Take Everything, Darling
“Time to exterminate vermin.” Sulien said, quickly clicking everything in place.
He braced himself against the front bonnet of the car, fitted the scope to his eye, and scanned through the mess of bloodied gun fire. Bodies darted here and there frantically like insects across the harbour. Some taking cover while others were not so lucky, and took a bullet to their heads.
Sulien took his time with shooting, making sure to get clean shots. The recoil barely nudged his shoulder as he kept squeezing the trigger.
One man. Two men. Three men. Each shot created a dazzling red spillage from the victims bodies. His men behind him roared in heightened morale, the momentum of the gun fight shifting to the favour of him and his men.
Then Sulien found him.
The old rat really was making a run for it. Dorian was scampering down the dock towards a half loosened motorboat. There was already a bit of blood slick on his sleeve, but judging by how he moved quickly, it wasn’t his. His face was pale in the scope that was aimed at his head and twisted with panic.
Got you.
Sulien smiled. He lowered the scope a notch, aiming at Dorian’s leg and fired the rifle.
The swift shot was followed by Dorian’s gut wrenching scream, as his knee exploded beneath him. He collapsed to the ground, writhing and clutching his leg in utter pain.
Sulien exhaled slowly after the deed was done and passed it back to Rafe, like it was nothing more than a pen he’d casually borrowed.
“Fetch him.”
“Yes, Boss.”
Rafe quickly took a few men with him and headed out to carry out the order.
Grimm only looked at Sulien, incredulous, but didn’t bother to say anything. He straightened up, pocketing the gun at the back of his trousers. Somewhere along the line, he had given up trying to understand the man’s brand of cruelty.
When the noise finally died down, a chair was soon dragged across the concrete. Its legs screeched against the floor, before it was placed in the center of the carnage where the dead men laid. Sulien lowered himself into it, sitting down as though he was a king taking his rightful place. He held a lighter to his face, one Grimm must have found somewhere, and lit the butt of his cigar, quickly drawing in the sweet taste of smoke.
Around him, bodies sprawled in grotesque stillness, some of their limbs bent at impossible angles, some, lucky enough to have gotten a clean death. The damp air was already heavy with the scent of iron but these were nothing to the men who had always seen blood.
Dorian knelt at the center of the horizontally lined up bodies before Sulien, one leg ruined, and both hands still clutching at it in pain. Tears wore streaks through the grime that caked his face. His face distorted as he whimpered.
Sulien’s lips curved as he saw the sight. These kinds of things really did give him a different type of ecstasy.
Sulien chuckled. “You really are persistent, Dorian. I’ll give you that.”
Dorian glanced up at Sulien who was now sitting on a chair looking down at him like he was a lowly bug. His face twisted again as even more tears began to stream down. He quickly crawled towards Sulien, grabbing a hold of his feet before begging.
“B-b-boss,” Dorian’s voice broke in tears. “I-I can ex-plaaaiinn.”
Sulien scoffed and leaned forward slightly to meet the gaze of Dorian, ash falling to the ground between his shoes. “You already explained, remember? When you dangled like a pig in my cellar, you swore loyalty. You begged for a chance to repay your debt. And I, being merciful, agreed.”
Dorian sobbed, trembling.
“Half your debt was gone,” Sulien went on, his voice sounded deceivingly soothing. “All you had to do was keep your head down, suffer a little longer, and it would’ve been over. But you were stupid enough to pull this off. Come on, why didn’t you pick a pier farther from London?”
“P-please,” Dorian choked, forehead pressing against Suliens feet. “Please, Boss. I can still be useful. I can-”
Sulien laughed. The sound was sharp, ringing through the already darkening day. “Useful? Look at you.” He kicked Dorian away from himself, flinging him to the side. “Pathetic.” He said, his gaze sweeping over the broken man, the spreading pool of blood, and his quivering hands.
Around him, his men were silent. No one dared to utter a word. No one dared to move. No one dared to look away.
Grimm sighed shaking his head. For some reason, Sulien was in a good mood. If his boss had been in a bad mood, he was afraid Dorian would have already been on his last breath, dying in the most excruciating way possible.
Dorian clawed his way back through the blood, his ruined leg dragging behind him like dead weight. He grabbed hold of Sulien’s shoes again, smearing blood across the polished leather.
“B-b-boss, please, I didn’t mean to betray you! They-they found me. Hydra… they said if I didn’t cooperate, they’d put my head on a pike. I thought, I thought I could buy time, I thought I could warn you-”
At the name, Sulien’s brows ticked down to a frown. Those godforsaken group of clowns again. They’ve finally grown the balls to think they can waltz into his garden.
“Boss, they offered me money. Protection. I-I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. I thought I could use that money to pay you, have-”
Sulien let out a low chuckle that was almost pitying, cutting short the rest of the ridiculous excuses that flowed nonstop from Dorian’s mouth. “Did you forget just who they told you to turn your back on? Me? Protection, they said. Just how foolish can you be?” Sulien laughed now, his hand over his own face. “And yet here you are. Grovelling at my feet. Some protection they gave you.”
Sulien looked over at his men, the newbies were in cold sweat but they still dared not look away. He then sat back up, taking another drag of the smoke. “Still… perhaps you’ll be useful in another way.”
He signaled with his hand, and two of his men stepped forward, gripping Dorian by the arms.
“Give him to the new recruits,” Sulien said lazily. “Let them practice on him. Build morale. They’ll enjoy tearing you apart slowly.”
“Yes, boss.”
“No, no, boss, boss, please…..” Dorian begged but his voice was drowned by the roaring from some of the younger men who were eager and blood thirsty. Dorian screamed, thrashing around, but was dragged away like a rag doll. His screams trailed like a dying animal.
“Tie a sandbag and dump the rest in the sea, the cops will be here soon.” Sulien stood up from is chair and walked back towards his car, Grimm, as usual, staying a few feet behind him.
It had been too long since he felt that old rush, the primal thrill of life and death balanced on the tip of his finger. For a brief moment, he almost felt alive again.
Well, that was that for the night. There was no time to think of Hydra for now.
Sulien slid his hand into his pocket for his phone. It was time to tell Valeriya that the goods had been delivered. His men had secured them in a place no outsider would ever find, not even the nosiest student with a hobby of sniffing around a school campus.
But Sulien froned when his fingers closed on nothing. He checked the other pocket, nothing. He tapped around his body, searching the breast of his shirt, and even the back of the chair in the car. Still nothing.
His brows knit.
“Boss?” Grimm asked confused by his frantic searching.
Sulien’s expression immediately soured in realization. His hand stilled.
The memory of what happened returned to him like an unwelcome visitor. The coat he had draped over Snow’s shoulders on campus. The phone he had slipped inside that pocket even before he had stepped into the abandoned area. It all came rushing back.
Ahh….
Sulien chuckled to himself. Well, fuck.
The Author has Something to Say
Sulien: Baby, you have my number, my house address, and now my phone. What more could you possibly want from me?
XL: Your life.
Sulien: You want to be my wife?
Grimm (sighing): …He only hears what he wants.