Page 54 of Seven Graves

The Executioner

I don’t know how to feel, emotionally.

Seven’s cleaned my bodies, we’ve buried one, dumped another, and I know that she’s well aware of what I’m capable of, but…the way she looked at me once my red wore off and I saw her watching me…

She just helped me kill a man and witnessed me in my high.

And that wasn’t even close to what she already knows I’ll do under normal circumstances.

Between that and the fact that I all but forced her to be part of it—I wasn’t fucking thinking rationally.

To be fair, I hardly am the majority of the time, but who the fuck is keeping score?

We’ve officially seen each other at our lowest. And I went and said something so ridiculously stupid that I wanna go back, rewind, and just light Zane O’Dell up like a fucking Christmas tree just to have another chance at redeeming myself.

You look sexy in rival blood? Could you be any more fucking clueless?

But that’s the truth. Isn’t it? I am clueless.

I have no idea what to do with emotion anymore.

I was so happy to see her alive and aside from her need for a hot bath.

.. unscathed . I guess I thought we could fall right back into what we know, and I make some idiotic comment that sends her back home, where we fit.

Where we’re comfortable. That strange place that we somehow understand each other.

I just failed at that. And the way she just asked me how many were left on my list…

fucking terrifies me. She’s gonna run, I know it.

I feel it . And I don’t know how to get her to stay.

I can’t ask her to. I don’t deserve that. But fuck, I wanna keep her.

“I think I’d keep you.”

“I’d keep you too.”

This has changed everything. She might have meant everything she never said before they took her from that house.

But the way she feels in my arms while I’m carrying her, bridal-style up to the main floor…

it feels a lot like disconnect. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s the shock of what just happened and the fact that she spent half a day as a prisoner in a disgusting hovel.

But I know better. Deep down, I fucking know better.

A few of her clients sat at the bottom of the main staircase, one of them being Simon as I approached with her and we took in the aftermath of our assault on the compound.

There was blood and bodies scattered everywhere.

Glass and broken pieces of marble and furniture.

There’s no tiptoeing through that in bare feet.

Seven met eyes with the gang as they all stood, and her brows knotted.

“What the fuck?” she breathed, utterly astonished.

“I made a few calls.”

Simon waddled forward and gave her a hard onceover before nodding. “Shamrock say trouble.” A guy that went by the name ‘Leach’, for reasons I’d rather not know, gave her a mock salute and a smirk.

“You covered our asses. Seemed wrong not to help when you needed it.”

She turned her face to look up at me, her lower lip quivering. “You did this for me?” I felt a lump in my throat and decided I wasn’t gonna look like a pussy in front of the men that just helped me kill dozens of assholes. I tightened my mouth and nodded my head.

“I told,” Simon added. “ Good man.”

I’d give my left nut to read her mind right now. She swiped away a tear and faced them again. “Thank you…all of you.”

Miguel appeared at the top of the staircase and gestured towards his right. “Gamer Guru is itchin’ to take ‘em out, ese …what you wanna do with these two up here?”

“Tell him to come down here and bring Bridget. We’re gettin’ the girls outta the house.” He jogged back to where they were holding Pop and Nolan, and I turned towards the others. “Are the fireworks ready?”

“Fireworks?” Seven asked.

Leach and his couple of men smiled, the former rubbing his hands together in excitement. “Rigged all the way around and straight through. They’ll see it in the next fuckin’ county.”

“You’re blowing it up?” She turned in my arms just as Declan came down the stairs, carrying Bridget. “I thought…”

“You’ve cleaned enough, Viper. Let us clean for you this time.”

She studied me for a long moment, and all I wanna do right now is kiss her.

We’re probably both impossible to read right this second, but the threat of not making it out alive is gone.

There’s already a group of us on the way to gut the fuckers watching her house.

Her fingertips were caked with drying blood, and she brushed them over my lip ring, eyeing my mouth before she all but fucked my already spinning head up, and dropped her hand, looking away.

“Get me outta here.”

She’s second guessing it. Fuck.

Simon glanced at me with a look that said he knows I’ve got it bad, and I’m pretty fucked. We both dismissed it in the name of unspoken bro-code, and I turned and followed Declan out of the house. Bridget looked over his shoulder at us both.

“Malek…”

“Yeah?”

Bridget’s looking really heavy. It can’t mean anything good. She just spent my whole bullshit attempt at a heroic rescue in that room with Pops. I’m afraid to hear whatever is about to come outta her mouth. Her face says enough.

“Jonas—Jonas, I think, was tellin’ the truth for once in his fucking life. Daddy knew what they were gonna do with me after this marriage. He knew Finn was in leagues with them, too. And I think he knows you killed Conor.”

Pretty sure he knew that when he asked me about his whereabouts, but again…

who’s keeping score? But something doesn’t add up for me.

I was already pissed about his notion to merge, and using Bridget to do it, but Pop knew that.

I made it more clear at the diner. He wanted better for Bridget, or so it seemed.

He wouldn’t have pushed ahead with any of this if he truly knew Jonas had plans to break her.

That was never part of his plan. There’s no way.

And to outright tell Bridge that he knew all along Finn was dirty, but still sit him at his right?

There’s a piece of this puzzle missing here and none of it is clear to me right now.

I don’t even know where to start putting it together.

“Dec?” I started, catching up to his side.

His face is weary and hard to read. “Talk to me.” Seven tried her best to look anything but curious, but I know she’s taking in every word.

It’s what she does, I’ve come to realize.

She doesn’t ask questions, but it doesn’t stop her from harping on it all.

That’s obvious just by the way she remembered, in great detail, everything about Braughton’s body.

“I dunno, mate. He’s not himself. He doesn’t seem right, and not because any of the boys did anything to him. He’s spotless and tied to a chair. There’s somethin’ off about him, Mal. It sounded like—”

“Like goodbye ,” Bridget finished. “It sounded like he wants to fucking die, Malek. I don’t believe a word.”

And she knows the softer side of him best.

I was silent as we carried them past the wood line to where our cars were hidden in the cut.

I set Seven down and popped the trunk to the Nova, pulling their bags out.

Bridget didn’t hesitate. She started immediately digging through everything to find clothes.

Seven leaned against the car, arms crossed and watching me.

“Get changed, love. I don’t have anything to clean you up with, but I know you’re ready to—”

“He’s on your list, isn’t he?” she asked, cutting me off. Declan and Bridget stopped everything they were doing and the three of us stood, giving her our full attention. “Not the list I was supposed to clean. Your dad’s been on the list the whole time.”

I don’t see the point in blowing smoke up her ass right now. Or my sister’s. Especially when I’m getting pegged with Bridget’s ‘what the fuck’ look. “Let’s just say the rest of the names were written in blood. His was written in really gray ink.”

“And you’re completely okay? Killing your own father? ”

I barely heard Bridget utter my name in shock as I hollowed out and stared at the girl that’s equal parts my salvation and damnation. I tell her the truth…she’s gone. I don’t? Probly still the same outcome, if not now, then soon. It is what it is. I don’t deserve her, anyway.

“He’s never been a father to me, Sev. He’s barely been one to her ,” I admitted, nodding towards Bridget.

“If he had anything to do with hurting any part of you…I’ll be more than okay watching him paint the fucking floor red.

” We stared at each other in silence, aside from Bridget’s slight hysteria, and I finally dipped my chin, deciding maybe she’d rather leave whatever she’s thinking to be just as unsaid as everything else.

I’m man enough to take the ‘L’ and appreciate what I’ve had for as long as I had it.

I turned away and started back towards the trees, but her voice rang out behind me.

“Seven,” she called out. I turned to the side, brows pinched while we locked eyes.

Damn it, she’s so fucking perfect…it’s killing me.

“You kill him, it’s seven bodies. Seven graves .

” I’ll admit…I hadn’t pieced that together.

I swallowed as she stepped forward. “My mom gave me a name that meant something to her. Seven in the Bible…means complete . You told me you got your favorite tattoo seven years ago. The night we met, you said you’d been waiting seven years for revenge.

I won’t even go into the irony of looking like the woman that haunts you, Malek…

while also having a really fitting name to go with all this madness.

But this is all coming pretty full-circle.

I refuse to believe it didn’t all happen for a reason.

You gotta finish whatever this is. So do I. ”