Chapter 25

*I’m not a humanitarian, I’m a hell-raiser. ~ Mother Jones*

**| M A R C O |**

“You ready for this?” I asked, getting into the car with Aurora.

“I am.”

I turned to look at her, and what I saw wasn’t anger or displeasure. Her skin was flushed with wisdom and echoes of the war cry. There was hardly any trace of innocent girlhood left in her features.

She was a woman now. A woman born of tempest and fire, of the blood moon and howling wolves. With a soul like Persephone and splendor like Aphrodite, I knew that Aurora was destined for a queendom of dark power and unconquered lands.

Smirking, I floored the gas pedal, heading west where I had secured asshole. All this time, he received a royal treatment even though he was chained. He was fed, hydrated, and there wasn’t a single scar against his white skin. Until now. Until my beautiful dark goddess decides to teach him how to shriek and bawl.

We reached the place in fifteen and made our way into the house. Two of my men were already stationed inside the house while I had the other two roaming around in rotation.

“How’s he doing?” I asked as the man opened the door for us, and we stepped inside.

“He was asleep a while ago.”

“This should be fun,” I heard Aurora mutter from beside me.

“I want everyone out and nobody comes in until she says so,” I issued. “Clear?”

The three men nodded and left without a word. They knew Aurora’s authority meant something higher up in the chain of command, stemming either from me or Viktor, and it was absolute.

As she sauntered into the room where I had held Mason Jones, the man solely responsible for her childhood horror, I noticed that she was calm. She was so calm, it felt eerie.

“Rise and shine, asshole.” She kicked the chair that immediately jolted him awake.

He was chained exactly the way I left him—naked, gagged, and bound. He looked between us, puzzled, before zeroing in on her face.

“Five hundred bucks, if he recognizes me,” Aurora told me, grinning over her shoulders.

“He’s a sleazy, dumb fucker. I wouldn’t bet my money if I were you.”

“Let’s see.” Amused with herself, she marched closer and told him, “If I lose my five-hundred bucks, you are losing a body part. I haven’t decided which one though. So, if I were you, I would think very hard and very fast. Two chances.”

Boy, she was playing him like a frightened rabbit.

“Woah, that’s cheating,” I hollered from across the room as I sat my ass down on a sofa chair and unscrewed a bottle of beer. “You are giving him too much incentive now.”

“Well, I am making the rules today.” She winked back and took off his gag.

“Who the hell are you, bitch?” he wheezed like he was in pain. Too bad, it was nothing compared to...

“Shucks! Wrong answer.” Aurora’s fist smashed against his jaw as he shrieked and coughed up blood on the floor.

Grinning, I took a lazy swig from the bottle and tsked. “There goes your five hundred, baby.”

Aurora roughly fisted his hair, yanking up his head and held a blade to his cheek. “Here’s the thing, asshole: I don’t like your face. So, don’t give me an excuse to slice you up because—” she pressed the blade deeper…any deeper, there would be blood “—I would happily do it.”

“I don’t know…I don’t know!” he screamed like a maniac. “What the hell do you want? Let me go!”

She did let go of his hair for a moment and whispered, “Funny. I said the same thing that day. Let me go. But you didn’t, and which is why we are here today.”

He didn’t even register the words before Aurora slashed the blade against his cheek, then the fleshy part of his thighs, drawing out a blood-curling scream. Satisfied, she stuffed in the gag, came over to perch on the arm of my chair and took the bottle from my hand.

Instantly, I tugged her down to my lap and squeezed her ass over the fabric of her jeans. “You owe me five hundred and so much more.” I leered up at her. “But take your time, sweetheart, I am enjoying this foreplay as well.”

“Sadist,” she whispered and then bit on my earlobe before walking back towards. Fuck, she was so perfect that I wanted to bury my cock inside her.

By now, the man was a bloody mess. There was no scream left inside of him until Aurora punched his ribs repeatedly. She reached out for a paper tucked in her pocket, opened the folds and flashed before his droopy eyes. “Look at this, motherfucker. If this doesn’t refresh your stupid memory, I am going crack open your bloody skull,” she snarled into his face.

I didn’t know what was printed on the paper, but the slow recognition surfaced over his features. He finally realized why he was being brutalized.

“You…you…”

That was all he could manage before a series of punches followed. “Yes, me, you fucker.”

Aurora took a few steps back, admiring her handiwork until he finally found the strength to hiss through the pain. “You…you killed…my partner.”

“Yeah, I did.” She smiled wickedly. “So, you see, he is lucky that he is dead. But you—well, I have all the time in the world for you.”

“I am…I am a cop! You will not get away…Ah! Fuck!” Aurora dug the pointy end of her stiletto into his balls and twisted her ankle.

Note to self: never pick up a fight with her when she’s wearing those stilts. I really love my balls.

“Because you are a fucking cop, it will be so much fun to make an example of your death.”

“Then, go ahead…kill me,” he dared. He was really asking to die if you’d ask me. “They will make me a martyr.”

Aurora choked on a laugh. “When I said that I would make an example of your death, did you think in front of CPD or the people of Chicago? Who gives a fuck to them? I was talking about this guy.” She pointed at me. “Here’s the thing, Mason. I have dealt with thugs, smugglers, rats, and all other scumbags and had a gala time killing them. But a cop? Nope. That’s a first, and which is why I brought him here for the trial and error.”

His eyes dragged towards me as I tipped my bottle up before taking another swig.

“Now, about you being a martyr…” She paused to flash a devious smile. “Well, by the time I will be done with you, it would be a miracle if they could recognize your body or whatever left of it.”

“Fuck you, whore!”

He spat near her feet, missing an inch, and I was beginning to lose my patience. Top of it, Aurora was doing nothing to break him and calmly regarded him. So, I stormed over and broke the bottle on his head, watching the stream of blood flowing down.

“What happened to only watching?” She pouted.

“It’s getting boring than soap opera.” I snickered.

“Fine, fine.” Aurora rolled her eyes and reached into her bag to pull out the gloves and a tiny dark-glassed bottle. When did she stuff that in? In all fairness, I always taught her to be prepared for anything and everything.

Walking over, she squatted down on one knee, donning the pair of gloves as she spoke. “What is coming for you is only a trailer for the future.” She slowly uncapped the tiny bottle as I watched her out of curiosity. What the fuck was in it? “I can easily cut off your ugly dick and shove it into your mouth, but it wouldn’t be as fun.”

The asshole squinted his eyes for a second before Aurora poured the liquid over his crouch.

“AH! FUCK! FUCK!”

Talking about torture… He screamed and writhed as the elixir melted the skin of his crotch, emitting a nasty smell and soft smoke. It was then I realized what it was.

Acid.

What. The. Fuck.

So far, the wickedest I got was electrocuting someone’s dick, but it seemed like she was out to break all my records. But, chemical burn? That shit was just plain cruel. And this pedophile and rapist got it all he deserved.

Aurora yanked up his head by his hair. “You shouldn’t have dragged me out of my cell that night. You shouldn’t have ripped off my clothes.” With each sentence, the octave of her voice dropped, although the severity only went higher. “You shouldn’t have tried to rape me. And this is just the beginning of your miserable existence.”

The man had no fight or scream left in him. He closed his eyes and panted, probably praying for his dead—only he wouldn’t die so soon.

When Aurora turned around to leave, I saw it in her eyes—the look of blood and death. And for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off hers. Goddamn it! She was all vice and beauty wrapped in one.

We met the three guards on our way out who were supposed to get back on vigilance until Aurora decides to finish the fucker off for good.

“I will send someone in to make sure he does not die. But do not leave the room,” I ordered.

Aurora passed them a needle and a tiny medicinal bottle. “Inject him exactly an hour from now. This will make sure he doesn’t die…for now.”

They nodded and took it from her, but not before eyeing her with awe and a little bit of lust. On a couple of occasions, they have seen her done some things even men would think and tremble. But she has done with such ease, it made her nothing less than desirable.

Men loved sexy women, and it was a universal truth. But men loved nothing more than the sexy women that they could never have. And Aurora was off-limits for every damn man in the fucking universe because she was mine. But that doesn’t mean that men didn’t secretly lust for her.

I couldn’t completely blame the pricks actually. How many sexy as sin women have they seen in their lifetime who shoots and torture people in an outfit that defines every curve and crevice of her body?

To think of what I made of her, the beast out of a woman was a soul-stirring knowledge I bear in my heart.

VIKTOR

“You should fucking have seen her, Viktor, she was bloody and lethal,” Marco gloated, no salivated, as he described Aurora dealing with her tormentor. It was like a fucking trip to Disneyland.

“You should know better,” I said drily, working on my iPad. “You must have taught her that.”

“That’s the thing!” he shrieked in excitement again, spiking my headache. “I didn’t teach her that. She herself came up with the chemical burn concept.”

I noted his enthusiasm as out of character. Marco never got excited about anything. He was as deadpanned as it got, but around Aurora…he was different. So much different, it was starting to bother me.

“Then she must have Googled it. Anyway, make sure she wraps it up fast. The last thing I want is someone to discover her identity for killing a cop. Two cops, actually.”

Marco snorted, pouring himself a drink. “I have done some things way worse than killing cops.”

Sure, he did. Then it made me wonder why he hadn’t killed the man who tried to rape Aurora. Marco was, like all of us, irrational to rage. If he was pissed about something, he would simply bring hell to it. Was he trying to be sensitive to Aurora?

Most importantly, was he capable of being sensitive to Aurora?

“Why didn’t you kill him?” I needled.

“It wasn’t my call.”

“But you did pluck him off the streets,” I reminded. “Why not finish off the job and move on?”

Marco paused for a long moment before shaking his head. “Viktor, I have been a brother to you more than the two sorry-asses who share the last name as yours, and for that reason, you have to stop playing these games. It was cute and fun when it started, but eventually, we are going to beat the shit out of each other if you keep this up. So ask me what you want, instead of beating around the bush.”

So be it then. “Are you really serious about her?”

“What if I am?”

“It’s too early, don’t you think? She is young and you are not ready,” I told him truthfully because there was no another way of saying it.

“Maybe…just maybe, you are right. But I would rather be with her than be ready with someone else and without her.”

I nodded slowly. “If that’s your call.”

I guess there was nothing more left to discuss, except for one last thing. “How did you know she is…special?”

Marco smiled, more of himself. “I don’t know. But when I had to leave for Kansas for a couple of weeks, it was the first time I was without Aurora, and I realized that I never want to be without her. When she came to pick me up from the airport, all I had wanted was to hug her close and never let her go.”

I smirked. “Greedy bastard.”

*Fuck*. Despite every odd in my head, I hoped of God they’d stick together because, without each other, both of them would be a total train wreck, and I would have to clean the mess.

XXX

**Who else finds Viktor cute when he is match-making? Especially, given his record and reputation…**