Page 10

Baron Dolce

“There she is.”

Duke fumbles his phone and nearly drops it, and I shoot him a frown. I’ve kept a lookout since we got here. I don’t need to numb my nerves with mindless scrolling. I don’t like distractions, and I don’t get nervous.

Still, Duke hasn’t seen her since she left Faulkner. He hasn’t been watching her like I have.

So I let him look before we make our move.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, and I wonder what he’s thinking, what a normal person would think in this situation. What does the man think upon seeing the girl he loves again for the first time in two years? Does he feel a rush of love? Triumph? Does he feel distant, or like no time has passed?

That’s a game I like to play, but we don’t have time for games right now. Not with Jane in the car. I threatened her into complicity and cuffed her, but she’s tried to escape too many times for me to trust her. That’s how Dahmer was caught. When a victim escaped, handcuffs and all. The way Jane acts, you’d think I was a serial killer, not a man who fed and housed her for half a year. Sure, I did experiments on her in exchange, but I’d kept her alive. Sometimes I even gave her anesthesia.

I glance at my car and then, content to have seen Jane sulking in the back seat where we left her, return my attention to Mabel.

Tucking her phone into her purse—a device I have access to with a few taps on my own screen—she heads toward the row of stores without looking around. Like any small beach town in America, Havoc Harbor has predictable shops: a seafood market with a fresh catch of the day; an upscale boutique that sells local, handmade jewelry and art; a realtor; an ice cream parlour; and a tiny, overpriced grocery where people buy produce and essentials while on vacation.

Her blonde hair is in pigtails, and she’s wearing a knee-length white skirt, white Mary Jane shoes over white socks, and a pale yellow shirt with a towering stack of ice cream printed on the front. She enters the place with a chalkboard sign on the wall next to the front window, flavors written in her cutesy handwriting with different colors of chalk. Little doodled ice cream cones and popsicles decorate the border.

“Let’s go,” I say, standing.

Duke follows. When we reach the front window, he runs his finger down the board from top to bottom. The chalk smears in the cool, humid environment. She’ll have to rewrite all the flavors on that side now that he ruined them all. He smiles and does the same on the right side of the board, wrecking the handwritten sundaes and malts, banana splits and shakes.

I nudge him to bring him back from his urge to destroy, then open the door and step inside. There’s not much to the place, and I can tell in one glance that most people order from the window and eat at the picnic tables outside. Inside, three small, yellow metal tables sit in a row to the left, while the counter waits directly ahead, the window to the right side where they serve customers. Another handwritten chalkboard sign stretches above the counter, the flavors written out in Mabel’s unmistakably femi, precise handwriting.

I take all that in with one cursory glance, less than a second, before my gaze finds its target. It takes another second for her to look up, to meet my eyes, to register what she’s seeing.

The delicious shock on her face makes my cock stir, my fingers twitch to wrap around her throat, to squeeze until she knows that her life is in my hands, that I choose to let her draw each breath. Until she realizes that if I choose not to, she’s snuffed out in the next heartbeat, and she accepts her punishment and is grateful for the life I give her each day by allowing her to breathe despite what she’s done.

I watch the realization that we’re finally here sink into her. The scant color drains from her face. Her fingers white-knuckle the edge of the counter. Her nostrils flare, prey searching for the scent of a predator. Face ashen, eyes wide, she’s a rabbit waiting to see if she’s been spotted before she bolts.

If Duke had his way, he’d pounce, going straight for the kill. He wouldn’t waste a single moment before yanking up her loose skirt and plunging his cock to the hilt inside her.

For me, that’s skipping all the fun. That’s the end, not the beginning.

The game is more fun than the thrill of victory, the chase more enjoyable than the kill.

Before any of us can move, the door bangs open behind us. “Don’t look outside, doll face,” shouts a raspy female voice. “Some fuckwit with two brain cells battling for third place thought it would be funny to destroy your hard work. Again. I swear, I don’t know what’s smaller, their dicks, their brains, or their senses of humor.”

The girl who stomps in matches the voice, minus about twenty years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes in biker bars. She’s around our age, but one look at her tells me she’s exactly the tattooed, pink-haired, loud-mouthed type I can’t stand, one whose motto is some variation of “I don’t need no man,” but who will one day take money from the government to raise her four kids because she does, in fact, need a man.

Mabel doesn’t say anything, just stares at us with those same big doe eyes filled with an intoxicating level of fear.

The pink-haired girl gives us the briefest glance, her lip curling slightly before she turns away, as if we’re vermin, unworthy of her full attention or even a full sneer. I’ve never been so summarily dismissed in my life, and the urge to show her the error of her ways threatens to take hold of me. She shrugs out of the motorcycle jacket she wore over a shirt that matches Mabel’s and tosses it under the counter. When Mabel doesn’t say anything, the rude girl sighs and turns to us begrudgingly.

“Know what you want?” she asks. “Or you need another minute?”

“We know what we want,” Duke says, never taking his eyes from Mabel.

The pink-haired girl rolls her eyes. “Another weirdo with a little girl fetish,” she mutters to Mabel. “Want to take this one, Dahlia?”

I could tell her that Mabel is two years older than us, and her name is not Dahlia, but she’s not worth an explanation. Along with her work shirt, she’s wearing steel-toed boots and a black skirt with a buckled garter that bisects an hourglass tattoo on her thigh. Its placement reminds me of Harper’s tattoo, and I take a moment to relish the thought of wrecking this bitch until she never forgets her place again, just like I did Harper. That would teach her to show us the proper respect.

But right now, she’s nothing but a distraction from the girl I really want. A girl who deserves every bit of pain that’s coming her way. I’ll relish that more than anything I could do to her crass coworker.

A visible shudder rolls through Mabel, and she finally releases her white-knuckle grip and stumbles backwards. I step around the end of the counter, glance at the case of ice creams, and slide open a bin. I spit my sucker stem on the floor at her feet. I won’t be needing those anymore.

“Hey,” protests the tattooed bitch, but I ignore her. Like all of them, she’s a sniveling coward under the bravado and boasting. She won’t do anything. I’ll look into her later, like I do everyone Mabel has regular contact with, but I already know she’s nothing more than a mosquito—annoying as fuck, but ultimately harmless.

I slowly drag one finger through a newly opened tub of ice cream, scooping a narrow line through the untouched surface. “The only question is, are we eating here, or taking it to go?”

Duke steps in front of the door and flips the sign to closed.

I pop the ice cream in my mouth, sucking off my finger.

Mabel’s gaze flies from me, to Duke, and back. Her wide-set eyes are round as saucers, and I can see her pulse racing in the side of her throat. I want to feel it under my thumb.

“Don’t,” she whispers, her lower lip quivering. “Please.”

“I always appreciated that about you,” I say, dropping my hand. “You Darlings never forget your manners.”

Ignoring me, she pivots to her coworker. “Will you go get us coffee?”

“Now?” the girl asks incredulously. Mabel doesn’t drink coffee, and from the look on her coworker’s face, this is a revelation for her too.

“I—I know them from back home.”

Despite the stammer, I admire how well she’s holding it together, all things considered. I expected her to dive out the window five minutes ago. The fact that she hasn’t, and that she wants to be alone with us, tells me two things. One, that some part of her still loves us despite what we did to her, and two, that she’s smart enough to know we’d find her eventually, and she’s ready for us. But then, I know better than to underestimate Mabel Darling. She’s the one girl who has ever consistently impressed me. That’s why we’re here.

“You sure about that?” her coworker asks.

Mabel nods. “I can handle them. Don’t worry about me.”

“Yeah,” Duke says. “We’re not here for nefarious purposes. We just want to have a reunion with our girlfriend. It’s been too long. Hasn’t it, little fairy?”

“It has been a long time,” Mabel agrees, cutting her eyes toward her coworker and making an approximation of a smile with her mouth, as if she’s never done it before.

“If you’re sure,” her coworker mutters, edging past me like she can’t bear the thought of getting within arm’s reach.

“Come back soon,” Mabel calls. “But not too soon.”

The sound that comes out of her is akin to one an alien might make when attempting to mimic human laughter for the first time.

That piques my interest. Mabel was always real above all else. She doesn’t do artifice. She always said she didn’t see the point. I can’t be certain, but I think she’s doing it now to protect the rude girl from us. But that doesn’t make sense. Mabel may not be as detached as I am, but she’s not the type to protect a stranger or martyr herself for an innocent bystander. In fact, the only person I’ve ever seen her protect is her brother.

That indicates another emotional connection here. Mabel doesn’t do friends, she doesn’t have a roommate at school, and I’ve been monitoring her online activity long enough to know that she isn’t in regular contact with anyone. It unsettles me that she made a connection without my knowledge, even more so when I take into account that an intense emotional bond formed over such a short period of time points to something more intimate in nature, possibly sexual. I never knew Mabel to have that kind of interest in anyone, male or female, but then, her ability to surprise me is yet another reason I’m standing here now.

The door closes behind her friend, and for one taut second, no one moves.

“Coffee?” I ask, raising a brow at Mabel.

Without a word, she spins on her heel and runs. My predatory instinct snaps into place, taking the driver’s seat, and I spring after her. Her little white shoes flash in front of me like a beacon for me to follow down the tiny hallway behind the counter. Her narrow, boyish figure slips through a door, but we’re close on her heel.

The heavy door bangs shut behind the three of us, and I suck in a breath of the frigid air. The small freezer is lined with large tubs of ice cream. A freestanding shelf sits in the middle, behind which Mabel cowers like a cornered animal.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

“Did you really think you could hide from us, little weasel?” Duke asks.

I lean back against the door, inspecting my finger for traces of ice cream. “You thought we’d let you go? You’re smarter than that.”

“What do you want?” she whispers, fear filling her eyes.

My cock strains, and I want nothing more than to hear her sweet screams piercing the air.

“You,” I say simply. “We want you.”

She draws in a shaky breath. “Why?”

“Every king needs a queen,” Duke says.

“And what do you need?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

My insides devolve into riotous chaos when she fixes my brother with that look after casually cutting him down that way—not a wolf in sheep’s clothing but a spider, so inconspicuous you almost miss it. I can see she hit home, that he is crumbling for her already.

I’ve never been jealous of my brother, but suddenly, selfishly, I regret not confronting her alone sometime in the past six months. After waiting so long to make a move, I don’t want to share the moment. I want her eyes on me, not him. I want her poison tongue, her lethal blows, her heartless delivery. I am her equal, a worthy opponent, her perfect match. I’ve missed the challenge more than I care to admit.

“You,” Duke says, his voice rougher now. “I need you too, Mabel.”

“Why?” she bursts out. “Why can’t you forget me? I’m not special. I’m just like all the other girls you used and discarded. I’m nothing. Leave me alone! What did I do to deserve this?”

The emotion in her voice is delicious, the fear, the panic and frustration. Seeing her break so easily fills me with pure ecstasy. Mabel was never fragile as she seemed, but maybe she is now. She didn’t seem fragile when I was watching her in her apartment, but then, it’s hard to tell by watching someone in their natural habitat. She was comfortable there. No one pushed her. I’m pushing her, ready to hear the rapturous sounds of her cracking to pieces, like she did before.

“You made us care,” I say flatly, stalking toward her with purposeful strides. “We all pay for that.”

“Only I paid,” she cries, ducking around the shelf as I reach for her. She scrambles up the shelving against the far wall, and I consider mocking her pathetic attempt at escape, since she’s well within reach, and there’s no exit in the ceiling.

I step closer, a mirthless laugh grinding out of me. “You think we didn’t pay every fucking day for the past two years?”

“How?” she whispers, shrinking back from me. “How did you pay?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Duke asks, strolling up behind me. “You want all our cards on the table before you show a single one. We’re not going to make it that easy for you this time, my Darling girl.”

She flinches at the reminder of who she is. A new name won’t change that any more than it stopped me from finding her. That’s how we paid—one of a thousand ways. I nearly went out of my mind searching for her, looking for her every fucking day until I found her. Even people in witness protection don’t usually change their first names, but she chose an entirely new identity, including the name Dahlia.

Mabel’s not the type to choose something as important as a name at random, but there was nothing that tied her to that name, no reason for me to look at it. Once I finally found her, I went through her past with a fine-tooth comb yet again, trying to see how I could have missed it, but I still don’t understand. That irritates me. I don’t like being outsmarted, and I don’t like being wrong. But the only record of the name I found in Faulkner was a Delacroix daughter she mentioned in passing once, and she moved away when Mabel was still a child. She never mentioned liking the flower, a book with the name in it, or even the movie “Black Dahlia.” It’s a misplaced question mark, a clue I’ve never solved.

I step closer, wrapping my long fingers around her skinny ankle. My cock throbs uncontrollably at the contact. I remember every detail of her body, how delicate she always felt, even when she wasn’t. I can feel how fine her bones are through the ruffled, white sock she wears with her shoes, the kind of choice you don’t usually see on a girl over five years old. I think about what her coworker said and about the men she meets online. Maybe we broke her too badly for her to ever heal, but she’s not defeated. That thought makes a misplaced flare of pride rise in me, along with the satisfaction in knowing she is forever altered by her time with us. We have marked her soul as surely as Duke branded her with the “D” of his ring, and she will never belong to anyone else, no matter how fiercely she fights it.

Her foot jerks in my hand, but she’s not kicking out at me, trying to free herself. It takes me a moment to realize she’s stretching her arm up, trying to reach something behind the tubs of ice cream.

“Watch out,” Duke barks.

Mabel swings around, holding onto the bars of the shelf with one hand, a revolver gripped in the other. She stares me down along the muzzle, and fuck, that makes me harder still. Knowing I’ve broken her is a victory I will always revel in, but knowing I get to break her again is priceless.

“Let go,” she commands, her voice low and cold as the room we’re in.

I grip her ankle tighter, just to see her eyes widen the barest fraction when she realizes I could yank her down from there. But that would result in a gunshot wound, and I’m neither suicidal nor masochistic. She’s armed, a possibility I considered likely. Plenty of businesses have a gun under the counter, and Mabel never hesitated to protect herself. Even after those disastrous attempts, she still has a handgun concealed in the freezer. If anything, I’m reassured by it.

I release her ankle and step back, smiling up at her. We’re not lowlife gangsters, so of course we don’t carry weapons on us. We’ve never needed them, and we don’t need them now. Guns are for killing, and she’s no use to us dead. This visit wasn’t about overpowering her or hurting her. It was only meant to start the game, to put the play in motion. You don’t capture the queen in the first move.

“Back off,” she says, her teeth beginning to chatter slightly, though I can’t tell if the cold is already getting to her, or if she’s flooded with adrenaline. That can make a person reckless, so I take a few more steps away from her.

“I’m glad to see you’re prepared,” I say, eyeing her gun. “I’m proud of you, little monster.”

She lets out a snort. “You better not make me shoot. The feds are already all over me. They’re probably watching us right now.”

I think about Jane in the car, her hands manacled. I should have lobotomized her before we left. Then she couldn’t make a scene. She might still be dumb enough to try now, even after everything I’ve done. But I won’t let Mabel see that I’m hesitating, that I hadn’t expected them to be so close. She’ll think I’m scared, and that’s not at all the case.

I smirk at her, raising a brow. “I wonder why,” I drawl. “It couldn’t have anything to do with the extremely low survival rate of the men you date.”

She scowls. “I’m sure it has everything to do with that.”

“Oh, Mabel,” I say with mock pity. “So intelligent, but always so very clueless.”

“You think you’re doing me a favor?” she demands. Her eyes scan back and forth, as if she’s trying to find evidence of surveillance. She found one of my cameras a few months ago, and she must think the FBI planted it. I don’t blame her for being paranoid. I’m just one man, and I have her apartment in Tennessee bugged, her car, her phone, and her computers. After today, I’ll have her aunt’s house bugged too.

The FBI has far more resources and manpower than I do, and they probably have a healthy interest in figuring out why half a dozen men died within a few months of going out with her. Either that, or they haven’t even found the connection, since the deaths don’t happen directly after their encounters with her, and they had no reason to look at a random bad date from two months before.

Mabel releases her grip on the shelving and lands in a crouch, gun still pointed at us. “Do you really want to play this game?” she asks.

“I always want to play,” Duke says, stepping toward her.

I lay a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. Things are just getting interesting. “What’s the game?”

“You’re the game maker,” she says. “You should know better than anyone.”

“We won our game,” I say. “It’s over. We’re here to collect our prize.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asks, cocking her head. “You succeeded in destroying me, I’ll give you that. But if you really won, then why isn’t it over?”

“Because we don’t have you.”

“If you have to have me to complete your victory, then you didn’t really win, did you? Because you don’t have me. I left. I moved on. I started a new life. So maybe I’m the winner after all.”

“You ended up in a loony bin,” Duke says. “Doesn’t sound much like winning.”

“And you couldn’t get to me, so you gave up,” she says. “Doesn’t sound like much of a victory.”

Duke takes a menacing step forward. “You saying the game is still going? You still want to play, don’t you, little weasel?”

“I never wanted to play,” she says, training the gun on him. “But I’m free of you, and you are clearly not free of me, since you tracked me down under my new name, followed me across the country, and still maintain some delusion about us being together after what you did to me. I never even think about you. So who really won?”

“We won,” I say flatly. “We made you love us, and we didn’t just break your heart. We broke your body, your spirit, your will.”

“And you think that means I’ll want to be with you now?” she asks with something that sounds like incredulity.

“It doesn’t matter what you want,” I say. “We won, and you’re the prize.”

“So play by the rules, and put down the gun,” Duke says.

She glances down at the chamber and then up at him. “I’ve got five bullets, but it only takes one to stop a man’s heart.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, a grin spreading over his face as he prowls forward. “You think I’m afraid of a little pain? I’ll rub the blood on my dick and use it as lube when I fuck you.”

I know he’s held back his wildness as long as he can. Not just today, but all the days leading up until now. All these months, I had Jane to take out my cravings on. Duke hasn’t had anyone. Now the side of him that he calls his demon is taking control. I can see it happen in every part of his body, from the looseness in his shoulders to his unhinged smile to the determination in his eyes, like a caged animal desperate to make an escape.

“Duke,” I warn, reaching for him. “She’s not afraid to shoot.”

“So?” he asks, shaking me off. “As long as I can die fucking her, I’ll die happy. I need to be inside her one more time. To find out what it is.”

I need him alive, though, and when he loses control of his humanity, he thinks even less rationally than usual. “We’ll find out,” I say quietly. “We’ll fuck her any time we want.”

Mabel’s gaze moves between us, and then in a quick flurry, she spins the cylinder of the revolver, shoves the gun under her skirt, reaches under with her other hand, widens her stance, pulls her panties aside, and shoves the muzzle inside herself.

“What the fuck?” Duke barks, stopping midstride.

“Take the gun out of your pussy,” I command, my voice sharp. Not a sentence I expected to utter today, but as always, Mabel manages to surprise me in delightful new ways. This time, though, it’s not as enjoyable. I need her alive too—badly.

She shakes her pigtails into place. “What, you can do it to me, but I can’t do it to myself?”

“You’re cheating,” Duke protests, oblivious to the danger as usual. “You can’t destroy our prize. Only we can do that.”

For someone with normal human emotion, he’s exceptionally bad at reading them when he switches into his demon mode. Since learning this about him, I’ve used it to my advantage, but now it could ruin everything.

“We don’t want to destroy you,” I say to Mabel. “We already did that. Like you said, we succeeded. You’re no longer our enemy to defeat. You’re our prize to treasure and enjoy.”

“I’d rather die.”

Her shoulder moves, and there’s a muffled click, hollow and shocking in the silence of the freezer.

“No,” Duke shouts, falling to his knees.

Mabel gasps, her eyes locked on mine, her breath fogging from her lips, as if her own recklessness shocked her. She looks stunned, and for one horrible second, some irrational part of me is afraid there’s a bullet lodged inside her that I can’t see. A cold panic claws at me, and I want to rush to her, to lay her down and dig it out with my bare hands, to keep it from being real.

“Fine, you want me to say you won?” she asks in a rush, pulling the gun out and spinning the cylinder again. “You won. Last time, I lost, because I wanted you to like me. This time, I want you to hate me. So I’ll ask you this one time. Are you sure you want to play again?”

She shoves the gun back into herself, glaring at me with a defiance that is beyond anything she’s ever shown before. She’s not just defying me this time. She’s defying death.

“No,” Duke chokes out like a sob. “Don’t shoot again.”

“Why not?” she asks. “I’m playing fair. I spun again. There’s one empty chamber. I’m not playing a countdown to death. Maybe I’ll get lucky again this time.”

“You won’t,” Duke protests, his voice ragged with anguish. “It’s impossible.”

I don’t point out that it’s no more impossible than last time. Her odds are one in six every time. But that’s far too low, when my brother is already at rock bottom.

Another cold feeling takes hold of me, this one calm where the last was panicked. She is mine. If she’s going to die, it will be at my hand. She does not get to destroy my property. To take my kill.

She already tried, when she jumped off that bridge. She tried to take my kill, and it’s not hers to take. It’s mine.

I calculate the distance between us, then shift my weight sideways.

“Please,” Duke sobs, dropping his head toward the floor. “Mabel, please.”

In the second when her gaze moves to him, I leap.

Everything happens so fast that I can’t tell the sequence of events.

I crash into her.

A shot echoes around the freezer, deafening in the small metal room.

She flies backwards, her arms shooting out to either side as she smashes into the shelves.

I pin her wrist to the metal edge of one and wrench the gun from her hand.

Her body crumples to the floor.

Behind me, Duke makes the sound of a dying animal.

My brain sequences the events in order, though some happened simultaneously, and then it’s over, and all that remains are echoes—the gunshot, the metal shelving, my brother.

I turn, my whole body gripped in a cold dread, sure I don’t want to see what waits. If she shot him…

He’s curled in the fetal position, making a strange, guttural keening sound.

If she killed him, I won’t have mercy. I won’t have it in me to torture her until pain is all she knows. She would never know a fraction of the pain I would feel from losing my twin. She’s incapable of it. I would simply beat her to death, each blunt blow not enough to take away even a shadow of the agony I’d feel in that moment, not even when she was nothing but an unidentifiable sludge of flesh and blood and bone fragments. When I walk out of here carrying him, it will look like I’m leaving nothing but hamburger meat behind.

I crouch beside Duke, gripping his shoulder. “Are you shot?” I ask, trying to pull his hands away from his middle.

“What?” he asks, blinking up at me with blank, uncomprehending eyes.

“Where did she get you?”

“I’m not—she’s shot,” he says, looking up to where Mabel sits slumped against the shelving, her breaths heaving in and out.

My stomach jolts, and I drop my gaze her to lap, her white skirt.

Spotless.

I glance around, finally finding a small hole in one of the big rounds of ice cream. I shove away from Duke, disgusted, and stomp over to Mabel. I grab her head, digging my fingers into the hair at the crown of her head. She shrinks back, crying out in pain, since her braids hold her hair in place and prevent me from gripping it easily.

“You would have killed yourself, you crazy bitch,” I snarl at her.

“What part of ‘I’d rather die’ didn’t you understand?” She grins up at me even as she winces with pain.

“Fucking cunt.”

I shove her backwards away from me, and she cries out as her head thuds against one of the metal shelves. I let the bullets fall into my palm before I pocket them and shove the gun at Duke. Then I grab one of the boxes and rip it open. I pick out a red popsicle and tear it open, then fall on Mabel, dragging her under me. She thrashes when I yank up her skirt, but she’s so small I hardly feel her struggle.

“Please,” she gasps out.

“You’re making this harder for yourself,” I snap, shoving her panties down her scarred thighs.

“No,” she cries, thrashing wildly between my knees as I hold her pinned. “Please, Baron.”

“If you want to be loud, you know I love to hear you scream for me, little monster.”

“But do you really want your coworkers to know you’re letting two guys take turns with you while you’re on the clock?” Duke asks, spinning the gun around his finger, casual now while I’m on the verge of losing control. I can always count on him to balance me.

“Not to mention the health code violations,” I grit out, staring down at her cunt. It’s so unremarkable, nothing special. That calms my raging anger, cools it into a hard stone inside me.

“All those bodily fluids,” Duke adds with mock regret.

“Please,” she says again, her voice breathy with panic even as she stops kicking. She should know she’ll never get sympathy from me. “You’ll get me fired. You’ll give me an infection.”

“Don’t worry, Duke will clean you up,” I say, elbowing her knees apart before plunging the popsicle inside her.

“Please,” she screams, her hands flying to my arms, her nails digging into my skin. My cock throbs, and I drag the popsicle out, satisfied that it froze to the walls of her cunt by the force I have to use.

She shrieks again, this time in pain. The piercing pitch makes the hairs rise on my arms and a thrilling tingle race down my spine like lightning. No one screams like Mabel Darling.

I ream her with it again, disappointed that it slides in more easily this time, her hot cunt already melting the ice. She arches under me, a final, tiny shriek tearing from her before she clamps her mouth shut.

“That’s right,” I say, sliding the frozen rod in and out of her. “Hold your tongue like you did for your grampa. Save up those banshee screams for when you take our cocks.”

By now the popsicle is moving easily, but I ram it harder into her, punching into her soft cunt harder as the tool shrinks, no longer useful in causing pain except for the ache of cold. My cock strains at the thought of fucking into her after this, her pussy as cold as a corpse.

“Grampa taught his little snowflake to be quiet and take what you’re given, didn’t he?” Duke says, crouching behind me to watch over my shoulder as her cunt swallows the popsicle, melting it into a puddle of red, the blood that would have poured out of her if she pulled the trigger with the gun still inside her. “Take it all, and never tell a soul. That’s your specialty, isn’t it, little monster?”

Tears pour from her eyes, but I ignore them, my teeth clenched while she begs, then chokes on her words, then collapses into a pile of shaking sobs as I remind her who all of this belongs to without uttering a word. She can hold a gun on us, or even herself, but she will always be helpless to stop us.

Her slender body quakes under mine, as frail as the delicate spider she is.

I fuck her with the popsicle until the red juice is running down my hand, dripping onto the floor, pooling beneath her and around my knees.

“Look at it, running out of her like virgin blood,” Duke says, reaching around me to thumb her clit, stretching her skin and opening her to see the glistening red inside.

She whimpers in response.

“She was never a virgin,” I say, my lip curling in disgust as the final bits of slush slip off the wooden popsicle stick. “She was born a slut.”

“Stop,” she chokes out through her sobs. “It’s too cold.”

“Better than hot, isn’t it, little weasel?” Duke taunts.

She shudders and lets out an anguished, pitiful cry in response.

I toss the wooden stem onto her shirt and stand. “I think we’re done with our reunion,” I say. “We’ll see you tonight.”

“Leave me alone,” she whispers, her voice watery and defeated. She rolls onto her side, her body folding in on itself like a smashed spider.

“Never,” I say, a cruel taunt of a smile on my lips.

“Please,” she whispers through chattering teeth against her knees.

I crouch next to my brother, and she cowers away, huddling closer to the floor. I take her chin between my thumb and forefinger, and I turn her head our way. Dragging her up to meet me, I force her to accept the softest kiss to her trembling, pink lips. It’s a promise and the seal of a promise in one, delivered without remorse or mercy. She is ours, and we will have her however we want her.

The shiver that runs through her body as it sags back to the floor says she understands. We don’t make promises lightly, and never ones we don’t intend to keep.

And we intend to keep her for good this time.