“You have one. A pretty little regret who never should have gotten mixed up with the likes of you in the first place. But you learned from that error. Ava made you stronger, whether you wish you could change her fate or not. It took the softness from ya. Made you give up on pretty fantasies and nonsense ideals about good and bad.”
I exhaled a lungful of smoke and plucked the cigarette from my lips, letting it hang from my fingers as I considered that.
“You don’t regret Brooklyn, do ya?” he pushed, making my spine straighten as he dared speak her name.
“No,” I snarled. “But I get the feeling you do.”
Liam coughed out another laugh, this one making him slump forward in his chair as he fought to stay conscious through the blood loss before he managed to push himself upright again.
“Turns out, she was the final thing you needed,” he said once he regained the energy for speech. “I’ve been waiting for one of you to grow the balls to end this the way it needed to end. I always knew you were the only one likely to manage it.”
“You wanted one of your own children to kill you?” I asked in surprise, his words a clear reminder as to where I inherited my insanity from.
“That I did. No true O’Brien waits for something to be handed to them. The person with the grit and ambition to take it was always going to be the one worthy of it. Tell me, what will you do with my crown now that you have it?”
“I was planning on forcing the others to run everything with as little input from me as possible, only stepping in when I need to kill someone who’s fucking up. I figure I can enjoy the fact that I reign over all of them without actually having to suffer their company all too often. Not to mention all of the money I’ll have at my disposal.”
Liam snorted, not even seeming to care that I wasn’t planning some great takeover within his organisation. I was perfectly happy to keep control over my villainous family from afar and take a fat cut of their hard-earned money without needing to engross myself in their affairs too deeply. They’d be fools to try and cross or steal from me, and they knew it. I would rule over them through fear and threats alone and it would do me well.
“Did you expect this then?” I asked. “Did you know I would figure out who told Anastasia about me doing hits with my new wife and accepted the fact that I would come for you after I killed her?”
“Either that, or her plan would have worked and you would have woken from that dart to find yourself widowed all over again, your marriage into the Russian mob back on track, and my plans still in place. Both outcomes were acceptable to me. You weren’t ever supposed to have known it was her who killed your new bride after all, but I couldn’t be sure if she would be foolish enough to give herself away or not.”
I threw my knife again, the blade sinking deep into that very same spot and causing him to stifle a cry of pain.
A ferocious snarl escaped my lips and I pointed straight in his face, the cigarette smoking between my fingers and causing my line of sight to waver through it.
“You speak another word about Brooklyn’s death being acceptable to you and you’ll find this end of yours taking a whole lot longer, old man,” I barked, violence pooling in every inch of my body and only the finest thread tethering me in place, the desire to make him suffer damn near overwhelming me. “You think you know the monster in me, but I can assure you, you haven’t even begun to fathom the depths of my capabilities. You have no idea what I can or will do. And believe me when I tell you, you want to die without finding out.”
Liam gazed at me with that pride in his eyes again, but this time all it gave me was a feeling of disgust as I sat back in my chair and took a long drag on my cigarette, working to calm my nerves.
“My only regret is in not being here to watch you flourish in this role, Niall,” he said roughly, exhaling more smoke and finding himself almost down to the butt. Neither of us had said it, but we both knew that would be his end. The moment that cigarette was done, he would be too.
“I won’t think of you again,” I promised him coldly. “When I leave this place, I won’t return. If I could, I’d let your empire rot and fall to ruin in your wake. The only reason I will take your place is to stop my siblings from doing so in my absence. It has nothing to do with your wishes or your legacy, know that. I’ll leave your corpse in this room and leave all memory of you behind with it. Out there is a wild life waiting for me with a beautiful creature taking ownership of the reins. She is my only destiny now, and I won’t be burdened by my past a moment longer.”
Liam’s face dropped at my words, and I knew he heard the truth in them.
“So be it,” he grunted, reaching for his phone.
I allowed him the time it took to hit dial on a group call which included all of my siblings, focusing on the taste of smoke rolling over my tongue instead of paying much attention to their voices as they joined the call.
“I’ll cut to the point,” Liam said, his eyes on me as he took the end of the cigarette from his lips and ashed it between us in the centre of his desk, not bothering with the ashtray which had been waiting to his left. “You’ve all been waiting on this decision for long enough after all.”
A few sharp breaths came over the speaker as my eager little siblings all girded their loins in anticipation of their own names being spoken, none of them for a moment questioning him on what he meant. I waited, a cruel pleasure filling me at the knowledge of their impending disappointment.
“Niall holds the crown now. The time for change has come.”
Several of my siblings all started up with some protest or another, but I just hit mute so that I wouldn’t have to listen to a word from any of them, leaving them on the line as I got to my feet and ashed my cigarette too.
Liam met my steady gaze and nodded, ripping the knife free of his shoulder with a grunt of pain before moving it over his heart and thrusting it in with the last of his strength.
I let him have the kill, not caring much one way or another how he ended up in the ground, only that he made it there.
My father’s pupils dilated as death came for him on swift and brutal wings, and I watched without emotion as he pitched forward onto his desk and fell dead before me with a finality that set me free at long last.
“Long live your new king,” I said loudly for my siblings to hear, the smile in my voice as clear as day. “I look forward to ruling in his stead.”
I hung up before turning and striding from the room, not even bothering to close the door behind me as I left the oppression of my father’s rule in the past at long last. I headed for the life I had claimed for myself with my Spider and her band of fucked-up souls, sure that from here on out, all I’d ever know was the fullness of a life well lived. And what more could a twisted creature like me desire?
SIX MONTHS LATER
“K eep yer hands over her eyes, don’t let her peek now, big fella,” Niall called as I stumbled across soft sand on bare feet while Jack moved at my back, his huge palms keeping everything from view.
The repetitive sound of a whoooosh and a wet crash kept carrying to me and I tasted salt on my lips as Jack walked me closer to it.
“Have ya got the camera ready on your phone, el burro?” Niall snapped.