Page 27 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

By the time I got back to my room, it was after nine p.m. It had taken Poe and me almost three hours to do the grocery shopping, mostly because I’d insisted we go to the farmers market for produce afterwards.

But also, we bought a lot of food.

I’d cooked for a crowd in culinary school, but those had been one-offs, special events and showcases that highlighted our budding skills.

Cooking for three huge men day in and day out was a monumental task, especially since my specialty was desserts, like my dad, and I’d spent an hour in the kitchen before we’d left, asking the Butchers questions about what they liked to eat, what they hated, and whether they had any allergies.

Well, I’d asked Poe and Remy. Bram had left after five minutes, saying he didn’t care what I cooked as long as the food was edible.

Once I’d figured out what they liked to eat and what was off the table, I’d created a list of menus for the week, then a list of associated ingredients.

The entire exercise had resulted in a massive food shopping spree that had cost over six hundred dollars.

The total had made me slightly nauseous, but Poe didn’t bat an eye when he’d paid.

Back at the loft, I’d helped put everything away, getting the lay of the land in the kitchen and stocking the two refrigerators with all the new food.

I was going to make lasagna as my first meal for the Butchers, but Poe and Remy had insisted on ordering pizza and wings, and I’d been too exhausted to argue.

We’d eaten at the iron and glass table on the balcony, the city spread out below us in the waning summer sun, and it hadn’t totally sucked.

Still, I was happy to be alone again. The loft was still unfamiliar, not to mention my three new roommates, and I was ready to let my guard down in the privacy of my room.

I took a shower and got into my matching pajamas, a silky pink-striped short and tank set I’d bought using my Lushberry discount at the start of summer, and sat down at my computer.

I looked up at the camera, glad the desk against one wall was right below it and out of range.

I’d planned to keep the door to my balcony — the one I shared with Bram — locked, but it was stuffy after my shower, so I’d finally relented and opened it.

Now a cool breeze blew in from outside, the minimal traffic in Blackwell Falls nothing but a faint hum under the whisper of trees from the preserve at the end of the road.

I logged my new location on my VPN, then opened YouTube. It only took a few seconds to navigate to the channel I knew like the back of my hand.

I scrolled the videos, clocking the titles of the two new ones that had been added since I’d last checked the night of the Hunt: “Why Women Want to Be Taught A Lesson” and “I Showed Her Why She Can’t Live Without Me.”

Once upon a time, titles like these had made my stomach turn, but I was way past that now. The Ethan Todd channel had become the closest thing I had to a YouTube home.

And yeah, I knew how sick that sounded.

I put in my earbuds and started the first video.

On one half of the screen, a pretty woman in her thirties, obviously in her car, started talking to the camera.

On the other side of the screen, Ethan Todd, host of the Ethan Todd channel, watched as the woman talked about wanting a man who was a partner, a man who would do his share and make her feel protected and cherished, who would just “pick up after himself and help with the kids for fuck’s sake. ”

Her side of the screen froze as Ethan started editorializing, talking about how it was actually sad that she was confused, that she didn’t understand that the “partnership” in the male/female dynamic wasn’t a partnership at all — it was a hierarchy with the man on top and the woman underneath.

Women like this one just didn’t get that the reason they couldn’t find someone was because they didn’t know their designated place in the relationship.

Which was why it was up to men to teach them.

Nothing crazy, just put these women in their place, because deep down, they wanted to be put in their place. They wanted a man, right? They wanted someone to take care of them, to protect them, right?

Well, they couldn’t have their cake and eat it too. They couldn’t expect a man to cherish and protect them while also being beta cucks who let their women boss them around.

It was laughable really, the way these women didn’t get something so simple: if they wanted a strong man, he was going to be strong everywhere, all the time.

And being strong meant being in charge. It meant being the boss.

I scrolled through the comments.

These 304s are as dumb as they are used up.

My woman knows who’s in charge in my house and she likes it.

Don’t be a simp for women like this, bros.

The usual.

I paused the video, reported it for hateful and disparaging content, then opened my encrypted messaging service on my phone.

I only used it to talk to the group of women I’d met through the Ethan Todd channel, and I saw that the chat was hopping: over thirty new notifications since I’d logged on the night before the Hunt.

They were talking about the latest videos, dissecting Ethan Todd’s logic, using facts to dismantle his arguments in a way that would have been pointless online. The men who listened to that crap couldn’t be reasoned with, and definitely not by a woman.

Jslittlesis: Another day, another fucked-up message from the incelosphere.

I used the username because it made me feel closer to June. She might have been gone, but I’d always be her little sister.

I heard June’s laughter in my head. You weren’t saying that back when I was bossing you around.

It was true, but how could I have known that one day I would give literally anything to have one more day of being bossed around by June?

Nat8965: You’re back!

Jslittlesis: Yeah, sorry. Picked up an extra shift at work.

Fuzzywuzzy: Have you seen the latest?

Jslittlesis: Unfortunately.

Nat8965: Sick bastard.

Jslittlesis: I assume you reported?

Fuzzywuzzy: As soon as we saw it. You?

Jslittlesis: Yep, for all the good it will do.

The platform that hosted the Ethan Todd channel had never, not once in all the times we’d reported his videos, taken action against them.

Nat8965: Ugh. This sucks.

Jslittlesis: Any word on the investigation?

Fuzzywuzzy: The usual.

Jslittlesis: I’m not at liberty to comment on active investigations?

Fuzzywuzzy: That’s the one.

I sat back in my chair. Ethan Todd had a long and infamous past, from MMA fighter to reality-TV-show contestant to podcast star. But he was more than the poster boy for toxic masculinity: rumor had it, he was under investigation for sexual assault and sex trafficking.

He’d also been a hero to Chris, June’s boyfriend, in the months before he’d murdered my sister.

Nat8965: I wish someone would do the world a favor and shut his mouth for good.

I stared at the words on the screen. They seemed disconnected from me, like I was reading them in a novel even though “someone” had tried to do the world a favor.

Me.

Jslittlesis: He has security.

It wasn’t something I’d expected when I’d gone to the Marquis Hotel in the city six months earlier. I’d read that Ethan Todd would be there — the keynote speaker of course — for some kind of manosphere conference.

Fuzzywuzzy: Because of course he does.

Nat8965: Still. Someone shot JFK FFS.

It wasn’t as easy now. There were cameras. Cell phones. There was DNA and advanced ballistics testing.

Fuzzywuzzy: JFK wasn’t surrounded by cell phones and cameras 24/7.

Exactly. I’d scoped it all out before going to the Marquis, checking for cameras on the building outside and on surrounding buildings, mapping the streets around the hotel for unexpected exits.

Nat8965: This blows.

Jslittlesis: Agreed.

No one knew how much it sucked more than me. Because I’d actually taken a shot at Ethan Todd outside the Marquis a few months before.

Jslittlesis: Have to sign out. Might be a bit scarce for a while. Stay safe.

I put down my phone and looked at my computer, Ethan Todd frozen mid-tirade, the woman on the other side of the screen staring into the camera on her phone.

I pressed play.

“… these dumb bitches obviously don’t get it, which is why it’s up to us to teach them a lesson about who’s in charge.”

“Who’s that?”

I jumped, startled, and turned to find Remy standing right behind me, staring at my computer screen.