Page 6 of Diamond Desire

“He’s not a problem for you anymore.” She whispered as a boy I knew too, hurried into the room behind her, his blue eyes wide as he stared around at everything.

Like the blood. Lots and lots of blood.

“Maggie.” He whispered. “What happened?”

“He was hurting her, Ford – he was…” Maggie shook her head, unable to say the words that we both knew we were true. “He was doing unforgiveable things, and I stopped him. That was that.”

Ford hovered in the doorway, not that much older than me, yet wearing the same expression I often wore.

One that told of a lifetime of darkness even before you were old.

“Where’s your gun? We should blame her for killing grandad – they won’t kill a kid.” Ford snapped, as he shrugged off his shock and stormed into the room, shutting the door behind him. “Dad heard the shooting. He’s going to come and see what happened, and you might be in trouble if we don’t lie.”

Maggie didn’t look away from me or lose her smile as she waved toward the corner of the almost empty room, and the gun she’d saved me with that was now sitting on the table.

The one her filthy and twisted brother had wanted to blame me for using…

He truly was a Montana man. Just like all the others.

He was a monster, too.

“I’ll deal with dad.” Maggie refused his idea. “I’ll tell him the truth and I’ll bear the responsibility for it because I don’t regret it and it was the right thing to do.”

I grabbed her outstretched hand, letting her lift me to my feet from the filthy mattress that was my bed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.” She breathed, as she kept smiling and the whole world drifted away until there was nothing else left inside of it but me and her. “But you’re okay now, Cassie. I promise you’re okay.”

I woke up with a gasp, cursing myself for having fallen asleep in the armchair when I knew better. Sleeping was something that people with too much time on their hands couldtake part in, and I was busy. Far too busy. I had no time for nightmares. No time for anything but the plan and finishing what I had started far too many years ago.

Get up, Cass. Get up and go outside – you need fresh air. Find your pills and take them on a walk or something.

Ignoring the cursed woman in my head, I headed into the kitchen of whatever random home my brother had been using as his base, pretending I wasn’t burning with the urge to be sick. Sickness was a weakness, but I’d been weaker lately and had been slipping up. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the cursed woman and her ridiculous thoughts.Don’t kill Misha. Don’t kill Lincoln. Don’t hurt Maggie.Blah, blah, blah. The list went on and on as she claimed all the rules she set were unbreakable. The things she wanted done, the people she wanted spared, had to be left. They had to be allowed to continue doing the same depraving things that all men did to my Maggie.

My angel.

Maggie had been haunting my dreams a lot lately. Worse than normal. I wasn’t sure why she wouldn’t leave me alone, but there was nothing I could do about it. I’d seen her again and again like a nightmare on repeat in my brain for years after her first death, and now she was back again. I presumed the nightmares would stop when I decided to let her live this time, but they only got more frequent and the urge to make her regret her betrayals against me was becoming harder to ignore.

That’s because you need your meds. You’re supposed to take your meds to make things okay.

The cursed woman was wrong. Things were okay even if I felt sick because Maggie was here. She was stunningly beautiful, like always, and so perfect. So, so, perfect. I enjoyed seeing her, especially when it was in person, and she smiled at me and seemed to hold none of the anger she’d had in her past life.

Old Maggie had got mad when she realized what I was doing for her – she’d told me off for killing the evil of the world and had betrayed me and ordered me far away to a place that was cold, and she never visited. But the new Maggie wasn’t betraying me this time. She had no interest in the man who ruined her life for the first time beyond calling him family. And I didn’t mind that. Maggie needed family for now until I could be all the family she needed. But Malone was doing a good enough job of it until I could do it all because he had saved her from death all those years ago. He had brought her back to me when her mother had died, and my foolish brother had acted without my consent to harm her.

John hadn’t known Maggie was mine when he did it. He hadn’t even known I was still alive. But he figured it out soon enough when I killed dozens of his soldiers in retaliation and then sent them in to slaughter his child too. I didn’t like killing children, but sometimes I had to make a point.

Cass, I told you to stop thinking about that – you need to stop remembering all the darkness and concentrate. Take the pills in your purse and concentrate!

Ignoring the woman, I remained standing in the kitchen, watching the way the Vice Kings outside on the driveway hurried to get some vans and weapons ready to go, as I continued my trip down memory lane that I wasn’t a willing passenger on.

The fool brother of mine had thought it had been random at first all those years ago. He thought the attack had been from a rival gang, but it hadn’t just been that. It had been me – me reminding him why I was always going to do what needed to be done to keep my Maggie safe, even if it meant working against him. It was me reminding him I was not to be messed with ever again.

He got a spare pass to live because I liked John. He had been kind to me when he was little.

He hadn’t sold me off like our father had.

John had used it to his advantage, though. Like with everything, he had spun the attack to his benefit and made a large amount of money. He’d even gained power from The Company through it. Turned out the not so secret organisation enjoyed being sold children that they could use as soldiers. Children they could break and train over and over again until they were ready to do whatever it took like the perfectly controlled machines they were.

Children that would grow up to be lethal adults without an ounce of emotion inside their bones except loyalty to The Company and its causes.