Page 6 of Seven Graves

That wasn’t directed at me. That one was for Conor, who seemed to devour it with a smile while he stalked like a mountain cat towards a beefy-looking acquaintance from his past. He might be talkin’ shit, but the sweat glistening on his bald head suggests he knows none of this ends with any of them being alive by the end of the night.

Gunshots started firing off and I took my eyes off Braughton just in time to see Conor empty a pistol into one guy’s ribcage before dropping the glock to the floor.

He likes guns. I prefer knives. Especially tonight.

Makes that emotional connection all the sweeter when I take my time peeling the skin off of someone deserving of the pain I’m about to inflict before I answer their prayers for death.

I took no pleasure in making a noose out of lover boy’s intestines earlier today, but this … this I’ll thoroughly enjoy.

Braughton’s snack-sized bodyguard started for me, and I whipped my hook blades from my pockets, crossing them in front of me and making good use of the split second he moved his arms to try for whatever weapons he was carrying.

I sliced a St. Andrew’s cross through his chest and tried to concentrate through the thwacking of fists and breaking glass wherever Conor had finally started working on ‘Baldy’.

In the time it took the guy to hit his knees, I angled the blade so his chin landed like a skewer onto my knife.

I used the other one in my right hand to plunge it into his temple and went to stabbing like a mad man.

I reckon it isn’t far from the truth. His bloody body thumped to the floor, and I could feel the warm blood on my face cooling as I raised it to look at Braughton.

The guy hadn’t moved an inch.

He just stood, watching as if he’d been counting down the minutes to this very moment for seven fucking years.

I wasn’t sure if it suddenly seemed quieter then because I was seeing red, or if it was because Conor was finishing off his buddy over by the fireplace.

For what it’s worth, I don’t care. I set my sights on my target and pointed with my blade to the wooden chair at the reading desk he was standing near.

“Time to talk, Braughton. Pull the chair and put your arse into it.”

He stared quietly for a moment, swallowing hard and then dragged the chair from behind the desk, watching me the entire time he lowered himself into it. Conor didn’t need any direction. He made his way over and made quick work of cable tying his arms and legs to the chair.

“I always knew it’d come to this, Malek.

Gotta say…I didn’t think it’d be the man that orchestrated this whole shit show that sold me out.

That marriage wasn’t any more my doing than it was hers.

All for it to come to this at the end.” He lowered his head and shook it, smirking in utter disappointment.

Not one part of me feels a shred of pity for him.

“If you didn’t want it, you should have done more to keep it from happening and you might still be walkin’ the Earth tomorrow.”

“You know just as well as I do that I would’ve been dead long before now if I hadn’t married her.”

I smiled, tasting the blood on my teeth and relishing in it.

“You were a dead man the minute you looked at her.” He adjusted his wrists uncomfortably behind him and his fingers were turning colors from the tightness of the restraints.

That’s when I caught the glint of something shiny on his left hand.

If I wasn’t already seeing red… “You still wear the ring…”

He met my eyes, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he needed to say it, or if it was some sad attempt at trying to convince me to let him live.

“I loved her.” Those three words filled me with a fucking rage I couldn’t describe to anyone if I tried.

My fists flew, and his head rocked back and forth until the chair fell back against the edge of the desk.

I leaned over him and wondered if he thought telling me this shit would have saved his life.

Does his sorry life even mean anything to him anymore?

He heaved, spitting blood and I watched him, the handles of my blades slipping with the blood coating my palms. “She never loved me, Malek. Never.”

“Trust me, mate. I know .”

“I never wanted this. I didn’t…I didn’t want this life .

I didn’t want it for her . There was no way out of it…

for any…for any of us. She tolerated me, but she…

” He tried in all ways to catch his breath, but not once did he look up at me.

“She was a good one. I just…wanted to keep her safe. They pressured us for a bairn. That was…that was the month she killed herself, Malek. I didn’t… ”

I set my jaw and closed my eyes. All I could see was her face.

Her smile. My little sapphire. Her long golden hair and her blue eyes.

Couldn’t even remember the last time I was able to look into them before I saw her in a white casket with a shitty makeup job that barely covered the bruising around her misshaped neck.

A neck I once trailed my lips over, breathing every promise I never got to keep. My rage took over.

I shoved his head back against the chair, forcing him to look at me and leaning into his face.

“You might not have wanted this life, Braughton…but tough luck. I do .” I held his chin, hooking my blade into the side of his mouth and pulling through the muscle…

slowly. His screaming gurgled with the blood filling up the space and he fought like hell to spit it past my working hand while I started on the opposite side.

He’ll be dying with a Highland Smile this evening.

And I’ll be sleeping peacefully with a smile of my own.

“Tell me…when you put your tiny dick where it didn’t belong, did you think of me?

” I snapped his jaw shut and covered his mouth, forcing him to swallow his own blood while I leaned in closer.

“Did you taste my cock when you kissed her, you fuckin’ swine? ”

The asshole shook violently, pissing himself and growling while I painstakingly carved her name into his forehead. It felt like a good time to say all the things I never got to say to her…so I said my goodbyes while I slowly and brutally mutilated the face of the man that took her from me.

“I never asked for anything, Shavonn. I never wanted anything. I had you, and it sated me. Nobody will ever know the kind of love I had for you, lass. I wish there would come a day when I could feel that way again, but I don’t deserve that.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t the man you needed me to be when it counted.

Forgive me, darlin’. I’ll spend the rest of my pathetic life payin’ for that mistake.

Sending you this as a token of my love. Watch him burn in Hell and be at peace, my girl. Slán …”

I let go of Braughton’s mouth, blood pouring between my fingers as I grabbed a fistful of his cropped blonde hair.

Truthfully? They would have made a beautiful child.

But all parties involved knew that shit would never happen, and Shavonn made it a point to solidify that notion, hanging herself right above the bed she was forced to share with this piece of offal .

“I’m… I’m sorry …”

I bared my teeth and pointed the tip of my knife at his left eye.

“I’m not.”

The next five minutes was nothing but exhausted, hoarse screaming that I knew would live rent-free in my head for the rest of my life.

It was music to my fucking ears. I popped one eye out…

then the other. And then I dragged the edge of that blade across his thick neck until I was baptized in his fucking blood.

Before he gave up the fight for that last breath, I plunged my fist up into that gaping hole and gripped his tongue, pulling it down through the bottom of his chin to replace the nice blue necktie he wore to this house.

I eased myself off and righted his chair, stepping back to admire the way he looked until his heart thrummed his last beat… and then it was eerie silence.

My spiraling train of thought was interrupted by the sound of Conor’s footsteps as he came into my peripheral. I’d made it a point to keep an eye out for him and had forgotten all about it in my bloodlust.

“It’s over, mate. Breathe.”

I slowly turned my head, my vision finally blurring back into focus to see strands of my hair dripping red from my assault.

The man he laid out was bent backwards over the shattered coffee table and bleeding out on the floor.

Nice. We finally met eyes, and mine slowly drifted closed as if I was blindly taking his advice and breathing the first gush of air I’ve had in almost a decade.

It was over. If there was any chance of healing after this…

it could finally start. Conor walked over to Braughton’s chair, flipping a butterfly knife and hacking apart his restraints until he slumped onto the floor.

It took me by surprise when he knelt down and sawed the finger off his hand…

the gold band still on it, and turned to hand it to me.

I nodded and accepted it, pocketing the thing.

It’d sit in a jar where I could look at it every day from here on out.

A constant reminder that somewhere up there…

Shavonn and everything we could have had together… it’s avenged.

I didn’t say anything else as I turned and walked out the door.