Page 39 of Beautifully Shattered (Secrets & Scars #3)
“I think I just puked and swallowed it again, Karl. Because this shit you’re saying is fucking sick.” Abbey sighs, finally turning to face me. “Can you believe this?”
I shake my head, but it’s not his words I can’t believe. It’s this woman before me. It’s like she’s become another person.
Not that I don’t like it, but fuck, now I know pissing her off too much could have some dire fucking consequences for me.
“Where is your wife?” Jols asks, snapping me out of it, and I realise I’ve been staring at Abbey like a dumb fuck for way too long.
“She bolted when she learned the truth about Daniel and Abbey,” Karl rushes out, his face screwing up in pain.
“So, Elizabeth didn’t know Daniel and I were cousins?” Abbey presses, and Karl shakes his head.
“I had to tell her before the ceremony at the chapel. She slapped my face and fucking fled. I haven’t seen her since. ”
“Where’s Daniel?” Abbey asks, lifting the gun at Karl’s head again.
“I don’t know. He’s with his mate Donny and his uncle. But I don’t know where they are.”
Abbey nods. “What about your stepdaddy?” she curls her lip. “You know where Banes is?”
Karl shakes his head. “No. He has hideouts all across the state, but I don’t know where a single one is aside from the commune, which you bastards destroyed.”
Karl gestures weakly to me and JD as Abbey turns to face me, lowering the gun from Karl’s face.
“I really feel like a big, hot bonfire.”
My lips twitch. “A really big one?”
She nods. “Ginormous.”
JD chuckles, turning to leave the room, and calling over his shoulder, “On it.”
Abbey returns her attention back to Karl.
“My baby is dead because of you and your fucked-up cult.” Her head tilts, her words laced with venom. “So naturally, you have to die too.”
“Wait, no. Please.”
Abbey rolls her eyes and turns back to me.
“I think I also need a nail gun.”
I smirk. “A fucking nail gun, Angel?”
“Yep.”
Snickering, Jols walks past, “Leave that to me.”
Karl spends the next ten minutes calling out to us from the living room as we ransack the house, looking for anything that might lead us to Daniel or Banes, but we come up empty .
JD returns with several fuel cans, and a few of the Marx security help him douse the inside of the house, while Jols produces the nail gun for Abbey.
“I’m almost scared to know why you want this.” Jols grins, and Abbey shrugs.
“Didn’t Jesus die on the cross?” Abbey asks, and when both Jols and I look at her in confusion, she points down the hallway to where a huge macrame seven-foot cross hangs on the wall at the end.
A slow smirk spreads my lips as I lock eyes with my wife.
“I’ll get the dead man walking.”
Riggs joins me in dragging Karl out into the hallway as he begs for his life, and we hold him up to the wall, positioning him on the cross as Abbey teaches herself how to use a nail gun, and proceeds to nail Karl’s limbs to the wall.
It takes considerably more nails than it took for Jesus, given the size of them, but by the time she’s done, Karl has pissed and puked and rivers of blood trickle from him in the close to one hundred nails Abbey pinned him with.
When she’s done, she stands back and admires her work.
“I don’t know, Karl. Maybe I should have been an artist.”
All Karl can do is blubber incoherently, and she turns her back and walks to the front door.
We fall in behind her, with JD the last one out, drizzling petrol straight down the hallway to the open front door, before tossing the canister into the living room off to the side.
“I like your work, Abs.” JD grins, and she nods like they’re talking about a batch of fucking cookies instead of a man nailed to a cross. “You wanna do the honours?” He holds out a box of matches, and Abbey takes it, not even hesitating to strike the match.
Riggs and his men retreat to the street, and JD and Jols start walking to the car, but I stay planted at my wife’s back, watching her end yet another life.
Holding up the match, she giggles and calls sweetly to Karl.
“See you in Hell, Uncle.”
Then she tosses the match inside.
Knowing what’s about to happen, I hook my arm around her waist and yank her back with me just as the hallway goes up in a whoosh of flames. A second later, Karl’s blood-curdling screams echo from the house.
“I heard once that burning to death is the most painful way to die,” Abbey mutters as I set her down, her big doe eyes meeting mine.
“I’ve heard that too.”
She nods and starts walking. “Good.”
As we reach the end of the path, the neighbours come bursting out of their house, eyes wide as they spot the smoke billowing up. I’m fucking shocked they didn’t hear the gunshots.
“Oh my goodness!” the woman shrieks, and the man beside her fumbles with his phone.
“Hurry to the car, Angel.” I pat her leather-clad arse, and she throws a glance over her shoulder at me before hurrying forward.
Drawing my gun, I focus on the neighbours.
“Get the fuck back inside! You didn’t see anything! Mind your own fucking business! ”
They gasp as I aim the gun at them, squeals flying from the woman as they both duck, like that will save them, scrambling back inside and slamming the door shut behind them.