothers didn’t understand my urges, but they still accepted me.

As I opened the last door on the left, my nose tipped up at the delicious scent of their fear. That was the best part about taking a life. It wasn’t the stench of their blood I craved most. I enjoyed putting the fear of the Devil in them. Taking a life gave me power, control, something I needed in order to survive.

Inside what used to be the living room of the apartment, Luca had four men strapped to the tables. Luca sat in the chair by the window and smoked a cigar. He grinned at me as the smoke billowed around his head. Just as sadistic as me, Luca enjoyed watching me in action. We were both monsters, each with a sick desire to hurt people.

The men were conscious, struggling against the restraints binding them to the tables. It excited me but also annoyed me to see them awake. I enjoyed the look in a man’s eyes when he first realized there was no escape. That the gods had already handed down his fate.

Luca rested his Ferragamo boot on his knee, his eyes fixed on me. “We’ll have more trash to dispose of by the end of the week. The Five Families are locating the rest of these scumbags.” He tapped the ash of his cigar in the tray beside him. “Unfortunately, some of the higher ups have fled to Russia. We’ll have to bide our time and see if they return to the States.”

“This should be enough to send a message to the bosses,” Bastian commented, moving across the room past the tables to stand beside Luca’s chair.

Luca’s blue eyes flickered with the same madness as mine. “I look forward to sending their heads back in boxes.” He took a puff from the cigar and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I had new boxes made for the occasion.”

Bastian shook his head, disgusted by the idea. He didn’t enjoy it the same as Luca and me. For him, murder was a necessary evil.

“The boxes say property of the Salvatores on the top.” Luca tipped his head back and laughed, the smoke gathering in front of his face. “Silk lined, too. Very nice. I think Konstantin Volkov will like them. They’ll make a nice souvenir.”

“You need fucking help.” Bastian dropped into the chair beside Luca. He leaned forward to grab a cigar from the humidor, unable to look at either of us. “Both of you are sick.”

I rubbed my hands together, salivating over my next kills. The walls, floor, and ceiling had plastic tarps taped down to make it easier to clean up later. Bastian often joked that the place looked like Dexter’s kill room. But Dexter had nothing on me.

I got to work organizing the collection of weapons Luca had laid out for me on the kitchen island.

Should I start with the pliers?

Maybe a scalpel?

I glanced over at each of the men and contemplated which method of torture to use on each of them. All of them had a hand in Alex almost getting raped. They helped plan the attack at The Mansion that could have gotten all of us killed. Alex wouldn’t be on theIl Circowebsite if they hadn’t put her up for auction. And since we couldn’t get to the boss of the family, we had to take it out on his men.

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