Page 9 of Vengeful Ties

First, I made sure I had a clear view of all three vehicles—each one had an explosive attached—so I could act quickly. When the time was right, I pulled the trigger in quick succession and smiled with ominous delight as they jolted, and buckled forward as if they’d been hit in the rear before detonating in a cloud of orange decay.

I felt the flashback, the heatwave caressing my cool skin and I relished in it.

The explosion was huge and even rocked the earth with its destruction. That was on account of half of the explosive shit they already had on top of the rigs that I had planted before the vehicles left their houses to head for the docks to collect the shipment. I knew where each driver lived. Where each car was stored and every dock and airport we had a hand in controlling. I made it my mission all those years ago to undermine Luigi at every turn. I’d be the phantom he never saw coming and the thrill of that had me teasing my constricted breasts against the dirt, gaining friction for my covered nipples as the veins of arousal heated my blood.

There was only one thing I wanted from this silent war, and it was my father’s sanity.

He broke something in me that night, something no little girl should ever have stolen. He traumatized me and raped my lucidity with nothing but atrocious horrors.

For a moment, I just lay there, staring into the flames, and wondered what it would be like if they engulfed me. After such vivid thoughts, my panties grew wet from the delusion. It was the only way I could cope with the darkness. By living in it and making a friend there instead of fighting an enemy… fighting myself.

The pain my father unleashed that day did nothing but create a carnal and violent creature that wanted to destroy everything in its path. I saw beauty and wanted to rip it to shreds and paint it black.

It created a monster that thirsted for death and rot, more than it thirsted for water or unpolluted air.

I blinked away my haze. Once I was happy with my work, I packed away my sniper rifle, hefted the bag that contained it over my shoulder, then stalked back to the car that waited for me.

My 1969 Chevvy Impala sat idle behind thick brush that sprouted from the ground with a vengeance and arched in a way nobody would have believed something had hid behind it.

She made the perfect chameleon, just like me.

When I got in, I started the engine, cranked the stereo, and put my foot on the gas, tearing out of there with a smirk of victory. One that rivaled Luigi’s down in that basement when he slit my best friend’s throat.

There were no games of mercy when it came to wicked men.

I didn’t want to just kill my father, I wanted to destroy him for what he did to me.

I vowed once that I would tear down my father’s empire and I would.

I would savage it, shred it apart, and burn it to ash, just so I could later swoop in and make it whole again.

With me as their leader.

Their Queen Of Ruin.

5

Alessia

—Twenty-Two Years Old—

“I Did Something Bad” - Taylor Swift

“Repeat that?” I asked incredulously from my seat in the dingy little office my father scarcely left nowadays. The nerve of this man never ceased to amaze me and yet, I still found myself sitting before him fighting to keep my jaw from hitting the ground at the absurdity of his request.

Hisdemand.

Luigi Black stared at me from behind his opulent desk, with those dark pools that had stared at me one too many times over the years. I wanted to remove them from his damn skull, examine them just to see if the same visions haunted him as they had me.

The office was darkened, with no windows to offer even a slither of light. Years ago, this room was lined with windows that bordered the back woods to our property. As a child, it would be my favorite place to come. I’d sit in his chair for hours, overlooking his empire. Watching as his men did their rounds of the property.

On grounds so large, when I was really little, I would often see myself lost too. Nothing could touch me, even when I felt so little and so unseen, I felt like a queen towering above it all. He’d come and find me, stand at my back with a huge smile of pride on his face, and place his too-large hand upon my little dreamer’s shoulder. I’d smile back at him, finally feeling his acceptance. He’d allowed me my moment of delusion before he popped my bubble with his twelve-inch blade and reminded me that all of this would never be mine.

Now, he worked from a box, too paranoid to even look through a simple pane of glass in fear somebody would shoot him through it. I couldn’t blame him really, not with the parasite I had planted into his mind. The little seed grew and bloomed as each day passed and I relished in the knowledge I was the one to put it there.

Luigi Black was now half the man he used to be. Being the king sat heavily on his shoulders and the toll was more than beginning to show. He used to be so handsome, so full of life that even with the darkness behind those complexities of his, people couldn’t help but be drawn to the danger that exuded from him and all that he promised.

That, and the dark, dark color of his eyes, were pretty much the only thing we had in common. We both carried an air of intimidation, and that was without even trying.

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